This article elaborates four major issues hampering the sustainability of digital preservation within cultural heritage institutions: digitization, metadata indexes, intellectual property rights management and business models. Using a case-study approach, the digitization of audiovisual collections within the performing arts institutions in Flanders (Belgium) will be scrutinized, providing an overview of the state-of-the-art preservation and access. The analysis shows that digital preservation policies in most organizations are underdeveloped and that archives suffer from deterioration and technological obsolescence. (Contains 2 notes.)