Archival & Preservation

Preservation strategy for shoots finished in South Korea follows the protocols set by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA), the country's regulatory body for moving-image preservation. It also reflects the wider global standard of LTO-8 tape and LTFS-managed offline storage. Our archive workflow starts by creating preservation masters in mezzanine codecs. For theatrical features we use ProRes 4444 XQ or DPX sequences, and for series we use lossless or visually-lossless intermediate codecs. Each master ships with full metadata sidecars. These cover project identifiers, shoot dates, location codes, talent releases, and rights logs. We checksum every master at creation and recheck it at each later handover, so silent corruption is caught before it turns into permanent loss.

Tapes are written in duplicate. One copy stays in a climate-controlled vault, and a second copy sits at a far-off site to guard against fire, flood, or quakes at either place. We track format aging all the time, watching the LTO roadmap, codec end-of-life timelines, and shifts in colour-space standards. Migration is scheduled early, before any preservation master risks becoming unreadable. For shoots that need to stay searchable rather than just archived, we add a media asset management system on top of the tape backbone. That way directors, producers, and rights-holders can find specific shots, episodes, or campaign elements years after wrap without restoring a whole library.

We archive far more than the final cut. A long-running Korean drama or a Hallyu film generates camera RAW, VFX project files, graded masters, audio stems, and graphics packages across many vendors. We gather these from post houses around the Digital Media City (DMC) hub and the Paju Studio Cube clusters into one consistent archive structure. Each element is named and foldered to a fixed scheme, so a future team can rebuild any version. This matters most for hit titles that earn re-releases, sequels, or new platform deals long after the original wrap.

Streaming licences shape what we keep and how we keep it. When a series sits on Netflix, Disney+, or Coupang Play, the IMF package, the texted and textless masters, and every language and audio variant must stay recoverable for the full licence term. We archive each delivered version alongside its compliance report and metadata. If a platform asks for a re-delivery or a new territory version, we restore the exact source rather than re-mastering from scratch. That saves both time and budget across the life of the title.

Korean productions carry real rights and compliance weight, so our metadata does more than describe the picture. We log talent releases, music cue sheets, location permits, and any clearances tied to landmarks like the Gyeongbokgung palace or Bukchon Hanok Village. Rights windows and territory limits are recorded against each asset. When a broadcaster or distributor needs to confirm a clearance years later, the answer sits in the catalogue, not in a producer's old inbox. This protects the production from disputes and eases future licensing.

Restoration is built into the plan from day one, not bolted on later. We run scheduled integrity checks, refresh tapes on a fixed cycle, and keep a documented restore path for every format we hold. A test restore confirms that masters still play back exactly as written, with no silent loss. When the LTO roadmap or a codec timeline signals a change, we migrate ahead of the risk. The result is a Korean production archive that stays both safe and genuinely usable for decades, ready for the next screen or release window.