Multimedia search engine

Michal Krsek, UISK Charles University at Prague & CESNETIvan Doležal, CESNET

Michal Illich, Jyxo

Electronic Media

• TV & radio

• Organized in channels

• Zero democracy in programming (by channel management)

• Centralized production (big guys business)

Internet

• Not only web (audio/video and others)– remember archie.sura.net?

• IPTV / Live / Video on demand

• Navigation only via web

=> not easy to find specific program in A/V

Search options I

• Voice recognition– Language identification– Accents

• Video recognition– Text interpretation (bush vs. Bush)– Low video quality

Search options II

• Indexing of web pages– Yahoo! does (google bomb target)

Metadata– “Out of the band Metadata” (as in librarian

world)– Metadata in files (added during editing or

encoding)

Project description

• Started in 2003 (oh yes, one year before Truveo)

• “Google for audio and video on Internet”

• No support from content owners

• Modular concept

• Start with .cz Internet

Technical description I

• Crawler– Crawls web and collects addresses (URL)– Exports URL of multimedia files– Software written by Jyxo (Linux console app)

Technical description II

• Distiller– Imports addresses of multimedia files– Distills metadata (and makes XML files)– Makes screenshots (if video in file)– C# software and mplayer (windows apps)– Runs in distributed environment

Technical description III• Database

– Imports XML metadata files to full text DB – Responses back-end queries for web queries – And others fulltext things (i.e. language)

www.yournamehere.

edu

crawlingCrawls webpages

Gets addressesFilter A/V adresses

distillation

Gets metadata from multimedia files

indexingsearch

Holds fulltext databaseProvides back end for querries

Distillation• Proces description

– Get URL from DB– Get metadata from file available at URL– Get screenshots at 1,30,50 sec – Save metadata & screenshot

Distillation• Use of win32 applications

– Native players (WMP, RP, Qt) for metadata– Mplayer for screenshots

• Takes average one minute– Slow servers/bandwidth– Streaming without fast fw

DistillerGRID• <= need 16 years to distill 8.500.000 URLs• Ideal application for GRID computing

– Not need of real time response

– Huge amount of computing time needed

• Two ways to create GRID– Build dedicated system

– Use of current capacities

Computing machines• PC/Windows based• HW independent• Secure environment

– Security of hosting system

– Security of distillation process

• Well connected• Not needed to run 24x7• Easy to manage

Configuration• ~100 PCs in student labs • Running on demand during weekends• Virtual machines (MS VPC 2004) in hosting

system (Win XP)• Three different HW configurations • Peak rate about 5000 URLs per minute • SQL as background -> pull distribution of work

Actual status I• HW

– 20 crawlers– 2 servers for fulltext DB (<1.400 USD)– Distillation stations (X office PC)– Connected by 1 Gb/s to CESNET2 -> GEANT2

Actual status II• Database

– EU + .com, .edu– > 13.000.000 URLs– > 8.000.000 valid– > 2.800.000 with screenshots

Live show?

Want to test?• URLs

– http://multimedia.jyxo.cz – http://videoserver.cesnet.cz/videoarchiv_en.php

– For XML interface send me e-mail

Questions ?Comments ?

Michal Krsek, Michal.Krsek@cesnet.cz (academic service, cooperation)Michal Illich, michal@illich.cz (business service)