MediaSite Awarded $1.7 Million Federal Contract
Searchable Television and Videoconferencing Technology to Revolutionize TV and Video Use

Pittsburgh, PA—October 8, 1998—MediaSite, Inc., the leading developer and supplier of integrated solutions for constructing and using network-based, searchable digital video libraries, today announced the award of a three year, $1.7 million contract by the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program (ATP), administered by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to develop an advanced real-time video cataloging, capture, search and retrieval system.

The MediaSite technology has potential to revolutionize the way television and video are used by enabling searchable television and searchable videoconferencing to become a reality. With searchable television, business and consumer users can search up to the minute TV news or stored programming from a wired television or PC. With searchable videoconferencing, businesses can easily capture a record of all corporate meetings, which can be searched by employees worldwide immediately after creation. A range of other video applications, including corporate and government knowledge capture, education, and training can also leverage this next-generation technology.

MediaSite will develop the most advanced video cataloging and capture system based on its current core technology--the MediaSIte Digital Video Library System (TM). Today, MediaSIte is the only system incorporating speech recognition, language and image understanding technologies to catalog and index video libraries. Using MediaSite’s advanced video search engine, video cataloged using the MediaSIte System can be searched and retrieved across the Internet or over computer networks.

"A key inhibitor to the acceptance of interactive television has been the inability to fully search and retrieve programming," commented Mark Juliano, president and CEO of MediaSite. "With this technology, millions of hours of searchable broadcast content could now be at the fingertips of consumers and businesses worldwide."

He continued, "If you wanted to see all news stories on America’s home run hero, you could use searchable television to type in ‘Mark McGwire’ and ‘home run’ and input an image of his face. In return, you’ll get games, interviews, and news stories. In the business sector, an employee in the Asian office of a multinational firm could search and retrieve real-time videoconferencing to find corporate experts discussing a new product release as it happens."

The MediaSite technology will be applicable to the ever-increasing digital video technology market. According to the Advanced Technology Program, as computers become multimedia workstations, as television moves to high-definition digital formats, and as telephony takes on elements of both, information technologies are merging together in unprecedented ways. The industries that are creating information networks fully expect digital video to be an essential element of this convergence. And they anticipate huge annual markets for digital video--in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars--for phone, pay-per-view movies, home shopping, financial, educational, and other services that will include a video component.

Primary Applications

Searchable Television:
With the increasing use of TV and cable as an information medium, a wealth of video information exists. This video could be tapped if only people could easily and instantly search the millions of hours of existing content as well as the new video-based information generated every day, to find exactly what they are looking for. With the technology being developed by MediaSite, users can search new and existing content from wired televisions or PCs based on transcripts, keywords, pictures (images), faces, time or date. For example, businesses can search for constantly updated industry information, news from key foreign markets, or Alan Greenspan discussing interest rates in the past 24 hours. Consumers can search for all basketball games that feature Michael Jordan shooting a game-winning basket. Seinfeld fans can search scenes in episodes using image matching. Or, the science buff can search for the latest space shuttle news from NASA.

Real-Time Cataloging of Videoconferencing:
With real-time cataloging of videoconferencing, businesses can easily capture and create a corporate record of all meetings which can be searched via their private Intranet worldwide, immediately after their creation. In the government area, real-time videoconferencing lets a military group capture simulations which can be used as a searchable training tool. The judicial system could also use this technology to capture courtroom proceedings which could be fed into a nationwide video database immediately accessible by judges and lawyers.

Breakthrough Technologies

The ATP development will allow MediaSite to further advance the speech recognition, image and language understanding technologies the company is using today. These technologies are critical to making video instantly searchable in real-time.

Speech Recognition:
Real-time speech recognition technology allows the audiotrack of a video to be captured and immediately converted to a searchable text-based record from recorded and live video feeds, microphones, or digital formats. For example, real-time speech recognition can allow users to instantly search on a news transcript immediately after it is broadcast, or can allow corporate employees to search the content of meetings based on what was discussed.

While some video search solution providers are beginning to license speech technology, MediaSite has not only shipped speech recognition products, but is also developing speech technologies for specific applications such as news cataloging, training, searchable television and real-time videoconferencing.

Image and Face Matching Technologies:
A key part of searching video is being able to find scenes, people or images that are broadcast or contained in videoconferences. Image and face matching technologies are critical and can allow a reporter to take a picture of an unknown Monica Lewinsky to immediately see if any previously shot footage of her exists based on a match of her face. The development undertaken by MediaSite will further advance the speed, accuracy and sophistication of image and face recognition.

Real-Time Video Search Engine:
MediaSite will continue to advance its real-time video search technology, enabling users to instantly query video content over an Intranet or via a "Web-TV" like setup. A key component of video search engine technology is the ability to preview video content without watching the entire segment. This saves significant time and is available today with MediaSite’s patented skim technology. MediaSite is developing the ability to generate skims immediately, so that users can query a computer generated "short" of a video clip, playing only the most relevant information (or highlights) in 10-20% of the time of the original video length. Another search technology in development is the use of geospacial positioning to allow users to, for example, draw a box around several states and query on any news stories of fires occurring within that area.

MediaSite
MediaSite, Inc. is the leading developer and supplier of integrated solutions for constructing and using network-based, searchable digital media libraries. MediaSite offers the MediaSIte Digital Library System, a complete set of software and services for developing digital audio and video libraries, including MediaSIte Logger, MediaSIte Builder, and MediaSIte Finder. The unique feature of MediaSite’s technical approach is the integrated application of speech recognition, language understanding, and image understanding technologies based on software components of Carnegie Mellon University’s Informedia Digital Video Library Project. For more information, visit www.mediasite.com.