Instructions for preparing proposal Part b for Integrated Projects in the ist priority

Consortium as a whole

The success of ConnectME will be guaranteed through the combined expertise and knowledge of its consortium members. As an Integrated Project, we focus on a consortium made up of a significant number of academic research partners, including one economic unit, a couple of SMEs which stand to benefit from LinkedTV market opportunities and several large traditional media players who will benefit from the innovation of LinkedTV technology to strengthen their respective market position (broadcasters, IPTV system provider, telecommunications).

Firstly, as project co-ordinator, a partner is needed who can provide proven project administration skills and experience, so that day-to-day project operation runs smoothly, as well as a clear vision for the aims and outcomes of ConnectME, so that the research and innovation proceeds according to a clear, directed path to a common, well defined goals. Only under these conditions it is possible to trust in the successful running and completion of ConnectME. Here, Fraunhofer IAIS (DE) demonstrates the required project administration skills and experience, being project coordinator in several past and present EU projects.

To provide the research expertise in content analysis for relations extraction, annotation and adaptation, we have two partners who have clear leadership in this area, including the successful work in these areas in past EU projects. Results from these projects will be acquired and extended for ConnectME. CERTH/NTUA (GR) is a leading research institute in the area of semantic multimedia, using hybrid low level and high level content analysis approaches to bridge the so-called „semantic gap“ and enable conceptual annotation of media streams. The University of Economics, Prague (CZ) is a pioneer in the use of data mining to improve media annotation processes, enabling the association of related media through shared concept identification in accompanying data sources (e.g. subtitles on a TV program, surrounding text on a Web page). Eurecom (FR) will complement both partner's activities with their multimedia research unit, and particularly expertise in appropriate multimedia description schemes for referencing media fragments and tying fragments to concepts. Through their combined research expertise, these partners will also create an infrastructure for the „Connected Media“ services on the Internet.

This expertise is complemented by a leading institute in multimedia retrieval and presentation research CWI (NL). CWI is a leader in multimedia metadata research, and will support ConnectME in the use of appropriate, simple metadata schemes for annotating and linking media content. As the developer of the automated presentation system Cuypers and e-culture search portal MultimediaN, its experience in multimedia presentation and interaction will be used in designing the ConnectME user interface. Research work on multimedia annotation and presentation generation will be complemented by STI International (AT) through the senior researcher Dr Lyndon Nixon, whose PhD focused on this topic. Furthermore, as he has instigated the proposal and given the vision for ConnectME, he has the clear vision and goal for the project which is necessary in a scientific coordinator. Further research support will be provided through the startup Playence as a third party, whose activities focus on user interfaces and capturing user feedback. STI also brings its experience as organizer of leading events in the academic and industrial communities and its worldwide network of experts in semantic technologies, to make it the ideal partner for dissemination activities.

Given the potential of ConnectME to generate new business models for traditional media companies as well as the need during the project to keep up to date with the rapidly moving IPTV market so that ConnectME can be best positioned to innovate in this market and introduce a powerful paradigm shift with the potential to disrupt, we draw on the expertise of University of St Gallen (CH) to carry out market surveys, develop business models and support our industry partners in the project in best profiting from ConnectME.

For development of the back-end infrastructure, including metadata repositories and service endpoints, and to support the broadcasters in integrating ConnectME technologies into their content processes, the SME CONDAT (DE) Condat has been chosen as they bring the required expertise and skills to the consortium.

For development of the ConnectME player, as well as support for video preparation and delivery at the broadcaster side, the SME Noterik (NL) is "on board". Noterik bring their ClickVideo technology to the project. Furthermore, they will provide the IPTV client development skills including realisation of interactive services through widgets.

It is of vital importance in ConnectME to have a tight co-operation with major players in the areas of broadcasting and telecommunication. The results of the project have the potential to provide new services and business models for broadcasters (offering their content in a enhanced fashion) and broadcast providers (increasingly telcos in „triple or quadruple play“ offers). Through industry participation in the consortium, we have first adopters of the technology, a clear target for exploitation and a means for user trials and business model proofing.

In ConnectME, the public broadcasters Deutsche Welle (DE) and RAI (IT) will provide television programming as well as facilities for user trials and potential for technology exploitation to the project. Additionally the research experience of RAI includes content metadata extraction and personalization, content management and publication as well as dynamic user services creation.

Complementing this with their extensive media archive, Sound and Vision (NL) will enrich the ConnectME scenarios with a rich source of cultural heritage and news media content.

Finally, Thomson Grass Valley (FR) will provide the platform hosting the software modules developed in the project and allowing to stream the IPTV programs toward the end users.

As a non-funded partner, the consortium is very pleased to include Samsung Korea in its midst. Their participation is highly valued as it will help evaluate ConnectME project results and exploit these in the Korean market and further afield. With its worldwide network and presence Samsung Korea's participation is seen as an additional benefit.