Videos are multi-faceted objects which can have different kinds of information descriptions. A comprehensive video retrieval system should be able to accommodate and utilize such various (complementary) description data in facilitating effective retrieval. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach by integrating a query-based (database) mechanism with content-based retrieval (CBR) functions. We describe the VideoMAP+ architecture and its specific language mechanism (CAROL/ST with CBR) which provides an improved expressive power than what pure query-based or CBR methods currently offer. An experimental prototype is being developed using a commercial object-oriented toolkit on a PC platform.