Innovative Digital Content projects funded by the EU to attend NAB, the worlds largest electronic media show in Las Vegas in April 2003

Brussels, (Belgium) March 14th The IST Programme, managed by the DG INFSO (Information Society Directorate-General) of the European Commission today announced its presence for the second year running at the NAB- National Association for Broadcasters - trade fair which will take place in Las Vegas on April 5-10.

The European Commissions IST Programme is a single, integrated research programme building on the convergence of information processing, communications and media technologies. The Key Action 'Multimedia Content and Tools' (KA3) of the IST Programme manages research projects aimed at fostering and stimulating all-important technologies of the future, especially in the area of digital publishing, e-culture and e-learning.
The European Commission stand is situated in the Multimedia Pavillon, SL2306 - East end and will be presenting 5 innovative European Research Projects in the Interactive Electronic Publishing sector.
Last year, the European Commission attended NAB for the first time with 2 RTD projects, hosted at the Adopt-IT booth: RAA and G-Fors. The presence at the Fair was a great success as both RTD projects were very satisfied with the event and as a result of their participation, they made very positive contacts.
Research and development is crucial to reinforce Europe's position as a pioneer in multimedia technologies. The 5 projects that will be present at NAB this year have been chosen because of their ground-breaking achievements in their sector. They are not only innovative and original concepts but also contribute immensely to the multimedia and digital content technologies research. Their presence at NAB will also contribute to inform the American professionals of the European Research activities in their sector.
The project coordinators will be present at the European Commission stand, where introductory videos as well as other material on each project will be available. Visitors will experience first-hand the objectives, developments and advances made by the projects and be able to discuss potential partnerships or usage directly with the interested parties.
The following projects will be presented at NAB:
- BUSMAN (Bringing User Satisfaction to Media Access Networks) is designing and validating a secure and efficient system allowing both delivery of and access to video as well as creation of and querying large and distributed databases. The end-system will include suitable approaches for secure, fast, robust and scalable content delivery as well as seamless access through fixed and wireless networks. The project character is defined by the ideas of "people being the centre" and "user friendly interaction between humans and digital services".
- CIMWOS (Combined Image and Word Spotting) aims to facilitate common procedures of archiving and retrieval of audio-visual material. The objective of the project is to develop and integrate robust unrestricted keyword spotting and efficient image spotting specially designed for digital audio-visual content, leading to the implementation and demonstration of a practical system for efficient retrieval in multimedia databases. ,Moreover, CIMWOS will present a paper during the fair: Retrieving Video Segments Based on Combined Text, Speech and Image Processing. The CIMWOS paper is part of the Digital Storage and Asset Management for Broadcast Content session and is scheduled to be held the afternoon of Monday, April 7;
- CONTESSA (Content Transformation Engine Supporting Universal Access) is opening possibilities for the end-user. It represents an integrated set of software tools that allow the creation of content services and enable the automatic transformation of the content format so that it can be displayed on multiple end-user devices.
- NUGGETS will showMXF in action at NAB 2003. Streaming interchange of MXF files in a live production demonstration featuring the interconnection of SANs and WANs. Nuggets aims to show the way forward in Networked File Interchange using MXF and we welcome discussion from all Content Creators and Broadcasters who are looking to the future and the Networked IT world. Their demonstration of live pictures from a camera transferred between two distinct SANs using a WAN simulation breaks new ground in the use of MXF today.
Moreover, Wolfgang Ruppel of Nuggets will present a paper on Thursday morning 10th April between 11am and 11:30am in room N109 in the Las Vegas Convention Centre in the Television Production and Operations session.
- VIZARD (Video Wizard) is the next generation video publishing tool. It introduces a new intuitive concept to deal with video content. The software supports users in creating the sketch or story they want to tell. Rather than be constrained by having to follow simple timeline representations, editors will now be able to manipulate the inner structure of a digital video.
,More information on each project, and others of the Adopt-IT project, can be found on the website http://www.adopt-it.info/home
The IST's presence at this Trade Fair is part of Adopt-IT, a 2-year dissemination project aimed at promoting good practices identified among the European Research projects funded under KAIII.
,EDITORIAL INFORMATION,About DG INFSO,The DG INFSO of the European Commission is charged with ensuring that Europe's citizens, governments and businesses continue to play a leading role in shaping and participating in the global information society. The Directorate-General is driven by the European Commission's eEurope action plan and has specific responsibility for increasing the understanding, development and uptake of information and communication technologies and their applications within the European Union.,It does this by stimulating research into the development and deployment of new information and communication technologies; establishing and maintaining a framework of regulation and standards designed to generate competition; and stimulating the development of applications and content while supporting initiatives that encourage and enable all European citizens to benefit from, and participate in, the information society.
,About the Interactive Electronic Publishing sector
The Interactive Electronic Publishing (IEP) sector of the European Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme is part of Multimedia Content and Tools, Key Action III of the IST Programme, which itself falls within the 5th Framework RTD Programme. The research and development projects funded by the Interactive Electronic Publishing sector focus primarily on generating, managing, personalising creative digital content.,Whilst the objectives are common - the application areas are wide - encompassing scientific and business information, news, advertising, entertainment, information for the citizen and geographic information. The IEP sector has issued a number of RTD lines in the yearly IST work programmes, covering the main RTD issues represented within the IEP value chain: Authoring and design systems and Content management and personalisation.
About ADOPT-IT
ADOPT-IT is a 2-year European dissemination project aimed at promoting good practices identified among the European Research projects funded under KAIII of the IST Programme of the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, 1998-2002.,Together with the European Commission, ADOPT-IT has selected 20 good practices among the RTD projects funded under KAIII "Multimedia content and tools", and will carry out a series of activities aimed at promoting awareness of these European Research Projects.
For each selected project, a promotional and informative video is available. For more information about ADOPT-IT and the projects, please visit www.adopt-it.info or contact us either by phone or E-mail at (please do not publish these contact addresses):
AID Marketing & Communication,Ms Andrea NikolicAccount Manager,Tel: (+32) - 2 534 74 13,Fax: (+32) - 2 534 45 32 ,E-mail: [e-mail]
European Commission DG INFSO/D1,Mr Pascal JACQUESHead of Sector Interactive Electronic Publishing,Tel: [phone],Fax: [phone],E-mail: [e-mail],