Python is often referred to as the “swiss army knife” of computer programming languages, capable of meeting the needs of nearly any task with its characteristic ease-of-use, simplicity, and efficiency. In this half-day workshop, participants will be introduced to all the ways Python can have a transformative effect on media digitization workflows.
Designed for archivists working with media collections of any size, this will be a practical and skills-oriented effort, combining a thorough grounding in Python basics with an introduction to a number of tools that allow for the manipulation and analysis of media files. Specific modules/libraries/tools will include: the os, glob, re, subprocess, shutil, csv and json modules; FFmpeg; pymediainfo/MediaConch; pandas; matplotlib; and seaborn.
Prerequisites
Workshop participants must bring their own laptops to the workshop. Laptops should have at least 4GB of RAM, 10GB of available drive space, and Windows 8+ or MacOS 10.10+
Familiarity with the following programming concepts is helpful:
- Variables
- for loops
- if/then statements
Familiarity with the following AV file concepts is recommended:
- container formats
- codec
- transcoding
- technical metadata