thin a scene. MPEG-7 will offer different levels of discrimination by allowing variable degree of granularity in its descriptions. To ensure that the descriptive features are meaningful in the context of any given application, MPEG-7 will allow description of the same material using different types of features. In visual material, for instance, a lower abstraction level may describe shape, size, texture, color, movement (trajectory) and position (where the object can be found in the scene). In audio, the lower abstraction may describe pitch, timbre, tempo, or changes and modulations. The highest abstraction level would provide semantic information such as, "This scene includes a child playing a Mozart sonata on a piano, a gray and yellow cockatiel squawking in a gold cage, and an adult trying to calm the bird." All these descriptions would be coded to allow for searching. The level of abstraction is related to the way the features can be extracted: many low-level features can be extracted in fully automatic ways, whereas high-level features may require human interaction. In addition to a description of the content, other types of information about the multimedia data may be required. Examples may include: The form-Such as the coding scheme used (e.g. JPEG, MPEG-2), or the file size. This information helps determine whether the user can read the material. Video Communications: The Whole Picture Conditions for accessing the material-Such as copyright and price information. Classification-Content sorting into pre-defined categories (e.g., parental rating). Links to other relevant material - To assist the user in conducting a timely search. Context - For recorded non-fiction content, it is important to know the occasion of the recording (e.g. Superbowl 2005, fourth quarter) The Group seeks to make the descriptions as independent from the language area as possible, textual descriptions will be desirable in many cases - e.g., for titles, locations, or author's name. MPEG-7 data may be physically located with the associ