European Research and Consensus on Interactive Multimedia Project Acronym EURORIM Title European Research and Consensus on Interactive Multimedia Subject Index Code Electronics, Microelectronics; Information Processing, Information Systems; Telecommunications Other Indexes Global Service Integration Objective The aim of the EURORIM project is to support the ACTS concertation activities in the field of multimedia. In particular EURORIM supports the work of the SII Chain and Domain 1. An important element therein is the development and dissemination of guidelines for the implementation of advanced multimedia services, based on the work of the projects in the SII chain. Guidelines in this area will be targeted at the main sector actors, including users, in multimedia communication. Guidelines are collective output of the projects in the ACTS programme and represent helpful reference documentation to existing and new sector actors in order to plan their business in the complex environment of post 1998 Europe. Dissemination of Guidelines will be a major objective for EURORIM, to which it has dedicated a significant amount of manpower. The sector actors, including user and SMEs, are all addressed in the dissemination activity of the project. Wide-dissemination workshops, as well as more targeted actions towards specific classes of recipients are planned within the activities of the project. Special attention is given to the Central and Eastern European countries, and two of the partners in the consortium, from Hungary and Poland respectively, have been given the specific task of dissemination in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. General Information Technical Approach An integral part of the project work is constituted by the provision of a full support to the SII chain activities both from a technical and from a logistic point of view. The work of the chain is further complemented by providing techno-economic analysis and demand assessment based on the results of the trials of the SII projects. Support will also be provided to the Domain 1 activities by assisting in the preparation of the Domain 1 overall workplan and meeting agenda. EURORIM will provide assistance for the preparation of the Domain 1 meeting reports and will provide logistic and technical support for the preparation of Domain 1 special events such as workshops. Provision of support to the SIA Chain for the development of the SIA guidelines has also become part of the project tasks as a results of the first year activities. The actual co-operation method and support mechanism will be developed during the current year of activities. The EURORIM consortium has been established in such a way that representatives of the different sector actors have active roles in key areas. This ensures that the competence and interests of the key players are considered in the development of the guidelines. Particular attention will be paid to the different players of the multimedia world, ensuring that roles and interfaces are well specified; thereby taking into consideration technical and non-technical aspects, such as regulation and security requirements. The project has been very attentive, since its conception, to the requirements of the SII Chain and has made provisions to guarantee full co-operation between the project and the chain. Most of the partners in the project are already active in a project of the SII chain and the selection of partners has been made in order to provide the technical competence to cover the different clusters of the chain activity. EURORIM carefully considers the ongoing activities within the ACTS Programme as well as outside. Links have been developed to existing ACTS projects to ensure synergy and avoid duplication of efforts. External bodies are also important for EURORIM, that monitors their activities and creates a focus for consensus building activities within the chain in order to promote European views to world-wide organisations such as ITU-T, DAVIC, or the ATM-Forum. An important point of interest for the project are the ETSI activities contributing to the development of an European position on Information Society standardisation. Summary of Trial By its nature EURORIM closely follows the ACTS trials and their results.. The project itself is not directly involved in trials, however. Key Issues Effective co-operation with the chain; Effective and efficient monitoring of an liaison with the ACTS Programme; Effective contribution to the development of guidelines with a sufficient depth and coverage, and accessible for a wide audience; Effective and targeted dissemination of information in general, the guidelines in particular. Achievements The main 1996 achievements are: development and release of a first set of SII Guidelines; support to SII Chain and Domain 1, with provision of a report on the results achieved during the year; support to Euro-IDMS initiative; a document indicating the current state of development of the work has been released; set-up of electronic communication facilities (WWW, discussion fora, ftp, e-mail reflectors); definition of the work plan for dissemination; definition of the cost-profit model analysis for multimedia services related to the residential market. Future activities will include: dissemination of results; support to the SIA Chain; development and analysis of evolution scenarios and regulatory aspects; techno-economic analysis based on data from SII project trials. Expected Impact The more visible impact of the project is expected particularly with regard to the dissemination of guidelines and of accompanying information; dissemination is a key activity and responsibility of the project, and involves in addition to the dissemination itself, promotion activities, and preparation of the material for dissemination. The project is expected to have a less visible, but equally important impact on the development of the guidelines: in a close interaction with the chain contributions will be made to the scope, coverage, accessibility and quality of the guidelines. Also a significant impact on the development of multimedia services in Europe is expected through the Euro-IDMS initiative. The Euro-IDMS initiative has as its main objective the formulation of a MoU among the sector actors for the definition and implementation, in Europe-wide trials, of a set of specifications (based on a selection of a tightly defined set of options drawn from current specification in, e.g., DAVIC and DVB) for the deployment of interoperable multimedia services and applications. Programme Acronym ACTS Subprogramme Area Multimedia services Partners ITALY Italtel Coordinator GERMANY Siemens AG Partner GREECE NTUA Partner BELGIUM BBN Partner HUNGARY CIM-EXP Partner ITALY Databank Partner BELGIUM Gillam Partner RUSSIAN FEDERATION Nokia Partner UNITED KINGDOM CCIR Partner GERMANY IAT Partner BELGIUM DATSA Partner POLAND ClicO Partner DENMARK CTI Partner ITALY Alenia Spazio Partner ITALY STREAM Partner CORDIS RTD-PROJECTS/© European Communities, 1998