Virage Unveils Internet Video Guide
Virage's New Internet-Wide Video Search Engine Powers RealNetworks' RealPlayer, Real.com Guide and RealJukebox
REAL CONFERENCE 2000, SAN JOSE, California—May 22, 2000—Virage, Inc., a leading provider of products and application services that enable video for the Internet, today announced the introduction of the Virage Internet Video Guide™, the most relevant search engine for video on the World Wide Web. Virage's video search engine provides portals, destination sites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) a highly-relevant search index for video on the Internet, offering users accurate search results and rich information about video on the Web. In addition, Virage announced that RealNetworks®, Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK) is using the Virage Internet Video Guide to power video searches on RealPlayer®, Real.com™ Guide and RealJukebox™. This product extends Virage's Internet video platform, complementing its software product line and extending its existing video application services and infrastructure solutions.
Using a combination of its award-winning automatic indexing software, Virage continually updates a high-quality index of video files on the Internet. This index, and the associated high-speed search engine, provides users the ability to quickly locate videos based on what is actually in the video, not simply by filenames or text surrounding video on a web page.
The Virage Internet Video Guide is a complete, turnkey solution that any web site may use to add streaming video search functionality to its content offering. It can be easily integrated into any web site, providing a straightforward way to add support for the increasing amounts of broadband content on the Internet. The search and results pages can be completely customized to the look and feel of any web site, while Virage data centers provide complete outsourced application hosting of the video search.
"The Virage Internet Video Guide constitutes the first search engine to really tackle the challenge of quickly finding broadband video assets on the Web," said Michael Moon, President at GISTICS Inc., a leading research firm that tracks the worldwide media producer industry. "With this new piece of Internet infrastructure in place, portals and destination sites now have a great way to help Web surfers quickly find and browse particularly relevant videos. Virage's unique search capabilities unlock a wealth of Internet video programming."
"Search is one of the killer applications of the Internet," said Paul Lego, chairman and CEO of Virage. "and yet, until today, no one had figured out how to provide a thorough and relevant search function for video content. The Virage Internet Video Guide provides a straightforward way for viewers to find and browse rich media content and builds the foundation for the business of video on the Internet."
"The streaming media market has been waiting for a search engine that indexes high caliber Internet video, letting consumers quickly locate media that interests them," said Paul Sagan, president and COO at Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM). "The Virage Internet Video Guide provides a compelling value proposition for content providers to help them monetize their rich media assets."
The Virage Internet Video Guide leverages content which Virage has encoded and indexed for a wide range of top-tier content owners such as ABC News, CNET, Lifetime Entertainment, ON24 and Red Herring, along with general Web content located by Virage's own highly-specialized media crawler, to give end-users unparalleled access to premium video on the Web. Furthermore, the video search engine was designed from the ground up to be "content owner-friendly." For instance, when a user selects a video clip of interest from the search results, he or she is taken directly to the content owner's site, preserving the integrity and context of the experience intended by the web site producer.
"At ABCNEWS.com we count on Virage to help us bring our television content to the Web," stated Bernard Gershon, senior vice president and general manager of ABCNEWS.com. "The Virage Internet Video Guide takes our relationship to the next level by driving traffic to ABCNEWS.com in a way that preserves our integrated web site experience, giving more Internet users access to ABCNEWS's premier programming at their convenience."
The Virage Internet Video Guide provides a high quality user experience by combining sophisticated, automated software tools with an experienced editorial team to index and categorize content. Computer-assisted editorial review provides clear, useful video descriptions. Employing Virage's leading software tools to perform in-depth analysis of the content within the video itself, the Virage Internet Video Guide does not rely on simple contextual assumptions from nearby text on a web page. This hybrid approach that leverages human editorial with technology ensures maximum relevance of search results.
Once presented, search results can be quickly browsed and assessed before clicking through to the source site and playing the video. Thumbnail images of the video content, known as keyframes, along with clear textual descriptions, give users a concise and low-bandwidth way to very quickly peruse significant amounts of video content, without requiring playback of the video itself. This eliminates the time-consuming process of trial-and-error playback of unwanted video files. Once the target video clip has been located, users can play back the video from the exact point of interest, eliminating time spent scrolling to find the right segment.
"Broadband media is placing new burdens on Internet infrastructure, requiring new reliable and scalable ways to locate and deliver rich media," said Bill Correll, group manager, Digital and Interactive Media Solutions at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "The Virage Internet Video Guide is poised to open the floodgates for video on the Web by providing a powerful new way to connect viewers with relevant content. As the platform underlying Virage's application services, Sun is proud to play a key role in this revolution."
Virage Internet Video Guide Application Features
Built on a robust and scalable application server platform designed to be seamlessly integrated into high traffic web sites, the Virage Internet Video Guide offers features including:
High performance search, browse and playback
Search based on keywords; ability to refine search by category
Continuously refreshed content and daily dead link elimination
JPEG visual preview of each clip
Video playback from exact point of interest
"Auto-publishing" capability that facilitates incorporating dynamically-generated video content anywhere on a site
Saving and sharing via email of links to favorite video clips
Personalized playlist generation
Transcript viewing for video provided by select content providers
Full support of videos in RealNetworks RealVideo, Microsoft Windows Media, and Apple QuickTime formats
Mission-critical application hosting capabilities including 24x7 monitoring, maintenance, support, security, storage and backup of all video index data
About Virage
Virage is a leading provider of products and application services that enable owners of video content to publish, manage, and distribute their video assets over the Internet or corporate intranets. Virage Interactive™ services provide content owners with the infrastructure for integrating Internet-compliant video into their web sites. Virage's VideoLogger™ and AudioLogger™ software enable real-time indexing and distribution of video across the Internet or corporate intranets. Virage customers include ABC, AltaVista, Associated Press, BBC, Boeing, CBS, CNET, CNN, Compaq, C-SPAN, DaimlerChrysler, FBI, FOX Sports, General Electric, General Motors, Harvard Business School, iVillage.com, Lifetime Entertainment, Lockheed Martin, MGM, Morgan Stanley, NASA, NBCi/SNAP.com, New York Times, NYSE, NTT, ON24, Paramount, PBS, RealNetworks, Reuters, Swiss Radio-TV, Telecinco, Yahoo! and Young & Rubicam. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, Virage was incorporated in 1995 to provide organizations with advanced methods for searching, locating, and using video content. Contact Virage at http://www.virage.com/ or (650) 573-3210.
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