The MPEG-7 query format: a new standard in progress for multimedia query by content

In recent years, the amount of Internet accessible digital audiovisual media files has vastly increased. Therefore the need to describe the media (by way of metadata) has also increased significantly. MPEG-7 (finalized in 2001) provides a comprehensive and rich metadata standard for the description of multimedia content. Unfortunately, a standardized query format does not exist for MPEG-7, or other multimedia metadata. Such a standard would provide for communications between querying clients and databases, supporting cross-modal and cross-media retrieval. The lSO/lEC SC29WG11 committee decided therefore to contribute to this application space by adding such functionality as a new part of the MPEG-7 series of standards. In response to a Call for Proposals, six proposals were submitted. This paper describes the strengths of each proposal as well as the resulting draft standard for the MPEG-7 query format.