1 Introduction to Oracle Multimedia

1.1 Multimedia Object Types and Methods

Oracle Multimedia provides the ORDAudio, ORDDoc, ORDImage, ORDVideo, and SI_StillImage object types and methods for:

• Extracting metadata and attributes from multimedia data

• Embedding metadata created by applications into image files

• Getting and managing multimedia data from Oracle Multimedia, Web servers, file systems, and other servers

• Performing manipulation operations on image data

Oracle Multimedia also provides the ORDDicom object type and methods for storing, managing, and manipulating DICOM format medical images and other data. See Oracle Multimedia DICOM Developer's Guide for more information about Oracle Multimedia DICOM.

SQL Syntax for Complex Objects

The object syntax for accessing attributes within a complex object is the dot notation (except in Java):

variable.data_attribute

The syntax for invoking methods of a complex object is also the dot notation (except in Java):

variable.function(parameter1, parameter2, ...)

In keeping with recommended programming practices, a complete set of media attribute accessors (get methods) and setters (set methods) are provided for accessing attributes for each media type.

See Oracle Database Concepts for information about this and other SQL syntax.

1.2 Multimedia Storage

Oracle Multimedia provides the ORDSource object type and methods for multimedia data source manipulation. The ORDAudio, ORDDoc, ORDImage, and ORDVideo object types all contain an attribute of type ORDSource.