Multimedia Database Management System is First Optimized for Multimedia Cataloging Applications; Multimedia Cataloging is Key Business Use of Multimedia.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 1995--MediaWay Inc. has Thursday introduced a new multimedia database management system, called MediaDB which has been specially designed to serve a wide variety of digital multimedia cataloging applications.

Such applications are used to preserve, organize, and deploy the increasing amount of valuable digital multimedia data used in the ordinary course of business.

Multimedia cataloging represents an entirely new software application category. Its market did not exist until recently, when multimedia computers became cost effective, and commonplace. It also had to wait until digital representations of photographs, film clips, and audio clips, became the editing and archiving medium of choice for business and government.

"We have met with hundreds of companies that have an urgent need to find an easy way to store and use the increasing amount of multimedia data in their organizations," said Chetan Saiya, MediaWay's president and CEO. "When it comes down to it, all of these applications basically require the same underlying approach -- multimedia cataloging."

Multimedia cataloging applications can include the storage and archiving of multimedia information by multimedia developers, newspapers, wire services, other news media, or other businesses needing to keep track of their massive amounts of multimedia material such as video clips, news clips, sound clips, or photos. These same businesses may want to develop ways to produce revenue from deployment of such material, by offering stock photo services, subscription newsfilm clips, or other revenue producing applications.

Multimedia cataloging can include development of an artist's casting service available to subscribers over networks. Electronic casting services allow users to browse through an entire catalog of performers at their desktops, seeing examples of artists' performances, screen tests, auditions, and other work products, as well as their relevant work history.

Physicians, educators and programmers will collaborate on a variety of multimedia cataloging applications which include remote x-ray diagnosis systems, surgical training CD-ROMs, patient-care archives, as well as massive diagnostic databases available to physicians and surgeons on-line.

Merchandising uses for the technology are widespread. Not only will multimedia cataloging enable merchandisers to internally manage vast amounts of product information such as drawings, photographs, and specifications, but they will also create digital product catalogs. Consumers with a CD-ROM catalog from Lands End, Talbot's, or Victoria's Secret would be able to "try" outfits before buying.

Similarly, business forms printers will develop huge, internal archives of forms, logos and artwork while providing digital "samples" to their clients via the "information highway".

Saiya explained that existing database technologies, most of which are based on techniques developed twenty years ago, cannot for the most part, handle the complexities of managing large multimedia files and distributing them in a client-server environment.

One multimedia "object", such as a photograph, may require one hundred to tens of thousands of times the computer memory that a simple page of text would require. Even more recent database designs -- based on objects, but not specifically optimized for the needs of deploying multimedia in networked environments -- also can't handle the challenges presented by multimedia cataloging.

"Because of its size and complexity, multimedia data cannot be stored and used in the same way as character-based record oriented data," said David Yockelson, program director at Meta Group in Stamford, CT. "Neither traditional database management systems nor object-oriented database management systems are optimized to handle these challenges as well as products like MediaDB, which are designed for the special requirements of handling multimedia."

About the MediaDB Family

To adequately handle multimedia cataloging applications, MediaWay set out to create, in 1990, a unique multimedia database management system. The result was MediaDB DBMS (database management system), and MediaDB ADK (application developers' kit).

MediaDB DBMS is an object-oriented, multimedia database management system, which was designed from the ground up for use with multimedia applications and computers. Corporate applications developers, value-added resellers, service bureaus, and others, have been utilizing MediaDB ADK to create specific multimedia cataloging applications.

First customer shipments of early versions of MediaDB occurred in June, 1993. The company now has significant installations at a variety of Fortune 500 and U.S. government sites.

MediaDB

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The MediaDB DBMS and ADK share the following features:

--Store, retrieve and modify multimedia information as easily as a traditional DBMS handles text and numbers;

--Have built-in compression technologies to handle complex images and sound objects;

--Have built-in video, sound and image browsing and playback tools to simplify application development;

--Have multimedia-specific client-server architecture, with support for heterogeneous clients and servers;

--Have multimedia-specific support for LAN and WAN networking. -0-

With this version of MediaDB, the company has added critical features to this capability, based upon extensive customer experience in developing cataloging applications with the initial releases. These include highly interactive querying and browsing tools, support for industry standard SQL, multimedia specific transaction management and performance enhancement for image display and compression.

With its multimedia-specific, client-server model, MediaDB supports highly portable, heterogeneous clients (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Windows NT, SunOS and other versions of UNIX) and servers (including Novell Netware, Windows NT, Mac OS, SunOS and other versions of UNIX) over a variety of local and wide-area networks, including TCP/IP and IPX/SPX.

The clients are designed to take advantage of the ever-increasing power at the desktop, but with very modest storage demands. The servers are highly scaleable, and can take advantage of emerging multiprocessor technologies.

To prevent a network from being overwhelmed by the unpredictable and potentially huge sizes of multimedia objects, MediaDB includes powerful techniques for abstracting, summarizing, or compressing and decompressing objects, making them network friendly. Moreover, the multimedia-specific, object-oriented database model which underlies MediaDB makes it simple to define powerful human interfaces and complex data relationships. MediaDB also includes an industry-standard SQL interface.

The MediaDB ADK is used to create a multimedia application, populate the database with data, and to implement the various methods by which users will interact with the database. It has been especially engineered for the multimedia developer, with capabilities for displaying still and moving images, recording and playing sounds, and generating powerful but simple graphical user interfaces suitable for non-technical end users. Developers of multimedia cataloging applications, in particular have found its features to be well suited to their task.

Price and Availability

MediaDB DBMS 2.0 will be available in mid-February. Development system pricing starts at $10,000; runtime versions of MediaDB DBMS are priced from $10,000 for 20 users.

MediaWay Inc., with headquarters in Santa Clara, is the leader in providing multimedia database management systems for multimedia cataloging applications. MediaWay is privately held and was founded in 1990.

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Note to Editors: All trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective owners.

CONTACT: MediaWay Inc., Sunnyvale

Chetan Saiya, 408/748-7407 (President)

e-mail: [e-mail]

or

Roeder-Johnson Corp.

Abigail Johnson, 415/802-1851

e-mail: [e-mail]