NHK and World Heritage

Naoko Sakamoto, International Public Relations, NHK

NHK seeks to preserve World Heritage by using digital technology.

UNESCO and NHK are partners in a project to record all World Heritage properties using NHK’s digital Hi-Vision (HDTV) format in order to preserve them for future generations. With the signing of the agreement on 27 August 2004 by UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura and NHK President Katsuji Ebisawa is the hope of NHK’s President Ebisawa that the Heritage Images Archives Initiative co-project will “promote mutual understanding among different cultures, and help raise people’s awareness of the environment and the importance of peace.”

Under the agreement, NHK will record and archive all world heritage properties, produce TV programmes, and provide part of the footage for use on UNESCO’s Heritage website. In the long term the co-project will provide archives of Heritage footage, disseminate relevant information to academics and the public throughout the world.

Goals

The Heritage Images Archives Initiative will be a new form of intelligence database that fully utilizes the latest digital technology. 

While conventional libraries or museums are limited in terms of accessibility and storage space, digital data can be stored and preserved without degradation and without requiring much space. Significant advancement of digital technologies, such as digital HD recording, image-processing ability, storage capacity, as well as rapid expansion of global information networks, will contribute to opening up the infinite possibilities of digital archives.

Individual projects

Via this co-project, a certain number of individual projects will also be conducted within its framework. The first project will concern the coproduction of a digital Hi-Vision TV documentary series on World Heritage sites. Approximately 100 episodes of this 5-minute documentary series are to be produced and will be completed early 2005 but with a view to continuing with a second and third series. The first documentary series will start airing in November 2004 on NHK’s digital Hi-Vision channel, BS-hi.

Other projects for the promotion, documentation and archiving of World Heritage sites are also in the pipeline, for example, special Hi-Vision programmes concerning specific sites, along with other event-related individual projects. 

Restoration

World Heritage sites that have been destroyed will be restored by using NHK’s digital Hi-Vision technology and old documents to create computer graphics.

An example of this are the world-renown Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, which were largely destroyed by the Taliban. Not only is Hi-Vision technology and digital data-processing skills reconstructing the monuments but NHK is currently making a programme using CG technology to recreate people’s lives and the glorious prosperity of Bamiyan in the seventh century. The completed programme will eventually be presented worldwide through the new Archives.

Sky shots

NHK has also been shooting world heritage sites from an airship using a Hi-Vision camera. Unlike helicopters and airplanes, an airship provides extremely stable shooting conditions which will produce beautiful arial shots that will appeal to the viewers. Since the airship took off from Germany in June, it has already filmed 31 world heritage sites, including the Palace and Park of Versailles, and Cologne Cathedral.

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Information 

NHK International Public Relations
Naoko SAKAMOTO 
Tel.: +81-3-5455-2459 
Fax: +81-3-3469-8110
E-mail: sakamoto.n-eg@nhk.or.jp

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