Archive for the ‘Multimedia Search’ Category

TV news archive discovered after 30 years

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Nice find. (-:

From a Brief Article:

Hours of TV news film recorded by a US news agency in the 1960s and 70s has been discovered in an empty London office. The material includes some famous names and some revealing glimpses of how we lived 40 years ago

Watch the Video News Report

Source: BBC News
Hat Tip: Amia Newsbriefs

New Article: Mining Contextual Information for Ephemeral Digital Video Preservation

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

From the Abstract

For centuries the archival community has understood and practiced the art of adding contextual information while preserving an artifact. The question now is how these practices can be transferred to the digital domain. With the growing expansion of production and consumption of digital objects (documents, audio, video, etc.) it has become essential to identify and study issues related to their representation. A cura­tor in the digital realm may be said to have the same responsibilities as one in a traditional archival domain. However, with the mass production and spread of digital objects, it may be difficult to do all the work manually. In the present article this problem is considered in the area of digital video preservation. We show how this problem can be formulated and propose a framework for capturing contextual infor­mation for ephemeral digital video preservation. This proposal is realized in a system called ContextMiner, which allows us to cater to a digital curator’s needs with its four components: digital video curation, collection visualization, browsing interfaces, and video harvesting and monitoring. While the issues and systems described here are geared toward digital videos, they can easily be applied to other kinds of digital objects.

Direct to Complete Article (18 pages; PDF)

Source: The International Journal of Digital Curation

The Library of Congress Now a Part of iTunes University

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

From the News Release:

In an ongoing effort to make its digital educational, historical and cultural resources available to web users across a broad spectrum of platforms, the Library of Congress today launched “The Library of Congress on iTunes U.”

At its inception, the Library’s iTunes U site includes historical videos from the Library’s moving-image collections such as original Edison films and a series of 1904 films from the Westinghouse Works and original videos such as author presentations from the National Book Festival, the “Books and Beyond” series, lectures from the Kluge Center, and the “Journeys and Crossings” series of discussions with curators.

It also includes audio podcasts, including series such as “Music and the Brain,” slave narratives from the American Folklife Center, and interviews with noted authors from the National Book Festival; and classroom and educational materials, including 14 courses from the Catalogers’ Learning Workshop.


The LC Blog
has more info:

A nice bonus, for those in the know, is that the content is downloadable and even includes materials such as PDFs.

Direct to Library of Congress on iTunes University
Note: Link opens in iTunes App.

Source: Library of Congress & LC Blog

See Also: Library of Congress Launches YouTube Channel (From April, 2009)

Truveo Video Search Site Relaunches with New Features & 17 “Country” Sites

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

From a Press Release:

New Stuff Follows:

+ The most comprehensive global video index: With more than 350 million online videos from thousands of sources across the Web.

+ Quicker and easier discovery of online video content: Offering a cleaner, redesigned homepage with improved search, browsing functionality and upgraded loading times.

+ More personalized control over search: Navigation that lets users browse their searches by channel, category, show, popularity and most followed on Twitter. Users can also easily filter results to find videos on their favorite websites and channels.

+ The broadest coverage of videos: Providing a greater emphasis on helping users easily find the professional videos they want, whether it’s popular TV shows, music videos, sports highlights, news or more. A new page dedicated to TV show listings found on the Web lets users browse for shows alphabetically or by network.

+ Extended share features: New tools let users save and send their favorite videos and search terms to friends and share them on Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and StumbleUpon.

In addition, all the Truveo sites use localized ranking algorithms to deliver the most relevant results to each country’s Truveo users. For example, a search on Truveo’s France portal, http://fr.truveo.com, will be more likely to turn up French language videos from French media companies.

