Archival in ACES

One usually forgotten aspects of ACES framework is that the openness of its whole documentation, and the continual efforts to future-proof it by design, make the colour-space and file-format parts of it ideal as a standard for long-term archival of video heritage.

The ACES colour space SMPTE 2065-4, other than being an SMPTE Standard, is wide-enough to represent color stimuli, and stimuli differences as well, as perceived by human eye. And it is scene-referred, thus meant to represent the colorimetry of a science rather than what might be the outcome of a more-or-less current display technology. Adding 16-bit encoding in uncompressed frame sequences is ideal for future-proofing the content.

A similar standard is the DCDM colouirimetry, which is still ideal for short- and long-term storage of theatrical masters (because it is display-referred), where interpretation for a particular visualization device (the DCI reference projector) is set.

More and more content owners are realizing the importance to future-proof the archived digital footage. Including the ability to reverse-interpret the encoding colourimetry.