Unit III Multimedia

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Unit 3

Multimedia Concepts

Introduction

Multimedia has become an inevitable part of any presentation. It has found a variety of applications right from entertainment to education. The evolution of internet has also increased

the demand for multimedia content. Multimedia is a medium with multiple content forms.

Multimedia includes a combination of audio, animation, text, still images, video or interactivity

content forms. Multimedia is usually recorded and played, displayed or accessed by

information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can

also be part of a live performance. Multimedia also describes electronic media devices used to

store and experience multimedia content.

Definition:

Multimedia is a computer-based interactive communications process that incorporates text,graphics, sound, animation, and video. Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of

information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video,interactivity) to

inform or entertain the user. Multimedia also refers to the use of electronic media to store

and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media infine art, but with a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive

multimedia.

Multimedia Software

Multimedia software encompasses familiar tools, multimedia authoring tools, elemental tools.Familiar tools include word processors-Microsoft Word and WordPerfect, spreadsheets-Excel,

databases- VB and presentation tools like PowerPoint.



Multimedia Authoring Tools

A multimedia authoring tool is a program that helps you write multimedia applications. A

multimedia authoring tool enables you to create a final application merely by linking together

objects, such as a paragraph of text, an illustration, or a song. They are used exclusively for

applications that present a mixture of textual, graphical, and audio data.

With multimedia authoring software you can make video productions including CDs and DVDs,

design interactivity and user interface, animations, screen savers, games, presentations,

interactive training and simulations.

Types of Authoring Tools

Card or Page based Tools

In these authoring systems, elements are organized as pages of a book or stack of cards. The

authoring system lets you link these pages or cards into organized sequence and they also allow

you to play sound elements and launch animations and digital videos.

Page-based authoring systems are object-oriented: the objects are the buttons, graphics and

etc. Each object may contain a programming script activated when an event related to that

object occurs.

EX: Visual Basic



Icon Based Authoring Tool

Icon-based, event-driven tools provide a visual programming approach to organizing and

presenting multimedia. First you build the flowchart of events, tasks and decisions by using

appropriate icons from a library. These icons can include menu choices, graphic images and

sounds. When the flowchart is built, you can add your content: text, graphics, animations,

sounds and video movies.

EX: Authoware Professional



Time Based Authoring Tool

Time-based authoring tools are the most common of multimedia authoring tools. In these

authoring systems, elements are organized along a time line. They are the best to use when you

have message with the beginning and an end. Sequentially organized graphic frames are played

back at the speed that you can set. Other elements (such as audio events) are triggered at the

given time or location in the sequence of events.

EX: Animation Works Interactive

Elemental Tools:

Painting and Drawing tools

Painting and drawing tools are the most important items in your toolkit because the impact of

the graphics in your project will likely have the greatest influence on the end user.

Painting software is dedicated to producing excellent bitmapped images .

Drawing software is dedicated to producing line art that is easily printed to paper. Drawing

packages include powerful and expensive computer-aided design (CAD) software.

Ex: DeskDraw, DeskPaint, Designer



CAD and 3D Drawing Tools:

CAD (computer-aided design) is a software used by architects, engineers, drafters, artists and

others to create precision drawings or technical illustrations. It can be used to create two-

dimensional (2-D) drawings or three dimensional modules. The CAD images can spin about inspace, with lighting conditions exactly simulated and shadows properly drawn. With CAD

software you can stand in front of your work and view it from any angle, making judgments

about its design .

Ex: AutoCAD

Image Editing Tools

Image editing applications are specialized and powerful tools for enhancing and retouching

existing bitmapped images. These programs are also indispensable for rendering images used in

multimedia presentations. Modern versions of these programs also provide many of the

features and tools of painting and drawing programs, and can be used to create images from



scratch as well as images digitized from scanners, digital cameras or artwork files created by

painting or drawing packages.

