Infax
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The BBC Programme Catalogue is an
online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...
archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
of the entire
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
back
catalog Catalog or catalogue may refer to: *Cataloging **'emmy on the 'og **in science and technology ***Library catalog, a catalog of books and other media ****Union catalog, a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries ...
ue of TV and radio programmes. The catalogue is for internal use by the BBC although for a time a beta online version was available to the public. The catalogue is not "a complete record of every BBC programme" since certain categories of programme were not catalogued or no longer exist. The catalogue does not include entries for programmes where no copies of the programme are known to still exist. Nor does it include entries for
sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...
because the BBC does not necessarily own the rights. However every individual news item is separately catalogued since these had a high re-use value (e.g. use of archive footage of historical
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...
items within present-day news programmes or
documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
).


History


Internal


Infax

Infax was the BBC's programme database, containing 966,244 BBC programmes dating back to 1938; however, this is not every programme ever broadcast. Since 1992, Infax has only been used as a stock control system. Infax catalogued all TV and selected radio until 2008, but was only used to catalogue news up until 1994. The Star catalogue was used to catalogue news from 1994 to 2008. In 2004, the Sports Library database took over cataloguing sport until 2008 when sport was taken over by the Digital Library database. It was reported that Infax was due to be switched off in March 2014, but due to technical issues with Fabric, it remains operational at a cost of £780,000 a year to maintain.


Strix/Cinegy

From 1992, the BBC Northern Ireland Archive used Strix to catalogue factual, sport, current affairs, entertainment programmes and news output until March 2009. As of April 2009, all news was catalogued and stored using the Cinegy database. The Cinegy database allows for video material to be viewed on a BBC desktop computer.


Fabric

In 2012, a new programme archive database was introduced to replace Infax at a cost of £3m a year. In 2013, Fabric failed a number of times and the BBC has identified key limitations with the database. Again in 2014, the BBC's internal ''
Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', 1989 and 1991 anime video series based on the novel series ...
'' newspaper reported that Fabric has had a series of fixes, but the feedback was mixed, and Infax will continue to operate. In an interview for ''Ariel'', Maggie Lydon (Head of Media Management) insists that only 'a very small amount' of information has not been transferred from Infax to Fabric.


Public


Infax

A web version of this database was made available to access to the public in April 2006. It ceased operation in December 2007. The front page of the website is still available to see via the
Internet Archive
After it ceased, a message on the website said that it would be incorporating the information into individual programme pages. However, in 2009, an email reply from the BBC showed that the reason for its removal was due to a data protection concern. Infax was also incorporated into the BBC Motion Gallery website (now
Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...
). In mid 2014, a data protection issue was flagged and public access was disabled. , a version of the BBC programme catalogue is available to view exclusively in
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
in the St Pancras ( London) and Boston Spa ( Yorkshire) reading rooms. 2.2 million searchable catalogue records and 225,000 programmes up to June 2012 are available to view.


Genome Project

BBC Genome Project is a digitised online searchable database of back issues of the ''
Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' from 1923 to 2009. The information in the database will be linked up with the video and audio files that the BBC have archived, and from this the BBC will be able to work out what is still missing from the archive. TV listings post-2009 can be accessed via th
BBC Programmes site


BBC Programme Index

This database contains the BBC's TV and Radio listings from 1923 to the present day. The data is taken from two sources: information from
BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers and smart televisions. iPlayer services del ...
and
BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is a Closed platform, walled garden streaming media and audio download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile pho ...
pages (referred to as “Programme Information Platform or PIP's”) and data from BBC Genome. There are millions of listings on the BBC's Programme Index. Some will link through to programmes you can watch and listen but most of the listings remain text-only. Listings at the very least a programme title, broadcast channel and transmission time, but some listings also contain programme summary and contributor details.


See also

* BBC Archives * BBC Genome Project *
BBC Programme Identifier A BBC Programme Identifier (PID) is an alphanumeric, persistent, unique identifier for a television or radio programme brand, a season or series, or an individual episode, used by the BBC in their web URLs, iPlayer viewers, and internal databases. ...


References


External links

*
About the catalogue
{{BBC BBC New Media Television websites Radio websites Online archives of the United Kingdom