MANILA, Philippines -- ABS-CBN is investing in two petabytes (2,000 terabytes) of storage from IBM to house its digital archives, including past TV shows and film.

The company has been converting its archives -- some dating as far back as two decades ago -- into digital format since five years ago.

"Currently we have 200,000 hours worth of material, which covers entertainment and news. One of our goals is to save some of the deteriorating content that we have in our library," said Raul Bulaong, ABS-CBN head for technical operations.

ABS-CBN produces about 700 hours? worth of content per month. Starting June this year, all future content will directly go into its Media Asset Management System (MAMS).

The company also owns the rights to some 2,000 local films -- including classics like ?Oro Plata Mata? -- which have been restored and likewise archived in digital form.

The system is also intended as a searchable database to allow more efficient access to content by its own personnel.

In the long-term, ABS-CBN is looking to leverage on this system to allow public access to its digital content, via the Internet or other means such as mobile.

?Eventually, we envision Filipinos worldwide to have access to our library,? Bulaong said in an interview.

Asked about paid access to ABS-CBN content, Bulaong replied: ?We do not know yet how it will go but that?s an idea. ?Unlike YouTube, we own the content in our archives.?

The company is investing around $4 million in the storage system, Bulaong said. IBM is working with partner vendors Dalet and Exanet in the ABS-CBN project.