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DIRECT-INFO - Media Monitoring
DICECT-INFO's vision was that of creating a basic system for semi-automatic extraction of consistent and meaningful semantic information from multimedia content. The result of the project was aimed to be a flexible system that would be easy to re-configure according to user needs, comprising several components that implement the needed functionality for analysing of multimedia data taking advantage of combining complementary analysis results of different content to semantic meaningful entities.
Impact
DIRECT-INFO primarily targeted the media advertising sector and specifically Media Information Firms active in the advertising, news and music information markets that capture, monitor, archive, and analyze media information to serve clients' needs, and particularly focused on sport sponsorship monitoring. It practically means that the sponsor wants to know how often their brand is 'mentioned' in connection with the sponsored company. Technically relevant parts of TV streams and electronic press feeds are automatically selected and subsequently monitored to find appearances of the name or logo of a sponsoring company in connection with the sponsored party. For this purpose basic features are fully automatically extracted from TV and press and thereafter fused to semantically meaningful reports to support executive decision makers. Extracted features include logos, positive and negative mentions of a brand or product, multimodal video segmentation, speech-to-text transcripts, detected topics and genre classification.
Main innovation
DIRECT-INFO's main innovation has been in the areas of:
- Semantic correlation & fusion of multi-modal content analysis
- Identification of semantic objects within A/V content
- Multi-modal event modelling for videos
- Video Segmentation
Results
Major technical project achievements of the last year include major updates on the analysis subsystems (static object/logo detection, multi-modal scene analysis, text analysis, topic detection and genre classification), the fusion component, the content essence repository, the content analysis controller, the delivery system. Furthermore the set-up of a first integrated prototype of the DIRECT-INFO system was performed. In this integrated system all components worked together and the technical workflow was demonstrated. As test material Juventus soccer games where recorded and analyzed.
In connection with exploitation an updated business plan was prepared. Particular concentration was on the sport sponsorship market and methodology of deriving the respective monitoring segment.
With regards to dissemination a number of scientific papers were published by the consortium. In October 2005 a workshop on future challenges for media management & monitoring was held in Darmstadt. During the workshop exhibition current software results were presented to the interested audience.
- Press Release: following the completion of the Workshop on Future Challenges for Media Management and Monitoring, 17-18 October 2005, Darmstadt, Germany (PDF, 27KB)
Explotation
Directly out of the project the visual analysis component for logo detection was further developed by Joanneum Research into a commercial product called: BrandDetector, which is distributed and marketed by HS-Art. Advertisement agencies are able to prove the value of placed advertisements to their customers and get reliable data to plan future campaigns. Brand Detector Flyer (PDF, 1.729KB)
Fraunhofer IGD has funded the spin-off company: iPharro marketing the product MediaSeeker. iPharro's specialised software uses sophisticated digital video fingerprinting technology to automatically extract unique audiovisual features directly from video content. Content can be monitored and identified from any digital video source. This tool is based on content analysis technologies developed within DIRECT-INFO project.
More details
- Overall Project Presentation (PDF, 492KB)
- Annual Report 2005 (PDF, 3.861KB)
- Brochure (PDF, 919KB)
- IST Results article: Semi-automatic multimedia monitor tracks sponsorship (14 February 2006) (PDF, 131KB)
- The DIRECT-INFO website. The project ended on 31 December 2005. Parts of the core technology developed within DIRECT-INFO is expected to be further exploited and adapted within the IST Project MediaCampaign.
Administrative Details
- DIRECT-INFO is a project funded under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission within the strategic objective 'Semantic-based knowledge management systems' of the IST Workprogramme 2006 (IST FP6-506898).
- DIRECT-INFO started on 1 January 2004 and finished on 31 December 2005.
- The overall budget: approximately 4 million euros.
- The consortium comprised of eight partners from six European countries.
List of Participants
- Joanneum Research Forschunggesellschaft mbH, AT
Institute of Information Systems & Information
Management - Project Coordinator - Nielsen Media Research, IT
- Softeco Sismat, IT
- Idioma Solutions Ltd, IL
- HS-ART Digital Services GmbH, D
- DFKI Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, D
- Promitheas Business Innovation Centre Ltd, CY
Contact Persons
- Dr. Herwig Rehatschek
- Institute of Information Systems & Information Management
- JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH - Website
- Steyrergasse 17, A-8010 Graz, AUSTRIA
- Tel.: +43-(0)316-876-1194
- Fax: +43-(0)316-876-1191
- EMail: Dr. Herwig Rehatschek
Events in connection with DIRECT-INFO
DIRECT-INFO co-operates / clusters closely and is dynamically seeking further concertation with the following projects: Project SCHEMA Network of Excellence, aceMedia, and METOKIS.
