Learn about the restoration process of audio, video, and photographs over the years
View the restoration process of photographs.
View the restoration process of video.
Digitizing The Dharma
To preserve the dharma and to make it available, digital records are essential. We have digitized almost 3,000 audio files of talks by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Our target is to complete the digitization of the Vidyadhara’s video in our collection. This totals 235 tapes that vary in length from twenty minutes to two hours each. The material includes a Shambhala Training Level Five program from Boulder, 1980, which requires restoration work as well as transfer; Videos of the only Chakrasamvara Abhisheka conducted by the Vidyadhara, including his tri; early Vajrayogini fiire pujas attended by the Vidyadhara and a number of the early black and white seminars from Naropa, Shambhala Mountain Center and other locations.
Technical Document for Storage: Sound and Video
By Carolyn Gimian (1995) – “A Low Cost, Low Humidity Vault for the Storage of Sound and Moving Image Documents”
This paper was first presented at the 1995 Annual Conference of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, held in Toronto, Ontario. The paper was presented as part of a panel on Economical Environmental Control, chaired by Jim Wheeler.
Read the paper
Digital Audio
Since the mid-2000s centers have been recording to various digital audio formats such as .aiff, .wav, .au, or other lossless audio file formats in full resolution, this is the standard specified through the Shambhala International Policy for documenting dharma talks. After each teaching program a set of files goes to the Shambhala Archives, where they are backed up to a server for storage and further access. These procedures for documenting teachings in audio and video formats, and stewarding them in digital formats are on-going through the combined work of Kalapa Recordings , Centre East Productions and the Shambhala Archives.
Audio Recovery Project
Principal among our preservation projects in the Archives was the Audio Recovery Program.
Audio Recovery Project Implementation
By Chris Levy and Mark Keller (November 2000)
Audio Recovery project focuses on the digitization of existing analog audio reels and audio cassettes, as well as backup to analog reels.
Read the paper
In 2006, the ARP project began the initial migration to digital formats of the analog audio holdings of Trungpa Rinpoche in the Archives. Over the years, project protocols have included digitizing and recording to audio CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and to hard drives. This included the use of a Sony PCM digital audiotape recorder to digitize and record to VHS videotapes; migrating to new analog reels and type IV metal cassette tapes; digitizing and recording to audio CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and to hard drives, configured in a redundant array of inexpensive discs (RAID), which provide two terabytes of storage on a computer server.
A major outcome of the ARP was replication of 25 sets of VCTR audio CDs, which were distributed to supporting Shambhala urban and Land centres. The result is that the oral teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche can be found in multiple locations, being of great benefit to students, and accomplishing redundancy as a preservation principle.
Read more about the Audio Recovery Project here – written by Cynthia L. Cochran, May 1, 2006
Download the Audio Recovery Implementation Plan (downloads a .pdf file) – technical specifcations of the project
Audio Recovery Project Honoured with Award
On June 11, 2010 the Shambhala Archives received the Carman V. Carroll Award for Outstanding Achievement in Archival Preservation from the Council of Nova Scotia Archives. The goal of the award is to foster an appreciation of preservation and recognize its place as a vital component within the ongoing daily operations of an archives.
The Shambhala Archives received the award for the Audio Recovery Project to preserve and digitize the audio recordings of the Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The Archives is honoured to have received this award. Gordon Kidd, the Technical Director of the Archives, and Carolyn Gimian, Director Emeritus and Past President of the Council of Nova Scotia Archives, represented the Shambhala Archives at the awards ceremony.
We are working on our video digitization and restoration project, a long term project that has been taking place over a number of years. We have made considerable progress on that path and are close to finishing this project.
View the Path of Restoration videos, above, to learn about the steps to digitize and restore old videos. And you will see glimpses of our Buddhist teachers.
Video Recovery Project
By James Hoagland, Peter Hull, and Carolyn Gimian (1995)
This paper investigates new methods in the conservation and transfer of 1/2 inch Black-and-White open reel video tapes. It was written in 1995 in connection with the Shambhala Archives Video Revovery Project, during which over two hundred video tapes. In the early 1980s, the Naropa Institute was about to discard the apparently useless, unplayable 1/2 in open reel videos in its possession, which numbered approximately 250. The majority of these tapes were recorded in the 1970s at Naropa Institute, in Boulder, Colorado, with the help of a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. Others were recorded and donated by several of Chögyam Trungpa’s students. The tapes were all recorded on the exceedingly fragile black and white 1/2 inch open reel video format, and had been stored in less than ideal conditions; as such, they were prime candidates for rehabilitation.
Read the paper
Digital Migration of Early Video Formats
As video technology has moved on to digital formats, the need to migrate all early analog video to digital video is critical.
The further migration of the Archives’ video collection began with equipment being funded by the Shambhala Trust in the early 2000s. Playback/capture of the VRP videos into DV25 video format files enabled the Archives’ staff to begin migration of the entire analog video collection into industry recognized digital file storage and then publishing in DVD format. Today these files are also beginning to make their way to the online library of Shambhala Online.
All of these digital files, (audio and video), are stored on RAIDs (bundled hard-drive servers), a storage protocol of choice for audio-visual collections. Our continued digital migration activity necessitates the need to acquire more RAID servers. “RAID” is an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that can divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives. Once data is on a RAID, security is assured as it can repair itself by rebuilding a failed drive from the data on the other drives. The platform we are using is very stable, industrial strength equipment, consistent with our practice of using professional grade technology in all of our preservation and production work.
Of these digitized tapes, editing, remastering and DVD authoring have made access possible for the Shambhala sangha and the general public (where applicable). As well, once digitized, the cost for future preservation migrations will be significantly lessened.
Capturing and Storing Digital Video
Since the mid-2000s an increasing number of recordings have been made with digital recording technology. Since 2009, all audio visual field acquisition has been “born digital”, that is, coming to us in digital formats from inception.
Shambhala Media now provides a camera kit for all for teaching events; to ensure a high quality video record is made of all of his teachings. These files are stored on our RAID (see explanation of RAID storage systems, above) and backed up on at least one other server to ensure protection of the data.
Centre East has played a significant and complementary role in stewarding digital assets over this time.
Photograph Recovery and Storage
The Shambhala Archives has over 50,000 photographs of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and other great dharma teachers, as well as photographic records of community history such as the renovations of the Boulder and Halifax Centres, the establishment of the original Maitri Farm, Karme Choling (ToT), Shambhala Mountain Centre (RMDC) and Dechen Choling, the students of Vidya and Alaya schools, and many more.
The majority of the photographs in the Archives relate to the life and teachings of the founder of Shambhala, the Vidyadhara the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The original Information Office of Vajradhatu had around 20,000 photographs that relate to Trungpa Rinpoche’s activities. These were transferred to the Archives after his death in 1987. The Vidyadhara’ family has donated many family photos as well as his personal photos to the Archives. In addition, several photographers have donated large collections of material related to the life and teachings of the Vidyadhara.
The majority of the photographs were taken between 1963 and 1988, in the analogue universe of negatives, prints, and transparencies. A small number of these have been converted to digital images. We are in the process of converting several thousand images to digital files, in order to provide on-line access to parts of our collection.
Over 70% of these have been digitized and entered into our Museum database in the past few years, with the help of staff and students. There is so much more to do, with many new photos arriving to document more recent events.
We are grateful to all the photographers and welcome the donation and/or bequest of personal and professional collections.