Objectif The MEDIA PASS project aims at defining and creating a new generation of high quality interactive multimedia systems to attract customers and to increase sales in commercial activities, retail shops and large stores. These systems will allow an evolution from kiosks to DMSS (Distributed Multimedia Shop Systems) and will encompass all the necessary aspects for creating effective presentations and marketing functionalities. They will have the high audiovisual quality of TV commercials (mainly based on moving images), the authoring friendliness required by communication professionals not accustomed to IT tools and the networking capability required by broad commercial organisations.Application-tailored hardware includes:- PCs as shop workstations used both by customers and shop owners.- Acorn TV set-top-boxes for developing "interactive windows", allowing interactions with customers outside the shop with capacitive keyboards and other special units.The same multimedia authoring environment will support the application implementation on these two hardware platforms. The project will identify and integrate the software components for an authoring framework allowing a fast prototyping and a final implementation of customized DMSSs. A broad range of multimedia technologies will allow to obtain high quality image-sound-video presentations and effective interactions with the targeted users. The authoring system will support the production of CD-ROM, video clips and customised computer programs; facilities will be available for developing multi-language applications.Advanced compression techniques will allow important memory/bandwidth savings, but will always maintain a very high quality of the final multimedia presentations corresponding to a professional audiovisual product. The resulting authoring system will support specifically the creativity of the DMSS application designer, who will be a marketing communication professional rather than an IT expert.The interworking between central and remote systems will be based on two technologies, INTERNET as a short term, low cost solution and VOD (video-on-demand) as a medium term, high performance solution; they will allow:- continuous update and dissemination of market news and infomercials- entertainment activities- queries to central mainframes or information systems- collection of marketing information and statistics through interactions with customersThrough the MEDIA PASS network, two fundamental marketing dreams will become reality: monitoring market trends in real time and satisfying the customer's preferences with a "just in time" approach.Broad market software and hardware components will ensure moderate costs and wide diffusion of the derived products. This is especially important when the customer is a multinational company or a franchising network with several points of sales. The system will also conform to consolidated and emerging standards, will be easily portable on different platforms and adaptable to new requirements.A multinational pilot application, based on the requirements of a major European commercial organisation, will validate the concerns described above A group of watch retail shops in Italy, Germany, Belgium and UK will install a MEDIA PASS application in order to check the customers and shop owners acceptance and the impact on sales activities. Champ scientifique natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applications Programme(s) FP4-ESPRIT 4 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of information technologies, 1994-1998 Thème(s) 3.8 - Multimedia Systems Pilots Appel à propositions Data not available Régime de financement CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinateur Digital Media International Srl Contribution de l’UE Aucune donnée Adresse Corso Buenos Aires 23 MILANO 20124 Italie Voir sur la carte Coût total Aucune donnée Participants (3) Trier par ordre alphabétique Trier par contribution de l’UE Tout développer Tout réduire Acorn Computers Ltd Royaume-Uni Contribution de l’UE Aucune donnée Adresse Acorn House Vision Park Histon CB4 4AE Cambridge Voir sur la carte Coût total Aucune donnée Artime Gmbh Allemagne Contribution de l’UE Aucune donnée Adresse Nikolaus Otto Strasse 4 40721 Hilden/Dusseldorf Voir sur la carte Coût total Aucune donnée Dump Sprl Belgique Contribution de l’UE Aucune donnée Adresse Chaussee De Waterloo 496D 1050 Bruxelles Voir sur la carte Coût total Aucune donnée