Among the activities that significantly elevated the profile and visibility of DIRECT-INFO are the following:
- Presentation (PDF, 363KB) at the 5th International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS), 21-23 April 2004, in Lisbon, Portugal, organized by SCHEMA NoE during the 'Special Session'.
- Presented during the 16th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information : NPL for multimedia applications, 9-20 August 2004, Nantes, France.
- Participation and presentation at European Workshop on the Integration of Knowledge, Semantic and Digital Media Technologies (EWIMT 04), 25-26 November 2004, Royal Statistical Society, London. EWIMT paper 'DIRECT-INFO: A Distributed Multimodal Analyses System for Media Monitoring Applications'. (PDF, 562KB)
- Organised participation and presentation European CVIR Workshop on the Contribution of NPL to the Content indexing of multimedia material, organised by Busman, SCHEMA and aceMedia projects. 21-23 July 2004, Dublin, Ireland.
- Exhibition of DIRECT-INFO project at the European Research & Innovation Exhibition in Paris (3-5 June 2005) at the CORDIS market place.
- Presented during the 17th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information: 'NPL for Multimedia Applications' proposed by Thierry Declerck (DFKI) and Elisabeth André at ESSLLI 2005 in Edingburgh (8-20 August 2005).
- Published paper at SIGIR conference in Brazil: Gert Kienast, András Horti, Herwig Rehatschek, Stephan Busemann, Thierry Declerck, Volker Hahn, Rene Cavet: 'DIRECT-INFO: A Media Monitoring System for Sponsorship Tracking' (PDF, 325KB), Proceedings of the Twenty-Eight Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, Proceedings of Workshop on Multimedia Information Retrieval, August 2005, Salvador, Brazil.
- Paper accepted at EWIMT 2005 conference in London (30 November-1 December): Gert Kienast, Harald Stiegler, Werner Bailer, Herwig Rehatschek, Stephan Busemann, Thierry Declerck: 'Sponsorship Tracking Using Distributed Multi-Modal Analysis (Direct-Info)' (PDF, 183KB). Proceedings of the International Workshop on the integration of knowledge, semantics and digital media technology (EWIMT), London November 2005.
- Organisation of world class conference by partner IGD: 'Future Challenges for Media Management & Monitoring', MIR 2005 in Darmstadt, Germany on 17-18 October 2005.
Diploma Theses performed during project life time:
- Thesis on Object Recognition for Media Monitoring (PDF, 27KB), Robert Sorschag, JRS - "Alpen Adria University Klagenfurt", faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Informatics.
- Diploma thesis on the topic of genre classification: Josef Weiss (HSA), 'Semantic Interpretation of Video' (PDF, 23KB) GenreClassifier Demo software for evaluation (PDF, 435KB), Institute of Computergraphics - Technical University Graz, September 2005.
- Collaboration with thesis 'Sportsponsoring. Die Meßbarkeit des Erfolges? (sport sponsorship - measurement of success?' - Intended work (PDF, 17KB), Nicole Langer - "Alpen Adria University Klagenfurt", faculty cultural sciences. In collaboration with the University of Klagenfurt DIRECT-INFO supported the master candidate student Ms. Nicole Langer with her thesis on sport sponsorship tracking. For this purpose the confidential Deliverable D7.2.2 "Final Evaluation Report" was donated as a substantial input for the diploma thesis and made accessible for this purpose by consortium decision. The DIRECT-INFO system will play a central role within the thesis, since it represents according to our and Ms. Langer's knowledge the only working prototype in this specific area. Supervisor: VAss. Dr. Reinhard Kacianka. University: Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Universitätsstr. 65-67, Zugehörigkeit: Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft.
Follow up IST Project 'MediaCampaign'
Together with three core partners of DIRECT-INFO (JRS, SOF and HSA) the project 'MediaCampaign' was submitted under the 4th IST call and accepted by the EC for funding. MediaCampaign is also targeting the media monitoring area, however, focusing on a different business case: advertising monitoring. Specific goal of this project will be to relate different advertising campaigns over countries and media (Radio, Internet, Press, TV).
Parts of the core technology developed within DIRECT INFO is expected to be further exploited and adapted within this project. Please visit the MediaCampaign public website for more information.