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But the latest FedNet advance—a technological one—is a quantum leap. Thanks to FedNet's reCap searchable video database, you can now access video footage of government proceedings, on demand, on your desktop, within minutes of the actual event. Designed with FedNet's proprietary software and video indexing application, the reCap database can be accessed from any Windows-compatible Web browser anywhere in the world. Keyword and phrase searches produce results in seconds and include audio, video, and contextual transcripts along with timecode reference. While one can go to the FedNet site (www.FedNet.net) and see lots of live footage for free, the ability to search through six months of archived video footage (the reCap service) is available only to subscribers. FedNet president Keith Carney points to PBS as an example of a client that was quick to see the advantages of the reCap video database. PBS was doing a show about the Enron scandal and needed footage. Normally, it would take PBS producers days to wade through available footage, and they'd need to hire highly-paid videotape editors. However, things changed dramatically when they subscribed to reCap, according to Carney. "In five minutes PBS had what they were looking for," he says. He estimates that reCap saved PBS $100,000 in production and editing costs. PBS producers didn't get usable high-quality footage directly, however. What they got (over the Internet on their office PCs) was access to video streams in Windows Media format (at 80Kbps). But since streams in the reCap database are timecoded, PBS producers could tell FedNet staffers exactly which clips they wanted, and FedNet then express-mailed them the footage on a high-quality tape format for use in the finished TV program. Carney says he's keeping the reCap subscription price low ($195 a month) to entice parties other than his traditional clients (news organizations) to subscribe. But he doubts if reCap's use will filter down to the average Web surfer. "We're not going after the home users," says Carney. "This isn't for consumers. This is more of a B2B service." Carney sees a subscription to reCap as a corporate insurance policy. "If someone is trashing IBM on the floor of the House, they need to know that," he says. "You want to make sure who's on your side." Interestingly, one of the heaviest users of reCap's video footage of the government is the government itself. Many federal agencies routinely monitor what's happening on the floors of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Senators, for example, often need to know how a particular bill is doing in the House, so they frequently send an assistant or intern to sit in on House sessions and take notes. Thanks to reCap, a Senator can now simply search through the reCap database for video footage of the debate on the bill he or she is monitoring. The Senator can do it directly. This saves money and frees up staffers to do more productive work. Carney also points out another advantage of replacing staffers: "Our system doesn't call in sick." FedNet's decision to build its own video database/search tools is interesting, especially considering how many such tools are commercially available. "We kicked the tires of the other video database technologies—Virage, MediaSite, Convera—and finally scrapped them all and built our own," says Carney. "Generally, those products are difficult to use and integrate," he argues. Carney also didn't like the way those companies charge for their software—with per-user site licenses. "Now that I have my own software, I can expand our coverage without worrying about the cost of more new licenses," he says. While Carney doesn't rule out the idea of someday offering his company's video search tool to the market, he says: "We're not in the business of selling software." He also admits that the tool is limited primarily to keyword searching. "We haven't put a lot of logic into our search product to date—just enough to meet the needs of our clients," says Carney. Likewise, FedNet's servers and streaming equipment, housed at company headquarters on Capital Hill, are nothing fancy. Carney says that FedNet is using "standard off-the-shelf" hardware including an Osprey capture card. His staff programmers, though, have tweaked things a bit. "We use board-level programming," says Carney. "We can control the board through proprietary software so we can do things like control color saturation and make other adjustments on-the-fly."
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