Oracle® interMedia: Managing Multimedia Content

An Oracle Technical White Paper

February 1999
INTRODUCTION

Oracle interMedia is a product that enables Oracle8i to manage text, documents, image, audio, and
video in an integrated fashion with other enterprise information. It extends Oracle8i reliability,
availability, and data management to text and multimedia content in Internet, electronic commerce,
and media-rich applications.

Oracle interMedia enables open, standard SQL access using native text, image, audio, and video data
type services, operators, and metadata management. It includes Internet support for popular web
authoring tools, popular web servers, online Internet-based geocoding services for locator applications
and powerful text search features. Leading vendors of electronic document archiving, media asset
management, electronic commerce, and Internet publishing applications are choosing Oracle
interMedia to build reliable and scaleable solutions with Oracle8i.

Data server extensibility is a key mechanism in realizing Oracle’s strategic vision for managing
increasingly media-rich application data in a networked world. Oracle interMedia is built upon this
extensibility. It enables Oracle interMedia data to benefit from all Oracle8i capabilities and makes
Oracle interMedia operations as efficient as those of the kernel itself.

Oracle interMedia provides a base set of audio, image, and video data types, as well as support for text
search and retrieval for digital media management, and location queries. These data types can be
extended to support additional formats, new digital compression and decompression schemes
(codecs), specialized indices, custom query optimization and methods, data sources and even
specialized data processing algorithms.

Oracle interMedia is accessible to applications through both relational and object interfaces. Database
applications written in JAVA, C++, or traditional 3GLs can interface to Oracle interMedia through
modern class library interfaces, or PL/SQL™ and OCI.

These applications can easily add multiple image, audio, and video columns as objects in existing and
new relational tables. For example, you might want to store a short video clip of a training tape, an
audio recording containing a brief description of its contents, a syllabus of the course, a picture of the
instructor, and a set of maps and directions to each training center. Applications can use Oracle
interMedia to query and retrieve multimedia data in the same manner as any other relational data.

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Oracle interMedia media objects associate metadata (information about the media content) with the
actual media content. Oracle interMedia provides considerable flexibility in the storage of the actual
data. While Oracle interMedia makes it possible for metadata and media data to be stored together
within the Oracle8i tablespace, it also provides for the storage of the media data outside of the
database. This provides considerable storage flexibility with tradeoffs in security and manageability.
The media data can be easily imported into Oracle8i. These media data storage alternatives include:

• File-based large objects, or BFILEs, stored in local operating system-specific file-systems.

•
®
URLs containing image, audio and video data stored on any HTTP server such as the Oracle
Application Server.

• Streaming audio and video data stored on specialized media servers such as the Oracle
®

Video Server.

• Any other specially formatted multimedia data stored in BLOBS and any user-defined sources on
other servers.

Oracle interMedia provides rich data services that are useful in many types of applications. Examples
of applications that would benefit from Oracle interMedia abound. Emerging web and e-commerce
applications like Internet music, video and book stores have extensive needs for the management of
documents, multimedia content and HTML pages. Oracle interMedia facilitates development of
media repository applications to manage digital art galleries, stock photo and sound collections, and
document imaging and digital video libraries. Existing applications in diverse areas like real estate,
human resources and manufacturing can also be enriched with multimedia content through
Oracle interMedia.

These applications have common and unique requirements. Oracle interMedia image, audio, and
video data type services support common application requirements and can be extended to address
application-specific requirements. With Oracle interMedia, multimedia data can be managed as
easily as traditional relational data.

For more information on the text management and location services of Oracle interMedia, see the
Oracle interMedia Text Management and Oracle interMedia Locator technical white papers.

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PRODUCT OVERVIEW

MULTIMEDIA OBJECT DATA TYPES

Oracle interMedia uses object data types, similar to JAVA or C++ classes, to describe image, audio,
and video data. They are called ORDImage, ORDAudio, and ORDVideo. An instance of these
object data types consists of attributes, including metadata and the media data, and methods. Media
data is the actual image, audio or video. Metadata is information about the data, including
information like object length, compression or format. Methods are procedures that can be
performed on the object like store, deliver, compress or convert format.

