Multimedia databases

Multimedia databases (MMDBs) must cope with the increased usage of huge amounts of multimedia data in several diverse applications. These include: digital libraries, manufacturing and retailing, art and entertainment, journalism and so forth. Some inherent qualities of multimedia data have direct and indirect impacts on the design and development of a multimedia database. MMDBs need to have all the functionalities of traditional databases. In addition, they must have new and enhanced functionalities and features. Broadly, MMDBs are required to provide unified frameworks for storing, processing, retrieving, transmitting, and presenting a variety of media data types in a wide variety of formats. At the same time, they must adhere to numerous constraints that are absent in traditional databases. The article considers the issues involved in the design of a multimedia database system are numerous and quite complex