Database history is repeating itself with multimedia databases. Until recently, multimedia applications and authoring systems incorporated their own multimedia database logic, either entirely or on top of a standard database system. But now they can directly utilize multimedia database functionality, just as the first applications to use databases benefited from basic database functionality nearly three decades ago.

Multimedia databases usually include a query language for searching and retrieving multimedia data that has been stored and organized by the application developer (or "author," in multimedia parlance). This multimedia database query language, although usually SQL-like, may be tailored for the specialized requirements of interactive multimedia applications. But because such databases are in their infancy, these query languages are not yet standardized.