The interMedia objects (ORDAudio, ORDImage, and ORDVideo) have a common media data
storage model. The media data component of these objects can be stored in the database, in a BLOB
under transaction control. The media data can also be stored outside of the database without
transaction control. In this case, a pointer is stored in the database under transaction control and the
media data is stored in an external BFILE (operating system flat file), HTTP server-based URL, a
source on a specialized media data server like the Real Networks streaming server or Live Pictures
image server, or a user-defined source on other servers. Media data stored outside the database can
provide a convenient mechanism for managing large, preexisting or new, media repositories that
reside as flat files on erasable or read-only media. This data can be imported into BLOBs at any time
for transaction control.

Object metadata and methods are always stored in the database under Oracle interMedia control.
Whether media data is stored within or outside the database, Oracle interMedia manages metadata for
all the media types and automatically extracts it for image and audio. This metadata includes
the following:

• Data storage information including the source type, location, and name

• Data up date time, description, format and location

• MIME media type (used in web and mail applications)

• Image height and width, image content length, image content format, and image
compression type

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 • Audio encoding type, number of channels, sampling rate, sample size, compression type, and play
time (duration)

• Video frame widths and heights, frame resolution, frame rate, play time (duration), number of
frames, compression type, number of colors, and bit rate

IMAGE

Oracle interMedia image services support two-dimensional, static, digital images stored as
binary representations of real world objects or scenes in most popular file formats and
compression schemes.

File Formats

Users can easily store images created by applications without becoming experts in image file formats.
Oracle interMedia does not require applications to convert files to and from an internal format for
storage and retrieval. Considering the volume of data in large databases, this significantly improves
server performance. Oracle interMedia also extracts key image properties automatically and makes
them available in the image object’s data attributes. This relieves application developers of the
burden of learning format nuances. Because there are so many different image formats and many
applications support only a subset of them, Oracle interMedia provides conversion between formats
(transcoding) on demand.

Image file formats provide a convenient means for an application to store an image in a flat file. By
publishing the internal layout of such a file, it becomes possible to use it as an interchange medium
between different applications. Oracle interMedia supports most popular desktop publishing image
file formats including: TIFF, JFIF (more commonly referred to as JPG), BMP, TARGA, PCX,
PICT, GIF, CALS Raster, "SUN", Flashpix (through the Live Pictures Image Server), and RPIX.
(Support for Tiled TIFF and PNG is planned for a future release). RPIX is the Oracle interMedia raw
pixel format. Because it is not compressed it is very easy to access individual pixels and perform
image processing, for example to add a watermark.

In addition, the RPIX format can be used as a gateway to import certain proprietary and foreign
image formats into Oracle interMedia. A proprietary or foreign format can be easily converted to the
documented RPIX format by using methods to pass the image format attributes to Oracle interMedia.

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Once this has been completed, Oracle interMedia can process the image, storing, retrieving and
applying image manipulation and conversion methods as needed.

For example, typically, LANDSAT images do not contain header information. Therefore, Oracle
interMedia can not automatically load the image attributes and process the image. However, each
LANDSAT image is accompanied by a text file that describes its image characteristics.
Oracle interMedia methods can be used to load these attributes, enabling Oracle interMedia to process
the image.

Content Formats

The organization of the image data is known as the content format. A digital image consists of
attributes that describe the characteristics of the image and the image data itself (the digitized bits).
The image data (pixels) can have varying depths (bits per pixel) depending on how the image was
captured and can be organized in various ways. The minimal attributes of an image may include
such things as its size (height in scan lines and width in pixels), the number of bits per pixel in each
of the colors sampled, image content format, and image compression type. Oracle interMedia can
read and write image data using a variety of today’s current content formats including Big and Little
Endian, Monochrome, 4/8 bit Grayscale, 1/2/4/8-bit Lut, 16/24/32-bit RGB, 24-bit Planar, Normal
and Inverse DIB, Windows and OS2.

