Hi,

  This message is for the Instance Search (INS) task Participants of TRECVID 2019 :

First, we would like to get your feedback regarding reducing the time between releasing the topics (queries)

and submitting results to NIST. The proposed time is 4 weeks instead of the current 6 weeks.

The motivation for this change is to keep the Ad-hoc nature of the original task application (less training data and less time).

Please reply back to the task coordinators ([email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected])

with your thoughts of keeping the 6 weeks, reducing it to 4 weeks, 2 weeks? or doesn't make any difference.

Second, in order to make sure all teams participating in the task are in sync with the task guidelines

we would like to point out some important information and milestones about the task:

System Task:

Given image/video examples of a target person and a known action from a predefined

action list, return the top 1000 shots that include the target person doing the required action.

Video Dataset:

- The BBC Eastenders dataset will be used as in previous years. ALL teams need to submit (ASAP) a new license

   agreement to BBC (even if they have the data from before) The license for the Eastenders data is valid

   for only 1 year and thus need to be annually renewed

- Please request the data by submitting the filled and signed data agreement form below to Angela Ellis ([email protected]) :

  https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/active/data.permission.forms/BBC.EastEnders/BBC_Eastenders_License_agreement_2019.pdf

- The master shot reference for the data (including shot IDs systems should use in their run submissions) can be found in the active participants area here:

  https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/active/bbc.eastenders.master.shot.reference/

- Only video ID 0 are dedicated for development. Otherwise, teams can use external data and/or NIST provided image/video examples for topics (queries)

  to train their systems. Testing data can NOT be used in development of systems.

Topics (Queries):

- A list of actions defined by NIST from which the testing topics will be chosen can be found here:

  https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/tv19.ins.actions.txt

- Video examples of the above action list are also available here:

   https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/active/INS/topics/

- According to the schedule (https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/schedule.html), NIST will distribute 50 testing topics (queries) including

  30 topics to be evaluated and scored in 2019 and 20 progress topics to be assessed in 2020 and 2021 (see guidelines for more details).

- The testing topics will provide a few example images and videos for target persons and ask to find the target person

   doing one of the predefined actions. An example for sample topics can be found here: https://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/dtds/ins.sample.topics.xml

Run Submissions:

- Please submit your runs according to the format required in the DTD (http://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2019/dtds/videoSearchRunResult.dtd).

- Please plan ahead to submit your runs on time according to the schedule.

May 20      : Instance search topics available from NIST