The French electronics and multimedia company Thomson Corporate Research has developed a technology for the automatic detection of illegal copies of copyrighted films that are webcasted through Peer-to-Peer file exchange protocol. Until recently, their system of video descriptors was working fine, but… slowly.
Irisa TexMex research team specializes in the handling of multimedia documents, with an emphasis on the problems raised by the management of very large volumes of data. TexMex and researchers from the University of Reykjavík have created an associated team – Eff2 – that has come up with a retrieval system for huge image databases. This return high quality results but, in addition, it does it extremely fast, allowing not just effectiveness, but also efficiency in real workflow.
In September 2006, the result of Eff2 research was presented by TEXMEX Laurent Amsaleg, during the first meeting of Diwall, a security-focussed scientific grouping of various research centers in Rennes. Members of the audience were people from Thomson Corporate Research security lab, who immediately figured that this fast retrieval method could well help accelerate their own pirate-spotting technology. “They had the effectiveness. We could offer efficiency as a plus. Precisely what they were looking for”, explains TexMex founder Patrick Gros.
Cooperation was swiftly put on track, as Thomson is to show its prototype to the Motion Picture Association of America (1) in late December. “Obviously, Thomson’s goal is to market a product out of this.” The ensuing technology transfer contract could be three-fold: software transfer, some rewriting to meet Thomson’s requirements and probably a consulting aspect as well. Looming further ahead is the prospective of a more long-term partnership within Quaero, a mostly Franco-German project for developping new products and technologies for managing, searching and explorating large collections of multimedia documents.
Good luck with that one!