National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration's (OE) video server: the library portal

The NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration will be collecting a significant amount of video and audio material from the projects searching new domains of the oceans. As the volume expands, the access to video and audio material requires a new approach. This paper introduces the key elements of a successful service for identifying, examining clips and transferring selected subsets. Cataloguing the video files and the audio files by location, depth and context is the first activity. On-line catalogues can assist the selection process by the robust cataloguing protocols and web-friendly access. A solid foundation of identification can extend the value to other data that is related to exploration imagery. Publications, data sets and other images such as photographs can be linked with search tools optimized for digital data and card catalogue entries. The purpose of this paper is to initiate a dialogue with the ocean community for addressing video services. An on-line catalogue will be the access tool for the video material server. Bandwidth is the critical factor for video files so a production capability for "on demand Digital Versatile Disc" writing will be incorporated into the design. The raw material can be transformed into special application resource files for educational packages where text, graphics and video files are gathered into a multimedia ensemble. The video server technology has several significant benefits to other NOAA programs where real-time access and indexing can be essential functionality. The new Coastal Ocean Observing plans will have video data; therefore, solving the video server problems will have national implications for all time series observations. Ocean Frontier, the OE Program experience, begins the exploring process for the video serving challenge. Join the dialogue as NOAA brings the images of the ocean into mainstream applications.