Compression

The storage space required for digital images can be large compared to traditional attribute data such
as numbers and text. Many compression schemes are available to squeeze an image into fewer bytes
reducing storage device and network bandwidth requirements. Lossless compression schemes squeeze
an image so that when it is decompressed, the resulting image is bit-for-bit identical with the
original. Lossy compression schemes do not result in an identical image when decompressed, but one
in which the changes may be imperceptible to the human eye.

Oracle interMedia supports the most popular and efficient compression schemes, including the
CCITT G3 / G4 run length: Huffman encoding schemes, which are lossless and used for bitonal
document images; the ISO/CCITT JPEG encoding scheme, which is lossy and used for photographic
(continuous tone) images; and several de facto schemes. Oracle interMedia shields users from the

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complexities of compression technology allowing users to simply request that images be compressed
or decompressed on demand.

IMAGE MANIPULATION FUNCTIONS

In addition to format transcoding and compression, Oracle interMedia provides a set of server-based
manipulation functions including scaling and cropping that are useful in preparing image data for
general purpose viewing or input to another process. Highly specialized image processing is better
run under the direction of an end user through an interactive graphical user interface, and therefore is
left to applications.

AUDIO AND VIDEO

Oracle interMedia audio and video services provide foundational support for digital audio and video
data in Oracle8i databases. Digitized audio/video consists of the data (digitized bits) and attributes
that describe and characterize the data. The minimal collection of attributes may include the source
type, source location, source name, description, file format, MIME media type, file format, encoding
type, number of audio channels, sampling/frame rate, sample/frame size, frame resolution, total
number of frames, number of colors, bit rate, compression type and duration. These data attributes
describe or characterize the data as it was recorded or produced by the digitized recording device.
The data can have different attributes depending upon how the data was digitally recorded. Each
data characteristic is crucial to data access and represents the data quality.

Audio/Video Formats

Oracle interMedia supports industry-standard audio formats: AIFF, AIFF-C, AUFF, WAV and Real
Networks audio format (through the Real Networks streaming server). It automatically extracts
metadata information from these formats and stores it in attributes of the Oracle interMedia audio
object. The audio data itself can either be stored locally in Oracle8i or referenced from the external
sources previously mentioned.

Oracle interMedia manages industry-standard video data stored in QuickTime, AVI, MPEG and Real
Networks video format (through the Real Networks streaming server). It enables applications to
store metadata information in attributes of the Oracle interMedia video object. Again, the video data

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can either be stored locally in Oracle8i or referenced from the external sources previously mentioned.
Support for these de-facto standard formats ensures that applications may store their data in an
Oracle8i database in a natural and efficient fashion.

Compression

Where support is defined by the preceding interchange format standards, Oracle interMedia
recognizes compression schemes, including ADPCM and MU-LAW for audio and AVI
Indeo for video.

Streaming Audio/Video

Oracle interMedia can interoperate with streaming servers like the Oracle Video Server and Real
Networks Server to deliver audio and video on demand.

If the audio/video data is stored in the streaming server, Oracle interMedia can supply the application
with connection information for the streaming server and a “pointer” to the data in the server. The
Real Networks Server can also deliver audio/video stored in Oracle interMedia.

Batch Audio/Video

If a streaming server is unavailable, Oracle interMedia can deliver the multimedia information
directly to the client in “download and play” mode using SQL*Net® protocol. The entire audio or
video clip is sent to the application, then the application launches the appropriate player.

DATA STORAGE MODEL

BLOBs, BFILEs and URLs represent pointers to media data storage. BLOBs are used to store media
data within the database. They are stored in the local database tablespaces in a way that optimizes
space and provides for efficient access. BLOBs may or may not be physically collocated with other
row data. Depending on the size of the BLOB, a locator is stored in the row. The locator is a pointer
to the actual location of the BLOB value (up to 4 gigabytes) stored in other tablespace.

With the Oracle interMedia common storage model comes a common set of operations for the media
data. BLOB media data operations include load, fetch and delete content. External media data

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operations include open, close, trim (clip), read and write a buffer, store in a temporary BLOB, and
import and export between the external source and a BLOB. Other operations extract media
metadata like format, compression and MIME type; set storage metadata like location, storage type,
name, and time of the last update; perform data manipulation and pass commands to external
data storage.

