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, search and deliver video content. Responses are required to be postmarked by July 31, 2000, 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, search and delivery. 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. The partner will be able to work with NTIS to develop a system to include delivery of content to customers of NTIS. NTIS is seeking an entire solution that will provide the ability to accomplish these tasks, with NTIS providing personnel, hardware, and its expertise gained through operations of NTIS. The multimedia assets of NTIS, with over 9,000 titles, will be used to develop a proof of concept for this project, which will not initially include consumer delivery. Currently, NTIS delivers over 12,000 units to customers yearly. The successful partner will offer free training, help and support in developing a demonstration of the project using NTIS's video assets, the use of the software at NTIS only with no licensing fees. Further, the partner will present a viable methodology for delivering content to the consumer. This is envisioned to be implemented in a phased approach. The initial phase will be review, familiarization and training of NTIS personnel. This will be followed by development of a pilot project, to include incorporating a subset of titles into a Media Asset Management system. This system must be compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, Public Law Number 105-220 accessibility standards, as they are defined by appropriate authorities. Consideration shall be made for accommodations for accessibility, however until specific regulations are created, acknowledgement of this criteria is sufficient. Complete responses may include more than one firm in order to meet all listed requirements of this RFI. Any such arrangement should be described within the response, to delineate points of contact. Presentations may be made, at the discretion of NTIS. Any such presentation must cover all aspects of this RFI, and integrate all functions into a single response. A demonstration will be developed jointly by the partner and 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. Anticipated revenue streams should be addressed in the response. The solution provided by the partner will enable the partnership to provide a customized turnkey solution to NTIS, and federal agencies, consisting of at least 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. Importing of closed caption material, for searching 4. Import or conversion of both closed-captioned and audio portions to search for corresponding frames or clips 5. Integrated database compatibility 6. Use internal or external timecodes 7. Develop user defined video and clip labels 8. Image-to-image searching 9. Speech to text ability 10. Schedule to run unattended to capture video broadcasts 11. Controlling keyframe capture sensitivity, including cuts fades, and dissolves 12. Mark and annotate clips as the software analyzes the video 13. Inherent database controls, to browse and use video and text data 14. Use concept and pattern searches for stored video data 15. Provide administration tools for all video analysis results, and storage of data and 16. Preview all video analysis, and provide capability to create new assets from video materials 17. Ability to store original materials in different formats, for customer replication. 18. Ability to provide content delivery to customers, replicating from master 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. If you have any questions, please send them via an e-mail to mkreitler@ntis.fedworld.gov, FAX (703) 605-6888. WEB: NIST Contracts Homepage, http://www.nist.gov/admin/od/contract/contract.htm. E-MAIL: Morgan Kreitler, Multimedia Business Specialist, mkreitler@ntis.fedworld.gov. Posted 07/11/00 (W-SN473550).

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