MediaConch

Media Conch is a implementation checker, policy checker and fixer for audiovisual files with focus on Matroska, LPCM and FFV1.
Homepage:	https://mediaarea.net/MediaConch/ GitHub Repository
License:	GNU General Public License 3.0 (GPLv3 or later), Mozilla Public License (MPLv2 or later).
Platforms:	Windows 7 or later, MAC OS 10.5 or later, Linux/Unix, Web Application

Description

From the MediaConch website:

"MediaConch is an extensible, open source software project consisting of an implementation checker, policy checker, reporter, and fixer that targets preservation-level audiovisual files (specifically Matroska, Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM) and FF Video Codec 1 (FFV1)) for use in memory institutions, providing detailed and batch-level conformance checking via an adaptable and flexible application program interface accessible by the command line, a graphical user interface, or a web-based shell."

MediaConch is available as a GUI (graphical user interface), CLI (command line interface) or WebUI (web platform). A web-based demo of the tool can be found here. MediaConch is written in C++ and, for the web platform, PHP.

MediaConch can be used to create policies for any kind of media format, and is not limited to MKV/FFV1/LPCM.

MediaConch is part of a larger initiative called the PREFORMA Project, co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme. The project’s main aim is to address the challenge of implementing standardised file formats for preserving digital objects in the long term, giving memory institutions full control over the acceptance and management of preservation files into digital repositories. Through this program, MediaConch also uses two sister-tools for conformance checking: veraPDF for PDF validation and DPF Manager for TIFF validation.

User Experiences

• Nine interviews were conducted with eleven people on their use cases and workflows involving MediaConch, available here on the MediaArea blog.
• Public shared MediaConch policies
• Artefactual's Archivematica software workflow for MediaConch available here.
• A webinar explaining the Archivematica integration
• Video: MediaConch: Conformance checking for audiovisual files

• Daniel:
  • MediaConch runs fast and the output of the implementation and policy checker is not extensive but consists of useful information.
  • The tool for creating own policies provides a lot of options and cases but the usage of this tool is complex and presupposed detailed knowledge of the different file formats.
  • The documentation for build MediaConch from source code under Windows is more than bad, because documentation it simply indicates to use Visual Studio.

Development Activity

MediaConch is produced and maintained by MediaArea, and they fix bugs and manage the longevity of the open source software. They are also available for feature development and integration/consulting work.

All development activity is visible on GitHub: http://github.com/MediaArea/MediaConch/commits Latest snapshots are available here: https://mediaarea.net/MediaConch/Download/Snapshots