Ex: Photoshop

Multimedia Hardware Peripherals

The hardware required for multimedia can be classified into five. They are

1. Connecting Devices

2. Input devices

3. Output devices

4. Storage devices and

5. Communicating devices.

Touchscreens Tablets



Trackballs

Multimedia Formats:

Multimedia data and information must be stored in a disk file using formats similar to image file

formats. Multimedia formats, however, are much more complex than most other file formats

because of the wide variety of data they must store. Multimedia elements (like sounds or

videos) are stored in media files. The most common way to discover the media type is to look at

the file extension. When a browser sees the file extensions .htm or .html, it will assume that the

file is an HTML page. The .xml extension indicates an XML file, and the .css extension indicates a

style sheet. Picture formats are recognized by extensions like .gif and .jpg. Multimedia elements

also have their own file formats with different extensions like .swf, .wmv, .mp3, and .mp4.

Audio File Formats

A file format determines the application that is to be used for opening a file. Following is the listof different file formats and the software that can be used for opening a specific file.

1.*.WMA –windows media player 2. *.MP3 – MP3 audio

3. *.RA – Real Player 4. *.VOC – VOC Sound

Video Formats:

The MP4 format is the new and upcoming format for internet video. It is supported by

YouTube, Flash players and HTML5.



Compression and Decompression in Multimedia

Compressing a file makes the file smaller, hence increasing storage efficiency because less

storage space is needed to store the same data. The compression ratio measures the amount a

file is compressed, describing how small the compressed file is compared to the uncompressed

file. A higher compression ratio indicates greater compression of the data. However,

compression can lead to loss of quality.

Multimedia systems use compression to reduce storage requirements and transfer speeds.Compression is reducing the size of a file using various techniques. Compression uses a codec,

which is an algorithm or a system of compression used on a file. Codec stands for

Compression/Decompression. A compression ratio is the ratio between the size of the original

file and the size of the compressed file.

Types of Compression

Lossy Compression

It takes place where data bytes are removed from the file. This results in a smaller file, but also

lower quality. It makes use of data redundancies and human perception – for example,

removing data that cannot be perceived by humans. So whilst quality might be affected, the

substance of the file is still present. Lossy compression would be commonly used over the

internet, where large files present a problem. An example of lossy compression is “mp3”

compression, which removes wavelength extremes which are out of the hearing range of

normal people. MP3 has a compression ratio of 11:1. Another example would be JPEG (Joint

Photographics Expert Group), which is used to compress images. JPEG works by grouping pixels

of an image which have similar colour or brightness, and changing them all to a uniform,

“average” colour, and then replaces the similar pixels with codes.



Advantages: Can reduce the file size more than in the Lossless Compression

Disadvantages: The original file cannot be taken after the decompression

Lossless Compression

Lossless compression is compression where no data is lost and the quality of the original file

remains. This works by using an algorithm that exploits data redundancies. These achieve lower

compression ratio than lossy compression, but no data is lost and the quality stays the same. In

a text file, for example, common words or other data might be replaced by preset symbols so

that when the file is decompressed, it can be ‘expanded’ out, retaining the original data.

Common uses would be computer programs where lossy compression could result in bugs and

legal documents where no loss is allowed. A common lossless compression file format is .GIF. It

achieves compression ratios of about 2:1. It is best used for drawing and line art, as it works by

replacing patterns.

Advantages: The original format of the data remains even it is compressed.

Disadvantages: Reduction of the size of the data is a small. Sometimes the size can increase

instead of decrease

Business Applications of Multimedia



Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, but not limited to, advertisements,

art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, scientific research

and spatial, temporal applications. Delivering digital media content to consumers over mobile

and fixed-line IP networks is a fast-growing business area that enables new media revenues.

(a). Commercial use: Much of the electronic old and new media utilized by commercial artists ismultimedia. Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in

advertising. Industrial, business to business, and interoffice communications are

often developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training. Commercial

multimedia developers may be hired to design for governmental services and

nonprofit services applications as well.

(b). Creative Industries: Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging

from fine arts, to entertainment, to commercial art, to journalism, to media and softwareservices provided for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia

designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Request for their skillsrange from technical, to analytical and to creative.

(c). Entertainment and Fine Arts: In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment

industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games

are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Somevideo games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively

participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive

Multimedia.

(d). Education & Engineering: In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based

training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia andalmanacs. A CBT lets the user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats.

Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with

entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment. Software engineers may use multimedia inComputer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial

training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration between

creative professionals and software engineers.

Documents

Unit III Multimedia