Seagate Helps Preserve a Centuries-Old Chinese Art Form

Members of the Beijing Opera Theatre use several FreeAgent drives to store and share video while travelling.

Seagate is helping preserve an important part of China`s cultural heritage. The Beijing Opera Theatre is using Seagate`s line of FreeAgent external storage solutions to backup and protect thousands of hours of video, photos, scripts and recordings.

Beijing Opera (also known as Peking Opera) goes back more than two centuries, and combines music, singing, dance, mime and acrobatics. The Beijing Opera Theatre was formed in 1979 and is one of China`s foremost opera troupes.

Until recently, most of the early filmed performances and records of Beijing Opera had been stored in analogue format. Over the years, some of those recordings were damaged or lost altogether. One such treasure—the master recording of a 1905 Beijing Opera performance of “The Battle of Dingjunshan,  featuring the legendary actor Tan Xinpei was destroyed in a fire in 1940. That loss spurred efforts to digitize and protect other priceless works.

 “With the long history of Beijing Opera, we need a great deal of digital storage to help us preserve these beautiful classics, said Wang Yuzhen, president of the Beijing Opera Theatre. “The high capacity, reliability and security of Seagate`s FreeAgent drives are uniquely capable of meeting our needs.”

“Peking Opera is the essence of Chinese culture and among the most representative of Chinese traditional arts, said BanSeng Teh, Asia Pacific vice president and managing director at Seagate. “Seagate is privileged to help preserve this important heritage.”

Digital Treasure Trove

The Beijing Opera Theatre has amassed a historically rich collection of content, including more than 2,000 hours of video, over 4,000 hours of audio, more than 10,000 photos and 5,000-plus scripts and other written material. Now, using a variety of Seagate 1.5 TB FreeAgent Desk and FreeAgent XTreme drives, organizers of the Beijing Opera Theatre`s digital library have the confidence that their content is safe and secure for future generations to enjoy.

Both drives include easy-to-use software that helps keep data safe and private with automatic backup and encryption of important files and folders. And with its ultra-fast data transfer, the FreeAgent XTreme is ideal for accessing large video or photo files quickly and frequently.

In addition to using Seagate’s desktop backup products, the Beijing Opera Theatre also uses an array of FreeAgent Go portable drives to capture, transport and share video data while on tour. Weighing just a third of a pound (150 g), the FreeAgent Go combines roomy capacity (up to 640GB) with a compact, stylish design that makes it easy to store, sync and share files.

“The FreeAgent Go is easy to carry around and showcase the skills of our fellow performers,” said Mei Baojiu, one of China’s most distinguished Beijing Opera masters.

“With Seagate, I can store and review (operas) and learn from other performers to help improve my own skills,” said Du Zhenjie, another veteran artist with the Beijing Opera Theatre.