[WEB4LIB] Multimedia databases for web sites

[Michael A. Mayo]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yvonne Reynolds" <Reynolds at nbict.nbi.ac.za>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction please.  I am
>looking for a reasonably priced, or better still free multimedia
>database / object oreinted databse which one could use
>store and manage information for a web site.  Something
>like MySQl, but able to handle graphics and sound, video
>files as well as text based objects or numbers.

    MySQL and PostgreSQL both support sticking binary data into the database
via BLOBs (bianary large objects).  Unfortunately, use of BLOBs usually
comes with many 'gotchas,' like not being able to use indexes and certian
types of searches.  This is true of postgres and nearly all RDBMS's, not
sure about MySQL.

    Have you considered storing the video/sound files in the filesystem, and
storing the location of the files as a field in the database?  This is very
simple and circumvents most of the problems with BLOBs.  Usually, you don't
want to do database functions (search, etc) on the bianary data themselves,
anyway.

    If you find a free/open source object/multimedia database, please let me
know.

                -Mike