Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) today announced that it will extend the reach of the Cannes Film Festival to Internet users worldwide.
As an official partner of the 1995 festival, ZDS and its technical software partners
will provide a worldwide web server containing a daily journal of festival news and views, background
information and compressed video clips for net users with high speed access.
In addition to worldwide access on the Internet, ZDS is also working with Staccato to provide the daily journal
and multimedia festival information on interactive workstations. These will be located at sites in Cannes and
other French cities. Finally, ZDS will provide the festival with a network of servers, desktop and portable
computers to ensure smooth organisation of this high profile event.
The ‘Golden Palm’ Server (La Palme D’or)
ZDS is working with Softway (a Franco-American software distributor) and Multimedia Partners to provide the worldwide web server
giving the latest news and views from the festival. The server will be available from 10 May until the end of
July, updated daily for the duration of the festival which runs from 17 to 28 May 1995.
Interactive Workstations
ZDS is working with a number of key partners to provide the festival’s daily journal to a wider audience. These
include Staccato, the producer and developer of the COMM CANNES interactive festival journal, leading
French television station Canal+ and the FNAC, a leading French distributor. In addition to various locations
in the Festival Palace, there will be high-performance interactive workstations in four of the major hotels in
Cannes. Six other workstations in the main FNACs in Paris and Lille will be connected via a high speed ISDN
link.
The interactive workstations are based around the Z-STATION EX Pentium desktop PC, with partner Sygma
Design providing the MPEG decompression boards. The touch-sensitive screens have been developed around
ZDS monitors in conjunction with Microtouch Systems.
Administrative Network
This network will handle the registration of the 35,000 delegates attending the festival. It will also be used to
organise ticketing for the competing films and to allocate seating for the 11 days of the festival. The ZDS
network is based around the popular Z-SERVER LT running Windows NT , linked to Z-STAR EX portables and
Z-STATION ES desktop systems.
