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1994-04-17
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IBM ULTIMEDIA HELPS SYDNEY WIN OLYMPICS 2000 BID
23 September, 1993
Today, the International Olympic Committee announced that Sydney,
Australia has been awarded the right to host the Olympics in the year
2000. IBM multimedia technology played a key role in the success.
The two IBM Ultimedia* PS/2* computers used by Sydney Olympics
2000 Bid to give a digital multimedia presentation to IOC members came
through with flying colours.
Ian Mulligan, senior manager at Andersen Consulting, was
responsible for developing the system. Called Sydney 2000, the
presentation is an interactive touchscreen-based system that runs
direct from the hard-disk on an IBM 386 Ultimedia computer.
Incorporating video, audio, text and still images, the system
presents information on Australia and Sydney, such as weather and
time zones, as well as aspects of the bid itself, in particular venues,
scheduling and community support.
The interaction was designed so that users can access any type of
information in any sequence they wish, at their leisure.
"The presentation had to be glitzy enough to achieve two goals -
it had to attract the passing public to use it and it had to
convincingly demonstrate the advantages of Sydney as a location for
the Games to the IOC", Mr Mulligan said.
"We believed digital multimedia was ideal for the purpose, as
it allowed us to integrate attention-grabbing functions
such as high-end video, audio and graphics capabilities, as well as
capabilities for user interaction, into a single PC package."
Andersen's developed the system using developer tools from IBM Australia
including Audio Video Connection (AVC) and Digital Video Interactive
(DVI) toolkits.
DVI technology, developed jointly by IBM and Intel, allows the video
component of the system to be as high-resolution and life-like as
possible. When the motion video happens, the DVI board allows 22
megabits of information, or 25 movie frames, to hit the screen per
second.
DVI also allows video to be stored in digital format on hard
disk, CD-ROM or optical disk. This meant the system was flexible
and could be changed very quickly at short notice.
"IBM's Audio Video Connection (AVC) technology was the only
stable authoring package for DVI at the time", Mr Mulligan said.
"In addition, it is very easy to use, which allowed us to produce
the system very quickly - important given our five week time
restriction."
"It was by far the best demonstration. Everyone was very
impressed, including people from other bidding cities.
"The Berlin people were amazed - I don't think they thought we
had or could use such technology in Australia."
"The only other interactive system at Monte Carlo was Berlin's,
which was an analogue system based on laser-disc.
"Anything you see on analogue technology, we can do on digital
technology - the difference is that on digital we can manipulate
graphics and data, add to it, and edit it all ourselves on the
PC."
A complex navigational system, using colour codes and hot
buttons, allows users to navigate through five levels of data in
the system in any order or sequence they choose.
"There are hot buttons everywhere - you can point to the name,
number, picture, whatever, which lets you get to the information
the way you want to rather than having to follow the way the
designer wants you to get it", Mr Mulligan said.
For further information, contact:
Kate Dennis
Personal Computer Business Unit
IBM Australia
Ph: +61-2-354 4864
Ian Mulligan
Andersen Consulting
Ph: +61-2-964 6900
Bernie Ward
NSW Public Works Department
Olympics 2000 Project
Ph: +61-2-255 1905
Andrew Woodward
Sydney Olympics 2000 Bid Ltd
Ph: +61-2 931 2000
* Trademark or registered trademark of the IBM Corporation
in the US and/or other countries.