The increasing amount of digital audiovisual information and the need to efficiently and effectively describe and retrieve this information as well as the big technological developments in the related domains have been acknowledged by MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) by initiating a new work item, formally called “Multimedia Content Description Interface” but better known as MPEG-7. This paper will introduce the MPEG-7 standard, with special emphasis on the adopted shape descriptors: Curvature Scale Space and Zernike Moments. Finally, the description and retrieval mechanism based on the MPEG-7 shape descriptors developed will be presented.