Only the best use Convera`s RetrievalWare

When it comes to knowledge storage and retrieval systems, local master distributor of Convera products, Knowledge Focus, knows that the products it supplies are used by only the best companies worldwide.

Convera recently announced a space of top-class clients, among them Encyclopedia Brittanica, National Geographic Television and Oxford University Press.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., one of the leading publishers of learning and knowledge products, is using Convera`s RetrievalWare multimedia search, retrieval and categorization technology to power the site-search capabilities for the new Britannica Online School Edition, one of the world`s most comprehensive K-12 online reference and learning resources.

Teachers and students now can use Britannica Online(r) School Edition`s search function to quickly locate relevant information regardless of whether the information is contained in text, images, video clips, animation or audio files.

RetrievalWare enables students to simultaneously search against a collection of more than 100,000 articles, over 24,000 biographies, approximately 23,000 illustrations, over 1,300 maps, more than 270 animations, over 2,600 videos, over 170 sounds and more than 950 tables and charts.

Students also have the option of restricting their search to one or more of the following age-appropriate encyclopedias: Encyclopaedia Britannica for advanced students, Britannica Student for middle and high school students, and Britannica Elementary for elementary school students. Or, they can search against the entire collection with results automatically segmented into age-specific categories.

Convera`s Screening Room has been selected as the video content management software for the National Geographic Television (NGT) Film Library. Screening Room will be used to digitize and index thousands of hours of video.

As video is ingested into digital form, National Geographic`s Film Library will use Screening Room`s Browse feature to search for, preview and repurpose these video assets-all from an Internet-enabled desktop computer. National Geographic Television will also provide preferred customers with secure, online access to the video archive enabling them to select and license copyrighted material.

"Our immediate goal is to use Screening Room to provide production staff at NGT and the National Geographic Channel with unfettered access to a wealth of video resources and stock footage," said Matthew White, Vice President, Film Library at National Geographic Television. "In addition to streamlining our broadcast production process, Screening Room will also make it easier for other clients to search our video archive and select footage that meets their needs," White continued.

"The Digital Media Archive project represents one of the largest deployments of Convera`s Screening Room software to date," explained Patrick Condo, president and chief executive officer, Convera. "We view this as a long-term relationship in which our products and services will enable National Geographic Television to fully leverage and monetize its video assets." Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Convera will supply two Screening Room Capture servers at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC. National Geographic staff will use the software to ingest analog film and video footage into digital form.

Nearly 100 National Geographic employees worldwide will have continuous online access to the archive via Screening Room`s Browse interface. The primary users of the system will be production staff at NGT and National Geographic Channel.

Nearly 2,000 hours of video had already been digitized by NGT and will be transferred to the Convera system. Another 2,000 hours of existing analog footage will be ingested into the system over the next year. In addition to digitizing archived footage, Screening Room will be used on an ongoing basis to ingest and catalog National Geographic Channel and NGT programming along with associated B-roll footage.

Long-term plans call for further commercialization of the Digital Media Archive. Ultimately, NGT plans to integrate Screening Room`s WebSearch interface into its Web site.

Convera`s multi-lingual, multimedia, intelligent search and retrieval solution, RetrievalWare, has been deployed to provide fast, accurate answers for users of Oxford University Press` new online reference project - Oxford Reference Online (www.oxfordreference.com).

Working with Convera and online developer Semantico, Oxford University Press recognized that it is not just a question of what the 21st-century reference user needs (a 13 year-old finding out about astronomy or a business user checking facts) - it is a question of how it is presented. RetrievalWare offers a wide range of search options that will make searching for a definition or for a detailed description of a complex term both fast and simple to do.

RetrievalWare`s advanced search methods will be provide users of Oxford Reference Online access to over 1.5 million facts, figures, people, places, sayings, dates and dictionary definitions from almost 100 of Oxford`s subject reference books, English and bilingual dictionaries, English language reference titles, and dictionaries of quotations.

Sarah Ryan, Web Development Manager at Oxford University Press, said: "We chose RetrievalWare because its powerful and flexible searching techniques and stable, well-designed software have given us the functionality that we needed for Oxford Reference Online."

Quick Search uses various RetrievalWare tools, including field searching, to match any term from 1.5 million entries, prioritizing the most relevant first. If no results are found in entry headings, it will also search across the full text to find references to the search term (which could typically include a dictionary definition from the Concise Oxford Dictionary 2001 edition or the Oxford American Dictionary). Translations from major European languages, etymology, synonyms, and idiomatic uses will be returned plus the term`s relevance to a far wider range of subjects than the enquirer may expect. Users will also be able to cross-reference multiple topic terminology ranging from architecture and art to politics and geography.

Advanced Search will extend user enquiries, allowing users to construct powerful and flexible searches. Users will be able to refine their search to focus on one, or any combination, of subjects, or even just look for references to people or dates. There is also `Boolean (and/or/not) searching` and `Pattern search` which handles misspellings.

Peter Doyle, International Marketing Director at Convera, said: "Oxford Reference Online is demonstrable of Oxford University Press brand`s longevity and popularity across a wide variety of audiences. Drawing from a significant repository of information, Oxford Reference Online and RetrievalWare will ensure no matter where users are or what they are looking for, their results will be delivered in an efficient and prompt manner."

Adrian Driscoll, Managing Director at Semantico, said: "Oxford Reference Online demanded that Semantico carefully combine an intuitive interface with powerful search capabilities. Our ability to customize RetrievalWare at the deepest level has enabled us to deliver what Oxford University Press required."

With international customers of this magnitude, Knowledge Focus is secure in the knowledge that the products it supplies and installs will fulfill the needs of African customers.