If film sequences are missing from a movie, then ...

Modern feature films and TV series are recorded digitally. A few minutes of film footage can require days or weeks of work. This can be quickly destroyed by a system error or a mistake. Radio broadcasts, film recordings, and series are already visible through 5 characters.

If you still believe that films are still being shot on conventional film stock in Europe or the USA, you are mistaken. Professional camera crews from small TV stations are just as digital as some large film studios. But they all have one thing in common: the risk of data loss can cause significant financial damage. Therefore, a team equipped with specialized equipment from ACATO supports journalists and production companies in managing system failures.

As a result, several broadcasts are annually prevented from losing exclusive film sequences. The footage to be saved is brought from all over Germany and Europe to the laboratory of ACATO GmbH. Many popular shows have already been confidentially and responsibly rescued for their media clients. Some European TV stations are on the direct or indirect client list of the laboratory.

The popular series generate such massive volumes that even the rescue of films and series from extremely large data storage systems (e.g., 150 TB large storage systems) is carried out by ACATO's RAID data recovery. Systems with 16 or more hard drives can be restored promptly for production companies.

This makes the work of data rescuers exciting, because not only does technology constantly change, but so do the possibilities of helping such specialized clients to increase data security. Already, renowned insurance companies have commissioned ACATO GmbH's data recovery laboratory to recover data for their insured clients. Professional photographers, graphic designers, stars, filmmakers, and other media professionals entrust the company with their valuable storage media, learning how a long-term oriented corporate culture also helps protect their existence.

ACATO GmbH is a family business and follows the values of its managing partners. They see holistic support for business clients and aim to offer them more than just a short-term solution. Therefore, sustainable growth is the company's goal, rather than chasing short-term trends.

For this reason, the laboratory keeps very specialized systems that can also recover data from failed systems (e.g., SxS, Zip, jaz, SCSI, SAS, PATA) in emergencies. The increasing trend toward XQD media will also continue to advance technology in the film industry.

The particular challenge for production companies will be storing the individual components of a film, because it may later be necessary to reassemble films for export. Raw data is usually stored on RAID network systems with over 64 or more hard drives. But what about older films that were originally recorded on film reels? These also need to be digitized and stored.

Reselling such old films for domestic use is a lucrative additional income for license holders. The constantly changing media lead to a continuous need to rework digitized films for serial production. This involves converting recordings from VHS to DVD, Blu-ray, and then to ... These production formats are stored digitally over several years until the trade has exhausted its stock.

If the central data storage of a film company fails, a permanent loss of digital documents can pose significant insurance risks. For professional photographers, there are special insurances that finance rescue efforts in the lab of ACATO through cost coverage in emergencies. For film companies, large providers like AXA typically cushion such potential failures.

Data recovery can succeed if companies do not attempt too many repairs beforehand. This is of great importance in daily practice, as backups are often incomplete or cannot be restored from tape. It becomes clear that a backup does not provide 100% security, and other areas of the company should not be neglected.

Radio broadcasts, film recordings, and TV series come from far away for miraculous recovery in ACATO's data recovery lab. In many cases, help can be provided, but total failures also occur, which can be traced back to previous activities within the affected company. There are enough people who open a defective hard drive without a cleanroom to inspect the damage. This contaminates the magnetic disks and possibly even intact read/write heads.

Therefore, it pays to arrange good insurance coverage in time, which can definitely reinsure such costly data recoveries. Then you don't have to come up with absurd ideas to make your storage media completely unusable through false cost-cutting measures.

ACATO GmbH offers its own products and services for the industries of audit, compliance, and forensics. It has its own cleanroom and flash laboratory (known from Galileo TV broadcasts in 2012/2013). Therefore, authorities (customs, military) and international auditors also commission the company to secure evidence from damaged storage media.