The database is accessed via an FTP server that is behind a firewall. Please email Mark Nixon (msn@ecs.soton.ac.uk) the IP addresses of machines that require access so they can be added to the firewall configuration. A username and password will be emailed back to you. If your machine is not known to the firewall, connection attempts will be refused.

We also require you to sign a database release agreement and return a signed copy to us before access can be granted. Either:

• fax it back to us at +44 (0) 23 8059 4498.
• scan and email to Mark Nixon (msn@ecs.soton.ac.uk).
• post a copy to Professor Mark Nixon, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.

Please also be aware that the database is 350GB and growing, so FTP is not really a viable option for getting the whole database. This means of access is intended to allow easy browsing of the contents and partial downloads.

To save bandwidth, some portions of the database have been compressed and are available here. See the README.txt file for descriptions of the files. Mail us if you'd like something compressed and put in this directory. Please note that DV files are already compressed.

Some quick links into the database:

• The root of the database.
• The large database directory.
• The small database directory.
• The stills directory.
• The XML directory.
• The info directory.

Some useful links

• A quick DV viewer (PAL only) used at Southampton
  • for Win32
  • for Linux (requires SDL, which is normally included in most Linux distributions)
• An open source DV decoder/encoder (we use a minorly modified version of this at Southampton)