National Geographic Bolsters HD Library

National Geographic Digital Motion has inked partnership and acquisition deals that will expand its high-definition offerings by more than 170 hours.

The digital film archive, which contains images from more than 40 years of National Geographic Television and documentary film production, has acquired partial collections from Pawl Achtel and Bernd Proschold. It has also secured licensing agreements with BlackLight Films, Giorgio Oldani Editore, Glusic and J. Michael Media.

The Bernd Pröschold collection includes HD views of starry skies and aurora borealis, while the Pawel Achtel works include more than 70 hours of enhanced underwater footage.

The license deal with BlackLight Films gives National Geographic Digital Motion access to 12 hours of HD imagery of more than 10,000 scenes from around the world. For its part, GEO productions showcase images captured by such avant-garde technology as self-stabilizing Wescam aerial filming systems.

With the Glusic collection, Digital Motion adds more than 60 hours of HD footage of natural vistas, wildlife and time-lapse images, while J Michael Media affords it 13 hours of  nature and cultural film.

“We're making significant investments to enhance the quality of our archive and are always seeking new content in all categories to represent in high definition,” said National Geographic Digital Motion vice president of video licensing and archive management Jocelyn Shearer in a statement. “Along with our award-winning content, these incredibly rich collections add to the breadth of our library and help us achieve our goal of providing comprehensive content delivery via our online digital archive and creating a total footage solution for our clients.”