MPEG-7 multimedia description schemes

MPEG-7 Multimedia Description Schemes (MDSs) are metadata structures for de scribing and annotating audio-visual (AV) content. The Description Schemes (DSs) provide a standardized way of describing in XML the important concept s related to AV content description and content management in order to faci litate searching, indexing, filtering and access. The DSs are defined using the MPEG-7 Description Definition Language, which is based on the XML Sche ma Language, and are instantiated as documents or streams. The resulting de scriptions can be expressed in a textual form (i.e., human readable XML for editing, searching, filtering) or compressed binary form (i.e., for storag e or transmission). In this paper, we provide an overview of the MPEG-7 MDS s and describe their targeted functionality and use in multimedia applicati ons.