Direct to Truveo:

+ Australia: http://au.truveo.com
+ Brazil: http://br.truveo.com
+ France: http://fr.truveo.com
+ Germany: http://de.truveo.com
+ Hong Kong: http://hk.truveo.com
+ India: http://in.truveo.com
+ Italy: http://it.truveo.com
+ Japan: http://jp.truveo.com
+ Korea: http://kr.truveo.com
+ Mexico: http://mx.truveo.com
+ The Netherlands: http://nl.truveo.com
+ Russia: http://ru.truveo.com
+ Spain: http://es.truveo.com
+ Taiwan: http://tw.truveo.com
+ Turkey: http://tr.truveo.com
+ United Kingdom: http://uk.truveo.com
+ United States: http://www.truveo.com

Source: AOL (via Search Engine Land)

National Archives (U.S.) Launches YouTube Channel

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

From the Announcement:

…the National Archives [has] formally launch[ed] a YouTube channel to showcase popular archived films, inform the public about upcoming events around the country, and bring National Archives exhibits to the people. The launch will coincide with the National Archives 75th Anniversary. The URL is
www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives.

Every week the National Archives will roll out a new film on one or more of its YouTube channel playlists. These include the following:

+ From the Archives to the Moon: This video playlist features footage from the start of the space race through the landing of a man on the moon.

+ Favorite Things: What’s at Your Presidential Libraries: Over a series of 14 videos, directors from 12 separate presidential libraries discuss their ‘favorite things’ from their respective Presidential Libraries including Air Force One and the famous rooftop staircase from the embassy evacuation in Vietnam.

+ Tracing World War II: Released in chronological order, these War Department reels follow American progress through World War II from the bombing at Pearl Harbor to Armistice.

+ Touring 1930s America: Combining well-crafted, first-hand accounts from the Great Depression and sweeping footage from the Department of Interior taken in the 1930s, this playlist guides viewers through Depression-era America.

See Also: Looking for More U.S. Government Video? Learn about the FedFlix (Another Free Service)

Source: NARA
Hat Tip: LS

HBO Archives Opens Up March of Time Vault

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

From a News Post:

HBO Archives is making complete episodes from The March of Time newsreel and documentary series, produced from 1935 to 1967, available for online viewing at its stock footage portal.

The award-winning series, produced by Time Inc., contains original footage shot in the 1930s through 1960s, with historic footage dating back to 1913. HBO Archives, launched in 2002, reintroduced The March of Time in 2007 and has been re-cataloging, restoring and transferring the original 35mm films to HD video. HBO Archives has also been developing additional The March of Time productions.

“We are thrilled to put portions of this vast, unique collection online for instant access to researchers,” said Barbara Thomas, the senior VP of HBO Sports. “Unlike the traditional news-style featurettes of the Hollywood newsreels, the long-form documentary style of The March of Time newsreels stood out from its competitors. This series is priceless for all of today’s storytellers.”

Direct to The March of Time Collection
To view online you must register (takes about 2 minutes). Viewing the online video appears to be free.

Source: WorldsSreen (via AMIA)

Public Resource’s FedFlix digitizing hundreds of hours of gov video archives at no expense to tax payer

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

From the AMIA Newsbrief

“Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, ‘You may remember the FedFlix program from Public.Resource.Org. We got the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, to send a couple dozen videotapes every month. We digitized the tapes, and sent them back to the government with a DVD. No cost to .gov, and we got public domain data to post as high-res stock footage, plus great casual viewing on YouTube and the Internet Archive. The program went well for a year, the DC folks were happy, and I’m pleased to say we were able to renew the Joint Venture, but with a twist. They’re now sending a minimum of 100 tapes a month and we have rights to all 6,000 masters in their warehouse.’”

Direct to FedFlix (via Internet Archive) ||| Direct to FedFlix (YouTube)

Source: BoingBoing (via Association of Moving Images Archivists)

YouTube Moves Closer to the Boob Tube

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

From the Post:

On Tuesday, the company [YouTube] unveiled YouTube.com/XL, a revamped version of YouTube.com/TV that works on any Web browser that can be connected to a TV, whether it is a game console, a PC or another device. It is intended to be viewed on a television set or on a large PC screen. It can be controlled not only with a keyboard, but also with some remote controls. And it can be made to display a series of clips continuously, a bit like photos on a digital photo frame. The viewing experience is especially striking for high-definition videos watched in full-screen mode on a TV set.

