Visual information systems require a new insertion process. Prior to storage within the database, the system must first identify the desired objects (shots and episodes), and then calculate a descriptive representation of these objects. This paper discusses the steps in the insertion process, and some of the tools we have developed to semi-automatically segment the data into domain objects which are meaningful to the user. Image processing routines are necessary to derive features of the video frames. Models are required to represent the desired domain, and similarity measures must compare the models to the derived features.