De Montfort discovery offers a solution to media file dilemma

Published by Helen Berwick for HCL Marketing Communications in Education and also in Bill Payments, Central Government, Communities, Local Government

A pair of academics are sure to be a big hit on the small screen following a groundbreaking discovery that will save time, money and an accurate record of some of the nation’s most treasured film archives.

Based at De Montfort University, Dr John Cowell and Dr Scott Linfoot have brought a new approach to an historic problem faced by film archivists and their work has now been shortlisted for a Lord Stafford Award for ‘Innovation in Development’.

They discovered that problems occur when companies that produce or use video media files try to describe their contents. It costs around £150 per hour to do this and takes one person between five and eight hours to catalogue just one hour of footage. To put it into context the BBC has over 2 million hours of media in its archive, whilst ITN has 800,000 hours.

Keen to come up with a solution, the academics from the Faculty of Technology developed the Automated Metadata Insertion (AMI). This new system takes media files in any format and produces a second-by-second description of their content. It can process an hour of video five times faster than can be achieved by a person and at a fraction of the cost.

Dr Linfoot said: “Our innovation improves the current approach of using shotlisters who watch video and type a description which is both laborious and expensive. The BBC employ around 30 shotlisters, one of whom can spend their time producing a description of Newsnight, for example, which is 50 minutes long and broadcast five nights per week. There is insufficient time to work on all new material, so the uncatalogued archive continues to grow.

“Conversely AMI can run from a PC, is user friendly and only takes about an hour to learn plus it can work through the night and at weekends. It combines the rare attributes of an internally complex product which is simple to explain and understand, and produces an output which is easy to use.”

Dr. Cowell is a former professional engineer and a researcher in image processing. Dr. Linfoot has a PhD in high definition television and is a researcher in this area. Both teach these disciplines within the Faculty two days a week and work in Fiteris, the company they have set up for this project, three days a week. The company is based in the University’s Innovation Centre.

The benefits to this are twofold; the University draws on the skills gained by the company founders, who transfer knowledge to colleagues and students and the University owns a third of the company and shares in profits.

Dr. Cowell added: “Version One is now ready for beta tests and we are in discussion with local SMEs as well as major organisations such as the British Library. AMI will be ready to go to market during July and it is being officially launched at the IBC, International Broadcast Convention, in Amsterdam in September.”

Patron of the Awards Lord Stafford concluded: “This wonderful innovation could truly change the way society is catalogued for and viewed by future generations. Many archives have already been lost or are unclassified and I believe the AMI development is set to record huge international success.”

Backed by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA), MAS East Midlands, the East Midlands Universities Association and Lincolnshire County Council, the Lord Stafford Awards are designed to celebrate and recognise innovative collaborations between business and universities.

The winners of the awards, which cover ‘Innovation Achieved’, ‘Innovation in Development’ and ‘Innovation in Sustainability’, will be announced at a high-profile finale on September 10th at the Epic Centre in Lincolnshire.

Other sponsors for the event include Ceramic Decals, CFE Ltd, Clever Cherry, Connect Midlands, Enterprise Europe Network and Swindell and Pearson.

For further information visit www.thelordstaffordawards.co.uk