REQUEST FOR INFORMATION U.S. Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service located at 5285 Port Royal Road, Room 1006, Springfield, VA 22151. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. POC Ms. Janice Long Coe, Director, Electronic Media Services, (703) 605-6181. The National Technical Information Service (NTIS), an agency at the Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, is looking for a venture partner to develop and provide a video analysis, catalog and search service for federal agencies to be distributed and administered through NTIS. The business opportunities described in this notice are joint ventures, require investments by prospective partners and yield a revenue sharing opportunity. NTIS enters into joint venture partnerships in accordance with the authority granted to NTIS in the National Technical Information Act of 1988 (15 U.S.C. 3704b) and in accordance with the guidelines published in the June 13, 1989 Federal Register. Joint ventures do not involve procurements using government funds. The joint venturepartner, when selected by NTIS, must currently be in the video analysis business, and is expected to use its capabilities to provide software that will analyze, summarize and search video content. Responses are required to be postmarked by December 20, 1999, sent to Janice Long Coe at above address. Offerors shall include three hard copies of their proposals. Proposals should be limited to twenty pages, excluding graphic appendices. The National Technical Information Service is seeking a partner for a joint venture for video cataloging. It is envisioned to partner with a company to offer a turn-key solution for federal agencies to analyze, summarize, catalog and make searchable video assets, for both external and internal users. This partnership will terminate September 30, 2000, but may be renewed if both parties agree to do so in writing. NTIS is seeking a software solution that will provide the ability to accomplish these tasks, with NTIS providing personnel, hardware, and its expertise gained through operations of NTIS. The proof of concept for this project will use the assets of NTIS as a test bed. The successful partner will offer free training, help and support in developing a demonstration of the project using NTIS's video assets, and the use of the software at NTIS only with no licensing fees. A demonstration will be developed by NTIS personnel, with guidance from the partner, and will be used to exhibit the turn-key solution for agencies. A revenue sharing agreement will be a result of this partnership to provide returns to the successful party. The software provided by the partner will enable the partnership to provide customized video cataloging services to federal agencies, consisting of one or more of the following features; 1. Real-time analog video analysis for NTSC, SECAM and PAL standards, providing keyframe capture and summary 2. Both analytical and incremental time based frame capture 3. Import or conversion of both closed-captioned and audio portions to search for corresponding frames or clips 4. Use internal or external timecodes 5. Develop user defined video and clip labels 6. Image-to-image searching 7. Schedule to run unattended to capture video broadcasts 8. Controlling keyframe capture sensitivity, including cuts fades, and dissolves 9. Mark and annotate clips as the software analyzes the video 10. Inherent database controls, to browse and use video and text data 11. Use concept and pattern searches for stored video data 12. Provide administration tools for all video analysis results, and storage of data 13. Preview all video analysis, and provide capability to create new assets from video materials NTIS will evaluate responses based on criteria listed above. Prospective partners are asked to describe and reference the technical capabilities of their products, describe technical expertise and provide a concise description of their experience and their ability to provide NTIS with necessary technical training in the use of the software. NTIS has for more than fifty years fulfilled its mission of acquiring and disseminating information obtained from both government and private sector sources worldwide in response to the needs of government agencies, authorized agents and subcontractors and the general public., As a self-supporting government agency NTIS operates a clearinghouse for the information it collects, delivering bibliographic databases, and content selected by consumers in paper and electronic format, and also able to support the fulfillment needs of users for the delivery of historic or archived materials produced in print-on-demand paper, demand microform or CD-ROM, or via on-line electronic access. E-MAIL: Morgan Kreitler, Multimedia Business Specialist, mkreitler@ntis.fedworld.gov. Posted 11/22/99 (W-SN402710).

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