Gencom expands archive solutions with NOARecord Pico

Although best known for our work in Broadcasting and Media Production, for many years we have also been involved in media migration and archiving - supplying and installing archival film scanners & cleaners, post production systems, and reference monitoring tools to archives and service bureaus throughout Oceania and around the world. Our latest addition to our list of partners in this area is NOA Archive, an Austrian company that has long been known for designing, building and supporting scale-out solutions for audio and video digitisation at scale. Their latest product, NOARecord Pico, takes key aspects of their technology stack and condenses them into a standalone solution designed to allow one operator to efficiently digitise up to four audio transports at once. Many of the key features at launch are geared toward 1/4” and 1/2” open-reel audio tape, but the system is suitable for a wide range of transports including grooved media and digital formats such as DAT and MiniDisc. 

Key features of the system include Dante digital audio output; AzimuthGuide to assist operators in optimising azimuth adjustment when no tones are available; and BitProof technology to verify that the data recorded to disk matches what was captured at the Analog-to-Digital converter. This last feature is particularly important in an era where built-in OS and hardware optimisations can lead to glitches in recorded audio that may not be otherwise detected. The whole system is designed from an archivist’s perspective, with appropriate metadata handling and workflow tools to automate and streamline the ingest process.

Gencom acquired a demo system several months ago, and in August it made its debut in Canberra where we demonstrated it to the archive organisations there and gave them an opportunity to spend some hands-on time with it. We’d like to give a special thanks to the NFSA, who were kind enough to host us at their facility and open their doors to other organisations to come and spend time with it. 

The unit is currently in Sydney where it is being evaluated by several customers. Soon we will be getting it back over to New Zealand so we can introduce it to our customers here. If you’d like us to bring it you or your facility, please get in touch.