Multimodal data
What is a typed media column?
A typed media column stores an image, video, audio clip, or document as a value the engine can decode, iterate, and index, instead of an opaque blob.
Updated · Part of What is a multimodal database?
How it works
- The type tells the engine how to open the bytes.
- Later columns can extract frames, pages, or a transcript because the type is known.
- The bytes can live in a media store or a bucket; the column holds a typed pointer.
What it is not
It is not a FILE path, a URL string, or an object-store key the catalog cannot interpret.
typed media column: this, and the thing it is confused with
| This | Not this | |
|---|---|---|
| The value | Image, video, audio, or document | A string path or untyped blob |
| What you can declare next | Frames, pages, transcripts, embeddings | A script that hopes the path is a video |
| Where bytes live | Media store or a bucket you name | Copied into every tool |
Where Pixeltable fits
In Pixeltable the annotations are pxt.Image, pxt.Video, pxt.Audio, and pxt.Document. A string column is not media.
Questions
- How does typed media column work?
- The type tells the engine how to open the bytes. Later columns can extract frames, pages, or a transcript because the type is known. The bytes can live in a media store or a bucket; the column holds a typed pointer.
- What is typed media column often confused with?
- It is not a FILE path, a URL string, or an object-store key the catalog cannot interpret.