ACCESSING MULTIMEDIA DATA

Media data is located through traditional queries on associated relational data (e.g., employee i.d.)
and object metadata (e.g., employee photo). Once located, Oracle interMedia media data can be
accessed using SQL or PL/SQL like any other relational data through ORDImage, ORDAudio and
ORDVideo.

DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS

Oracle interMedia is accessible to applications through both relational and object interfaces. Database
applications written in JAVA, C++, or traditional 3GLs can interface to Oracle interMedia through
modern class library interfaces, or PL/SQL and OCI. These applications can easily add image, audio,
and video columns to store objects in existing and new relational tables. Applications can use Oracle
interMedia to query and retrieve multimedia data in the same manner as any other relational data.

In addition, Oracle interMedia methods can be called by JAVA applications on the client or the
application server through the Java Media Framework (JMF). Applications with a JMF player can
access and play audio/video from Oracle interMedia. Oracle® Designer can generate C++ classes that
enable C++ applications running on the client or the application server to call Oracle
interMedia methods.

DESKTOP INTEGRATION

Real world still and moving images, and sounds can be captured and converted into digitized formats
by modern digitizing devices like cameras and scanners. While Oracle interMedia provides no direct
device control, it can take media data produced by these devices and enter it into the database
through the Oracle interMedia clipboard. The clipboard can access media data from a variety of
sources including twain compliant capture devices, files and URLs.

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INTERNET INTEGRATION

The interMedia clipboard also enables web authoring tools to source content from the database to
build, and even store web pages. During the web page design process, the interMedia clipboard can
be used to drag and drop media data from the Oracle8i database on to a HTML page. A URL link
consisting of a SQL query is automatically created, pointing back to the media data in the database.

After web pages are published, when a user visits the web page, Oracle interMedia Internet facilities
execute the SQL query, thus retrieving the media data from the database. The facilities return the
MIME type and the multimedia content for display by the web browser or other handling. This
provides transaction control over media web pages. It also provides a late binding model that makes
the most current version of the data available when the web page is visited.

EXTENSIBILITY

While Oracle interMedia provides support for many popular formats and compression schemes and
operations, there is enormous diversity of application specific data needs. Therefore, extensibility is a
central component of the Oracle interMedia architecture. For each of the data types, image, audio,
and video, customers and partners can easily create “plugins” to support additional formats, new
digital compression and decompression schemes (codecs), specialized indices, custom query
optimization and methods, external media data sources and even specialized data processing
algorithms. With the Oracle interMedia architecture, it is easy to plug such extensions into the
existing media objects.

In addition to datatype extensibility, it is possible to compose a more complex object that contains
one or more media objects of type ORDImage , ORDAudio, and ORDVideo. For example, a music
CD object might consist of a image object containing the CD cover graphic, a series of audio objects
containing the tracks of the CD and a video object containing the associated music video.

EXAMPLE  A MEDIA-RICH E-COMMERCE APPLICATION FOR THE WEB

An Internet music store’s main assets are the media-rich information it keeps about the CD’s it sells
(audio clips, promotional music videos, images of CD covers, musicians and corporate logos, critics
reviews and musicians biographies, event and site location information), as well as related, traditional
relational data. Placing all these assets in the same database management system reduces

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administration and training costs and increases system reliability, availability, and scalability. Most
importantly, it creates opportunities for multimedia information sharing, re-purposing, and
integration with traditional relational data and other operational applications managing the business.
An Internet music store based on Oracle interMedia can bring a rich sensory experience, powerful
search capabilities, and convenience to a large market of customers, providing competitive advantage.

Replacing Traditional Unmanaged Flat Files and Labor-Intensive CGI Scripts

Oracle interMedia allows Internet content to benefit from advanced database technology services. For
the first time, the security, administrative controls, performance, scalability, and open access of
professionally managed enterprise information systems is available to data stored in corporate web
sites and media-rich applications.

