Cambridge, UK, August 13, 2009

IPV, a global leader and largest independent supplier of low bit-rate, frame-accurate video technology to the broadcast and professional video sectors, today announced that its has installed its SpectreView browse solution at the European Commission (EC) to provide easy desktop access to incoming feeds and archive media at the Commission’s base in Brussels.

As part of an overhaul of its archive system, the European Commission is in the process of developing its own in-house media asset management and automation solution called ‘Beluga’. This is designed to manage 15,000 video archive files, many hundreds of thousands of photos and also audio files. Several hours of new video material are added each day. To manage this material requires an extensive logging process that ensures that all the descriptive data relating to the media is captured in a fast, accurate and effective manner, and in several languages. This accurate data enables users, both online and in-house, to quickly locate and retrieve material relating to any aspect of the construction of the European Union. All the material, the earliest dating from the 1950s, is available copyright free, under certain conditions, to programme makers.

The integration of SpectreView through a custom-built web client will enable users at the EC to access all of their new material and archive media directly at their desktop computers, utilising a number of unique features that allowed the EC to streamline its operations. Automatic scene change recognition and thumbnail generation makes it possible to create a visual representation of the media. Advanced shuttle control (up to 64x fast forward and rewind) from their desktop and extensive multi-channel audio are also supported. SpectreView also enables different users at the EC to simultaneously access the same media.

"The implementation of IPV’s SpectreView solutions at the European Commission will allow our archivists to log media effectively then retrieve it quickly and easily." said Martyn Jones, Engineering Manager in the audiovisual unit at the European Commission. "This is another step in the tapeless production and distribution system, we just need to convince some of our more traditional clients that file transfer really does work."

"We are delighted to be involved with this exciting project at the European Commission," said Nigel Booth, Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing at IPV. "Our SpectreView solution is revered around the world for its ability to create low-resolution production proxies, together with intelligent metadata that can be quickly and easily available at the desktop. This provides customers like the European Commission with broader business benefits and a return on their investment through enhanced productivity."

Seen by many as the de facto standard for browse resolution systems, SpectreView is implemented by a large number of manufacturers of playout automation, newsrooms, asset management and access services. Key to its success is the incorporation of precision timecode and frame accuracy. This coupled with its advanced streaming server ensures different quality of user experience by providing a VTR-like performance at the desktop. Content can be encoded using a low bit-rate codec – originally MPEG, now MPEG-4 or Windows Media 9 – and be accessed by multiple devices on standard computers, even when precise timecode control is critical.

About the European Commission

Material that is available copyright free, under certain conditions, to programme makers can be found at the following links http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video.cfm and
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/about/index.cfm?sitelang=en&pagesection=about&page=copyright

About IPV

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