What is FATHOM™?

Fathom is a new kind of media system manager for controlling hardware-based MPEG2 playback devices. Fathom is user friendly, yet powerful. With Fathom, you get real-time control and playlist creation. It delivers clip control, real time monitoring, diagnostics and media management, all in an organized, easy to use cross platform environment. Fathom is currently compatible with Adtec brand players, but the engine is designed to be extended to supporting other brands of players with the same interface, and the same feature set.

Hardware-based MPEG2 players? Who uses those?

Lots of different kinds of people use them. They are more powerful and robust than DVD players, have a broader range of capabilities, and support MPEG2 video at greater than 2x the bandwidth that DVD is limited to. That translates to MUCH higher video quality. The problem has been that managing the players, and the media has been restricted to professionals and gurus — until now.

Connecting to a digital media player is a different experience with FATHOM™.

Before Fathom, managing a hardware MPEG2 player could involve lots of different software, command-line utilities, FTP tools, even custom applications. The player could be in the same room, yet you would feel miles away... and if the player WAS miles away, you could feel so disconnected from what it was doing that you may as well not be connected at all.

We know this feeling. We've done the same things, with the same tools. We're professional designers and integrators of advanced digital media systems. We've designed and installed some of the most sophisticated video systems in the world. Fathom is based on our experience, and is designed to put you in closer touch with the media, and the hardware.

FATHOM™ makes dealing with these powerful machines a dynamic visual experience.

Upon network connection, Fathom immediately queries the player on multiple levels. Seconds after connection, which takes two clicks of the mouse, the interface has adapted itself to the specifics of the player, populating its clip bins with an individual button for each media clip on the system, and displaying the currently playing clip's information and playback status. Fathom keeps you constantly informed of the player's status, and gives you single click control of changing it.

Fathom is ready to go with all of its functions almost immediately - and all of its functions can be used simultaneously.

While you are transferring new media onto the system and creating an updated playlist, Fathom is informing you continuously of the player's status. You can grab control at any time, insert a clip into the running list, jump playlist locations, preview the video content, download files from the player to your local system and fire in esoteric commands via the command line whenever you need to. Plus, Fathom can log in, perform many different operations and status monitoring, and log out - without ever interrupting the video the audience is watching.

Custom thumbnails for all your media give you a visual connection to the media.

Not JUST visual, but visual and dynamic. The thumbnails are Fathoms control buttons. Selecting a thumbnail for the clip can play it back, make it the next thing to play, add it to an off-line playlist, and more.

Don't have custom thumbnails for a player's content yet? You can grab them from Fathom's video preview manually, use the stealth capture function to automatically grab one the next time the clip plays, or let Fathom drive in "auto capture" mode and watch how fast you can populate those clip bins with custom images! AND, if you don't have a way to get video into your computer, we let you import JPGs and do screen caps straight into the thumbnails for your clips.

Fathom's Player Profiles (a custom database Fathom creates for each registered player) cache all kinds of information about the media on your players, and all the connection information. You think connecting the first time is fast and dramatic... wait until you see it the second time!

Fathom gives you the most possible real-time interactivity with your player, and boosts your media handling productivity - or we'll write an update and give it to you for free!

(ALL Fathom updates are free, anyway. But it sounds good.)

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