Great advances have been made in the database field. Relational and object- oriented databases, distributed and client/server databases, and large-scale data warehousing are among the more notable. However, none of these advances promises to have as great and direct an effect on the daily lives of ordinary citizens as video databases. Video databases will provide a quantum jump in our ability to deal with visual data, and in allowing people to access and manipulate visual information in ways hitherto thought impossible. This study gives practical information on academic research issues, commercial products that have already been developed, and the applications of future research and development. This book can also be considered a reference text for those entering the field of video or multimedia databases, as well as a reference for practitioners who want to identify the kinds of products needed in order to utilize video databases.