Source: New York Times

Database: A Galaxy of Images from the Smithsonian

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

Direct to Database

…more than 10,000 images from the Libraries’ collections into a single site that can be searched and browsed…The images available on this site represent a broad cross-section of the Libraries’ collections. Additional images and collections are added regularly.

Direct to Advanced Search Interface

Browse the Collections by Topic

Top-Level Topics Include:
+ Animal World
+ Art and Design
+ Bones and Fossils
+ History and Material Culture
+ Literature
+ Natural World
+ Plants and Flowers
+ Portraits
+ Science and Invention
+ Scientific Instruments and Apparatus
+ Society and Culture
+ Technology and Transportation
+ Trade Literature

++ Browse All Topics

See Also: Galaxy of Images FAQ

See Also: Galaxy of Images for Students and Teachers

Source: Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Watch TV Online? Check out the New Hulu Labs

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Hulu Labs is now live online. At the moment four “experimental” services are listed.

1) Hulu Desktop

Hulu Desktop is a lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled. Hulu Desktop is a downloadable application and will work on PCs and Macs. It will initially launch as a beta product during which we plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.

2) Video Panel Designer

Video Panels are easy-to-use embeddable widgets that allow simple content programming and easily integrate a Hulu video player. The Video Panel Designer tool helps site editors and Web masters customize and program Video Panels to fit their needs.

3) Recommendations

Recommendations are a list of TV shows and movies that we think you’ll love based on videos you’ve already watched and rated on Hulu. Anyone with a Hulu account can access these recommendations: log in or sign up for a free account and select the Recommendations tab found on your Profile page.

4) Time-Based Browsing

Time-Based Browsing allows you to quickly scan our videos grouped by original air date. Whether you’re a TV junkie who remembers shows by the day of week they air, a budding media anthropologist curious to study TV’s evolution across the decades, or just a user in search of timely news clips, time-based browsing is another way to easily find more videos on Hulu.

See Also: Hulu Labs Now Live: Recommendations, Time-Based Browsing, And More (via TechCrunch)

USA Government Channels on YouTube

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

This page points to all U.S. Government YouTube channels. Very handy.

You’ll find content from the following agencies and organizations:

+ The White House
+ NASA
+ CDC
+ Library of Congress
+ FEMA
+ NOAA
+ FDIC
+ FDA
+ NIST
+ VA
+ EPA
+ Corporation for National and Community Service
+ Dept. of Education
+ SSA

Source: USA.gov

Curating the Best of the Web: Video

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

From the NY Times Post:

The Internet is awash in content — and a whole lot of it is junk, spam or inane status updates. How do you begin to navigate through the zillions of news articles, Web sites, tweets and other stuff online to find content that matters to you?

You need digital curators.

These are the online equivalents of the extremely savvy, clued-in friends you always turn to for new new music, and who always get an invite to your cocktail party because you know they’ve got something interesting to talk about or show off.

The following video “curator” sites are mentioned in this article:

+ nizmlab

+ Chunnel.tv

+ Video Antville

Source: The New York Times

PublicRadioFan.com: Listen Live to Public Radio Station from Around the Globe, Podcasts Too! (Best Of ResourceShelf)

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

PublicRadioFan is a wonderful database that we’ve been writing about for years. It’s not only browsable but also shows you what’s airing or streaming at any given time on public radio stations around the globe. You can personalize the page for your time zone, direct links to favorite programs, etc.

In the past couple of years, PublicRadioFan has been gathering direct links to podcasts (here the podcast format is being used as an alternative delivery vehicle) for public radio programs from broadcasters around the globe.

If you’ve never visited PublicRadioFan and its podcast directory, it’s more than worthy of your attention. More than 1,250 public radio podcasts and the directory continues to expand.

New from British Library Sound Archive: Traditional Music in England Collection Grows

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

From the Blog Post:

The Archival Sound Recordings website has just added 3000 field recordings of traditional music from England.

