The distributed information system which was developed in FAETHON offers enhanced search and retrieval capabilities to users interacting with digital audiovisual (a/v) archives. The novelty of the system is the intelligent access to heterogeneous audiovisual content. The FATEHON system therefore exploits the advances in handling a/v content and related metadata, as introduced by MPEG-4 and worked out by MPEG-7, to offer advanced access services characterized by the tri-fold "semantic phrasing of the request (query)", "unified handling" and "personalized response". From a technical point of view, the FAETHON system plays the role of an intermediate access server residing between the end users and multiple heterogeneous audiovisual archives organized according to new MPEG standards. Various types of interfacing modules were designed / implemented to support smooth communication of the intermediate server to the a/v archives.
FAETHON  was a project from 2001 to 2004 and was co funded by the European Commission 5th Framework programme.