| Lesson 4 | interMedia tool |
| Objective | List uses of the interMedia Tool |
interMedia Exchange Tool
List Oracle Uses
When you run a Web site, you coordinate files that contain video, audio, and graphic data. Loading and retrieving these kinds of data from the database used to be difficult and required special programming skills.
With Oracle's interMedia tool, a great deal of that specialized programming has been provided for you. Now you can use familiar PL/SQL calls to stored packages to modify or query audio, video, and graphic data formats.
The interMedia toolset includes several related components, as you can see in the MouseOver diagram below.
- The Java client component retrieves a copy of the file from the interMedia server and loads it on the client's desktop. If the user then modifies the file, the Java client will return the modified file to the interMedia server.
- The interMedia server retrieves multimedia files from the database. The copies of the multimedia files are sent to the Java client or to other applications. The interMedia server also retrieves attributes such as length and last changed date, and it locks the multimedia record if the record is being updated by a user.
- You create an object table to store multimedia data. The object table uses one of the three multimedia object types: ORDAudio, ORDVideo, or ORDImage. One of the attributes is a Large Object (LOB) that contains the multimedia data.
- The object type ORDmultimedia contains three subtypes--one for each kind of media. The object type and subtypes contain methods for loading, modifying, and retrieving the multimedia data and its related attributes.
The Java client component retrieves a copy of the file from the interMedia server and loads it on the client's desktop. If the user then modifies the file, the Java client will return the modified file to the interMedia server
Inter media Components
The interMedia tool allows you to retrieve data from just about anywhere and load it into the database. In particular, the Java client side of interMedia makes it easy for you to load images or other media data from your client's desktop into your database.
The table shows some of the useful features of inter media.
The interMedia tool allows you to retrieve data from just about anywhere and load it into the database. In particular, the Java client side of interMedia makes it easy for you to load images or other media data from your client's desktop into your database.
The table shows some of the useful features of inter media.
| Feature | Description |
| Query attributes of image, video, or audio type data | interMedia provides methods for the object types ORDAudio, ORDVideo, and ORDImage. These methods allow you to attach comments, descriptions, height, width, length, compression type, format, and other important information about each image, video, or audio record. These attributes can be queried by using methods as well. |
| Get data from the database, modify it on the desktop, and replace the modified data in the database by using a Java application | The Java client for interMedia builds a copy of the media file on the desktop. If the user can update the copy, the Java client locks the database record so no one else can modify it until it has been returned. |
| Extend interMedia for all types of data | You can write customized subclasses and methods for the interMedia ORDMultiMedia class so that the database handles any kind of data you have. |
The Visual Information Retrieval tool is related to the interMedia tool. Both can store and retrieve image files in the database using objects and methods.
The Visual Information Retrieval tool has additional query capabilities based on image content.
Inter media Terms
The next lesson tells about the Internet File System (iFS).
inter media Terms
Click the link below to read about inter media terms.Inter media Terms
The next lesson tells about the Internet File System (iFS).