“BBC Motion Gallery fully embraces the digital future,” says Michael Albright. “It’s essential for our content to be as accessible as today’s state-of-the-art technology allows, so nothing gets between people and their ideas.”

“We live in a content-hungry world,” says BBC Motion Gallery creative director Michael Albright. “BBC customers crave footage that can tell a story or express a metaphor. But that alone isn’t enough. They want the ability to look at large previews in gorgeous resolution on their Macs and integrate them right into their digital workflow.” To quench that thirst for motion imagery, BBC Motion Gallery is enriching its website with stunning QuickTime clips of footage ranging from vintage airplanes to vampire bats.

“We revolutionized TV programming,” says Albright. “And now we want to revolutionize the way customers use our remarkable content — through advances like QuickTime previews on our website.”

BBC Motion Gallery has posted tens of thousands of clips in QuickTime 6.5, and it’s continually adding more from its remaining 600,000 hours of footage. These will also soon be available in QuickTime 7 for Mac and Windows. Advanced capabilities in Mac OS X Tiger will make the footage fully searchable using the lightning-fast Spotlight feature.

“We revolutionized TV programming. And now we want to revolutionize the way customers use our remarkable content, through advances like QuickTime previews on our website.”

“BBC Motion Gallery fully embraces the digital future,” says Albright. “It’s essential for our content to be as accessible as today’s state-of-the-art technology allows, so nothing gets between people and their ideas.”

It’s a QuickTime World

Albright understands how important visual quality is to the people who use BBC images. “They need to know what a shot really looks like,” he says. “The more resolution you can give them, and the bigger and better-quality the previews are, the more they have the information they need to make a decision. Minor details, even a strand of hair on a person’s head, can make a big difference when you’re considering a shot — and now we’re able to eliminate the guesswork.

“QuickTime 7 and the new H.264 standard make all the difference,” he continues. “Our users will get almost full-screen previews — we believe they’re the biggest in the industry — and really fast downloads.” Movie studios including Disney, DreamWorks and Sony Pictures and agencies such as Leo Burnett, Goodby Silverstein and TWBA/Chiat/Day rely on BBC Motion Gallery for the high-end clips that boost the impact of their film and commercial projects.

“Creative people have been wanting bigger previews for a long time,” adds Albright. “Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough bandwidth to offer them. But QuickTime is so efficient, we can deliver huge, pristine previews at amazingly low data rates. Even though the files are small, the results are eye-opening — and it’s all about the resolution.”

A Gold Mine

It’s not just that the BBC’s rich library of images has a breadth and depth of content that make it what Albright calls “one of the world’s great living treasures.” The collection also bears the signature look of the British network’s top-flight cinematographers and editors. “Because the material was shot for BBC programs, it doesn’t have the staged look of stock footage,” says Albright. “And a lot of the subject matter is unique to the BBC — it’s stuff you would never go out and commission for stock.”

The total collection comprises more than 4 million shots captured by BBC cinematographers around the world. It represents the historical archive of more than 70 years of BBC programs up to today — shows that have made the British network synonymous with quality television.

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