Siemens Corporate Research Inc has launched its digital media management system called Carat, short for Computer Aided Radio and TV, designed to retrieve multimedia material by subject matter. The system has already been introduced in the European and Asian broadcasting markets. Carat is based on a client-server architecture, which consists of a media asset management system, archiving, and an optional automation function. The media asset management system captures and automatically structures videos, provides content-based logging, and lets users to configure a multimedia database. The logging process of structuring and capturing content-related information automatically generates key images for each scene. Indexing is done by a point-and-click function, using a predefined word list. Once logged, the media data can be stored in the Carat archive, which provides hierarchical archiving: on-line archives on hard disks with immediate access; near-line archives stored in automated robotic systems on tapes; and off-line archives to keep track of existing tapes.
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