INPT (INgest and Processing Toolkit) is a bash scripted command line tool for automating the processing workflow for time-based media at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (HMSG). Prior to developing INPT, we were running these tools manually, one at a time. Some of the steps in the workflow are quick, like running MediaInfo on a video file, but others, like using FFmpeg to create a frame-level MD5 manifest, can be quite time consuming and tedious. With INPT, the conservator can select which files they wish to process, which tools they wish to use, and then let the process run unsupervised end-to-end.

For the past five years I’ve had the opportunity to learn coding on the job. I never really planned for that. I never had any intention of becoming a “software developer,” but here I am developing software. Still, I’ve only had a little formal training, it’s all been very trial and error. The feeling of “I have no idea what I’m doing” has kind of typified the journey. This is the first of my multi-part blog series describing that journey and what I’ve learned (and created) along the way.

In the summer of 2021, my friend and colleague Caroline Gil & I taught a two-day workshop on disk imaging for the media archiving team at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The workshop focused on the process of disk imaging physical media: the hardware and software involved, quality assurance procedures for disk images, and, of course, use cases for disk images in a museum collection.

We got our first set of dpx files at the Hirshhorn back in December. I was really excited about developing a workflow for processing the files, especially in light of the development of Media Area’s new RAWcooked tool. Sure it was a lot of data, but I was ready. How bad could it be? And so began a two month process full of frustration and disappointment.