MPEG-7

Contributor: Kiran Kumar

MPEG-7 is a multimedia content description standard. This description will be associated with the content itself, to allow fast and efficient searching for material that is of interest to the user. MPEG-7 is formally called Multimedia Content Description Interface. Thus, it is not a standard which deals with the actual encoding of moving pictures and audio, like MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. It uses XML to store metadata, and can be attached to timecode in order to tag particular events, or synchronise lyrics to a song, for example.

It was designed to standardise:

• a set of description schemes and descriptors

 a language to specify these schemes, called the Description Definition Language (DDL)

•  a scheme for coding the description

There are many applications and application domains which will benefit from the MPEG-7 standard. A few application examples are:

• Digital library: Image/video catalogue, musical dictionary.
• Multimedia directory services: e.g. yellow pages.
• Broadcast media selection: Radio channel, TV channel.
• Multimedia editing: Personalized electronic news service, media authoring.
• Security services: Traffic control, production chains...
• E-business: Searching process of products.
• Cultural services: Art-galleries, museums...
• Educational applications.
• Biomedical applications.
• scription Definition Language (DDL)
• a scheme for coding the description