MPEG-7: the generic multimedia content description standard, part 1

The recently completed ISO/IEC, International Standard 15938, formally called the Multimedia Content Description Interface (but better known as MPEG-7), provides a rich set of tools for completely describing multimedia content. The standard wasn't just designed from a content management viewpoint (classical archival information). It includes an innovative description of the media's content, which we can extract via content analysis and processing. MPEG-7 also isn't aimed at any one application; rather, the elements that MPEG-7 standardizes support as broad a range of applications as possible. This is one of the key differences between MPEG-7 and other metadata standards; it aims to be generic, not targeted to a specific application or application domain. The article provides a comprehensive overview of MPEG-7's motivation, objectives, scope, and components.