Recordings include:
+ Ballades
+ Childrens’ skipping songs
+ Soldiers’ songs
+ Music hall tunes
+ Soldiers’ songs
+ Instrumental jam sessions
+ Folk tales
+ Poetry
+ Interviews

Ranging from slickly produced professional recordings to rowdy pub sessions to intimate settings in artists’ homes, the collection provides unique insight into the folk scene of England.

Browse the Traditional Music in England Collection

Source: British Library

The United Nations Has a YouTube Channel

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

You can now view videos from the United Nations on their YouTube Channel.

Direct to Channel

Source: United Nations

Article: Newsy.com Wants to Make You Smarter, Faster

Monday, April 27th, 2009

From the Article:

“Global access to multiple perspectives helps you tell what the real story is,” says Newsy president and co-founder, Jim Spencer, of the basic premise behind his brainchild. He says the idea for the website came to him after observing the way people watch television and use the internet. When people are looking for coverage of big news stories, they channel surf from CNN to MSNBC to FOX, and maybe even to the BBC. They do the same thing on the internet; only on the web, there are thousands-if not millions-of sites to choose from rather than a handful of television networks.

A team of editors monitors news from online, print, and televised sources from around the globe. They then put together 2-3-minute video clips summing up the different kinds of coverage a particular topic is getting in the media. A recent video about the handshake heard around the world between President Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez incorporated video of a debate on FOX News, as well as stories from South American newspapers and websites. The newscasters, of sorts, in the Newsy videos keep commentary to a minimum. “We simply try to point out the differences in the reporting,” says Spencer.

Direct to Newsy.com

Source: Information Today

New PBS Video Portal

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

From the Article:

…public TV stations are taking more risks, and on Wednesday they introduced a fancy video portal at PBS.org/video. It replaces a hodgepodge of sites, with different features, run by the producers of each of the network’s programs and by its member stations.

The sleek animation and the features of the site will be familiar to users of Hulu, the NBC-Fox joint venture. You can search and browse among thousands of programs, contributed both by PBS and its member stations. You can watch full episodes, and also search for clips and segments.

The site is built on new technology that will also allow users to upload video, make comments and otherwise interact with the site and one another. For example, in conjunction with the Ken Burns documentary series “The National Parks,” which will be introduced this fall, users will be invited to upload videos of parks.

Direct to the New PBS Video Portal

Source: New York Times
Hat Tip: LS

See Also: You Find Also Find Some PBS Content on the Hulu Site

Now playing: NIST on YouTube

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

From the Article:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the latest government organization to use YouTube to reach the public. NIST has created a channel on the video social networking site as part of an effort to expand the amount of information available to the public about its programs.

Users will be able to use the NIST YouTube channel to share videos via e-mail mesages, post links to the videos on their own Web pages and comment on the videos. Subscribers will be notified via their YouTube account when a new video is posted. About a dozen videos are now online, and additional videos are planned.

Direct to NIST’s YouTube Channel

Source: GCN

Virginia Launches K-12 iTunes U Portal

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

From the Story:

The commonwealth of Virginia has launched a new education portal on iTunes U, the education space within the iTunes service from Apple.

iTunes U provides free access to educational content contributed by universities, colleges, K-12 institutions, and even entire statewide education systems. Virginia is not the first such statewide system to embrace iTunes U and contribute educational materials to the large and growing user community. The Tennessee and Maine state departments of education both operate portals within iTunes U, as does Arizona with its IDEAL learning platform. Several other individual K-12 districts, online schools, and other programs also have a presence on iTunes U, along with a plethora of higher education institutions, some of which provide content specifically for K-12 teachers and students.

Direct to Virginia on iTunes U

Source: T.H.E. Journal

Europe: Conference on Multimedia Search Engines

Monday, April 13th, 2009

From a Pandia Article:

The CHORUS conference on multimedia search engines will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on the 26th and 27th May 2009.

CHORUS is a European Coordination Action which aims at creating the conditions of mutual information and cross fertilisation between the European projects dealing with Multimedia Content Search Engines. National and international initiatives are also included.

The conference will address the challenges, gaps, commonalities, difficulties, targeted/expected impacts and success criteria related to search initiatives.

See Also: Learn About Quero Search Technology Under Development in Europe

Source: Pandia