Oracle interMedia can integrate and manage all of the data in the enterprise, including:

• Text, image, audio, and video information (with support for dozens of popular file formats and
compression schemes) as columns in tables of traditional relational data

• Multimedia content of application web pages

• The web pages themselves

As an example of this integration, one possible logical design for an Internet music store database
could include:

• A Songs Table with traditional relational attribute data including song name, music category,
performers’ names, recording studio and recording date. In addition, the table would include an
audio column to store audio clip objects, enabling the customers to preview songs.

• A Musical CD Table with traditional relational attribute data including CD name, price, date
published, availability, and a nested table containing a list of the audio tracks on the CD with
references to the corresponding audio clip objects in the Song table. In addition, the table would
include image columns to store image objects containing images of the CD cover, a video column
to store a video object containing the artist’s promotional music video, and a text column to store
text objects containing reviews of the CD, indexed using Oracle interMedia text features for full
text and theme searches.

• An Artist Table with traditional relational attribute data including artist name, instruments played,
birthday, a nested table of songs with a reference to the corresponding song objects in the Song
table and a nested table of CDs with a reference to the corresponding CDs in the CD table. In
addition, the table would include a text column to store a text object containing the artist’s
biography indexed using Oracle interMedia text features for full text and theme searches.

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 • An Events or Venues Table listing up-coming promotional appearances by artists at concerts, and on
TV and radio. This table would include traditional relational attribute data like location, address,
time and date, reference to ticket office information, phone number for event information, and
nested tables of performing artists and songs to be performed with references to artist and song
tables respectively.

• A Logos Table with traditional relational attribute data about publishers and advertisers including
company name, address, phone, and URL. In addition, the table would include an image column
to store image objects containing images of each company’s corporate logo.

Integrating Multimedia Information With Traditional Business Data

Oracle interMedia enables customers to search for multimedia data in the same fashion as traditional
relational data. For instance, customers can find an audio track by artist name, song title, CD title,
recording or publication date. Customers can search for a particular review by text keyword and/or a
relational index like a song title. Then, they can play the audio clip, view the video, and read the
reviews gathering information leading to a purchase. Information kiosks can support customer
queries like “play the best selling jazz CD, tell me if it is in stock, show me a picture of the CD and
the artist, find any other CDs that contain this song and play those arrangements”, or “show me the
location of all stores in the area carrying this CD”. Since the multimedia data is stored in Oracle8i, it
is easily and transparently integrated with other operational data in the enterprise for applications
like inventory, sales management, and decision support.

Enabling Powerful Full Text and Theme Searches on Text in Practically Any File
Format

Text searches of CD reviews and artist biographies can be done in a number of ways. Full text
searches can include techniques like Boolean, exact phrase, proximity, section searching, fuzzy,
misspellings, stemming, wildcard, thesaurus word equivalence, and scoring. Theme searches can
find topics even if specific words are not used. Mixed SQL queries can include full text and theme
searches as well as information in regular database columns to seamlessly combine the text
information with other database information.

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Turning Address Information into Powerful Location Queries

Using Oracle interMedia support for leading third-party online geocoding services, including
Centrus™ from QMSoft, MapMarker™ from MapInfo, and the Oracle interMedia location query
feature, the customer can request a list of all events at which the artist will appear within 100 miles
of his or her home over the next three months, show the location of the event and nearest ticket office
on a map.

Support for Streaming Audio/Video Servers

Oracle interMedia can interoperate with streaming servers, including the Oracle Video Server and
Real Networks Server, to play music videos and audio clips on demand. In this case, it would supply
the application with connection information for the streaming server and a “pointer” to the data. The
application makes the connection to the streaming server and requests the audio and/or video data.
Or if a streaming server is unavailable, Oracle interMedia can deliver the multimedia information
directly to the client in “download and play” mode. The entire audio or video clip is sent to the
client, then the application launches the appropriate player.

Drag and Drop Multimedia Content From a Capture Device To Oracle8i To a Web
Page

A web page developer can use the Oracle interMedia clipboard to capture multimedia data from a
variety of sources, including twain compliant capture devices, files and URLs, store it in Oracle8i,
retrieve it from Oracle8i, and drop it on to web pages created with popular web authoring tools.
This could facilitate the creation of web promotions by placing corporate logos, CD covers, and
musicians’ pictures on web pages as ions linked to special offers.

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