The project develops a new mechanism to trade digital audio-visual (AV) material. The ATMAN project has been set up with the intention of studying which should be a new mechanism that would allow trading of AV material in digital form, testing the usability of the technologies and eventually implementing the trading model on the market place The satellite news gathering (SNG) asynchronous transmission mode (ATM) terminal has been designed that will allow to establish an ATM path, lying on a satellite link and on the ATM world-wide network, connecting the site where AV material is produced directly to the ATMAN server. The syntax and semantics of the description associated to an AV content made available for sale on the ATMAN system have been specified. This description is the basis for all the searching, viewing, trading and downloading procedures that are being developed in the project framework. In the longer term, ATMAN will provide substantial improvements to the way trading of audio-visual material is conducted today. Achievement of transportation of AV works via the world-wide public telecommunication networks will accelerate the evolution and the growth of the audio-visual and multimedia businesses. Moreover, the requirements generated within ATMAN in the form of content description specifications and interface requirements will have applications beyond the project and will certainly be considered as candidate input standards for other systems, promoting industrial compatibility and encouraging further developments within the content production chain.
