For the description of audio-visual data content in a multimedia environment, a binary representation of description structures is used. A binary identifier (BID) for each specified descriptor (D) and description scheme (DS) as well as a binary description definition language (DDL) represent the components. The advantages of a binary representation are a more compact encoding of description structures and thus savings in storage capacity and/or bandwidth. A faster parsing of the encoded data, especially in the context of dynamically varying descriptions, is thereby achieved.