Digital Jukebox to Save Welsh History

This article comes from Highwaygames.com

Sound Leisure has supplied three jukeboxes to the National Library of Wales in an innovative project aimed to promote and protect Welsh history. One of the machines, a custom-built Digital Starlite, displays footage from the library's vast array of archived video, some of which is amongst the oldest original film in existence. Historians at the Library approached Sound Leisure to undertake the lottery-funded project to ensure digital copies of archive remain available to the public and educational establishments long after the originals become too fragile to play.

The Digital Starlite is based on Sound Leisure's VVS technology (Versatile Video System) and allows visitors and staff at the library to search through categories of clips displayed on a dual language Welsh/English interface and play them back through numerous plasma screens in the ‘Video Library'.

Chris Black, Sound Leisure's joint Managing Director said, "We were thrilled to be able to help The National Library of Wales in this prestigious project. Visitors to the library can now see footage of defining events and characters from Welsh history, thanks to the most advanced video jukebox software available. Everyone agrees it's simple, fun to use and far more eye catching than a non-descript information kiosk! It's one of a number of contracts we've undertaken in the past 24 months outside the realms of our usual business, having been approached by a wide range of organisations impressed with the versatility and potential of our VVS jukebox technology."

Dafydd Evans, technical officer at The National Library of Wales said, "The jukeboxes attract a lot of attention and we have already changed the content several times in order to make it relevant to current exhibitions. People seem to enjoy using them and are particularly drawn to the plasma screens."