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Introduction to Computer Science

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

MULTIMEDIA LEVEL -9

King Khalid UniversityKingdom of Saudi Arabia

Ministry of Higher EducationCollege of Science and Arts, Mohayel Aseer

Chapter 1Introduction to MultimediaWhat is Multimedia?

Multimedia can have a many definitions these include:

Multimedia means that computer information can be represented through

audio, video, and animation in addition to traditional media (i.e., text,

graphics/drawings, images).

General Definition

A good general working definition for this module is:

Multimedia is the field concerned with the computer controlled integration

of text, graphics, drawings, still and moving images (Video), animation,

audio, and any other media where every type of information can be

represented, stored, transmitted and processed digitally.

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HISTORY OF MULTIMEDIA

1960 – Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext.1967 – Nicholas Negroponte formed the Architecture MachineGroup.1968 – Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the On‐Line System(NLS), another very early hypertext program.1969 – Nelson and van Dam at Brown University created an

earlyhypertext editor called FRESS.1976 – The MIT Architecture Machine Group proposed a

projectentitled Multiple Media —resulted in the Aspen Movie Map, thefirst hypermedia videodisk, in 1978.1985 – Negroponte and Wiesner co‐founded the MIT Media

Lab.1989 – Tim Berners‐Lee proposed the World Wide Web

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HISTORY OF MULTIMEDIA (Continued)

1990 – Kristina Hooper Woolsey headed the Apple Multimedia Lab.

1991 – MPEG‐1 was approved as an international standard for digital video — led to the newer standards, MPEG‐2, MPEG‐4, and further MPEGs in the 1990s.

1991 – The introduction of PDAs in 1991 began a new period in the use of computers in multimedia.

1992 – JPEG was accepted as the international standard for digital image compression — led to the new JPEG2000 standard.

1992 – The first MBone audio multicast on the Net was made.

1993 – The University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications produced NCSA Mosaic — the first full‐fledged browser.

1994 -- Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen created the Netscape program.

1995 – The JAVA language was created for platform independent application development.

1996 – DVD video was introduced; high quality full‐length movies were distributed on a single disk.

1998 – XML 1.0 was announced as a W3C Recommendation.

1998 – Hand‐held MP3 devices first made inroads into consumerist tastes in the fall of 1998, with the introduction of devices holding 32MB of flash memory.

2000 – WWW size was estimated at over 1 billion pages.4

Multimedia Application DefinitionA Multimedia Application is an application which

uses acollection of multiple media sources e.g. text,

graphics,images, sound/audio, animation and/or video.What is HyperText and HyperMedia?Hypertext is a text which contains links to other

texts.The term was invented by Ted Nelson around

1965.

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HyperText NavigationTraversal through pages of hypertext is

therefore usually

non-linear (as indicated below).This has implications in layout and organisation

of material and depends a lot on the application at hand.

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HypermediaHyperMedia is not constrained to be text-

based.It can include other media, e.g., graphics,images, and especially the continuous mediasound and video.

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Example Hypermedia Applications?The World Wide Web (WWW) is the best example

of ahypermedia application. Powerpoint Adobe Acrobat Many Others?

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Multimedia ApplicationsExamples of Multimedia Applications include: World Wide Web Multimedia Authoring, e.g. Adobe/Macromedia

Director Hypermedia courseware Video-on-demand Interactive TV Computer Games Virtual reality Digital video editing and production systems Multimedia Database systems

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Multimedia SystemsA Multimedia System is a system capable of processing

multimedia data

and applications.A Multimedia System is characterised by the processing,

storage, generation, manipulation and rendition of Multimedia information.

Characteristics of a Multimedia SystemA Multimedia system has four basic characteristics: Multimedia systems must be computer controlled. Multimedia systems are integrated. The information they handle must be represented digitally. The interface to the final presentation of media is usually interactive.

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Key Issues for Multimedia SystemsThe key issues multimedia systems need to deal with

here are: How to represent and store temporal information. How to strictly maintain the temporal relationships

on playback/retrieval What process are involved in the above. Data has to represented digitally — Analog–Digital

Conversion, Sampling etc. Large Data Requirements — bandwidth, storage,Data compression is usually mandatory

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Desirable Features for a Multimedia SystemGiven the above challenges the following feature a desirable(if not a prerequisite) for a Multimedia System:Very High Processing Power — needed to deal with

large dataprocessing and real time delivery of media. Special hardwarecommonplace.Multimedia Capable File System —needed to deliver

real-timemedia — e.g. Video/Audio Streaming.Special Hardware/Software needed – e.g. RAID

technology.Data Representations — File Formats that support

multimediashould be easy to handle yet allow forcompression/decompression in real-time.

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Components of a Multimedia SystemNow let us consider the Components (Hardware and Software) required for

a

multimedia system:

Capture devices — Video Camera, Video Recorder, Audio Microphone,

Keyboards, mice, graphics tablets, 3D input devices, tactile sensors, VR devices.

Digitising Hardware

Storage Devices — Hard disks, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROM, etc

Communication Networks — Local Networks, Intranets, Internet,

Multimedia or other special high speed networks.

Computer Systems — Multimedia Desktop machines, Workstations,

MPEG/VIDEO/DSP Hardware

Display Devices — CD-quality speakers, HDTV,SVGA, Hi-Res monitors,

Colour printers etc.

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Exercise(A) Define the following.

1) Multimedia 2) Hypertext 3) Hypermedia

(B) Write short answers for the following?

1) What can be the general definition of multimedia?

2) What is the application definition of multimedia?

3) Give the examples of Hypermedia Applications.

4) List any five multimedia applications.

5) List any three key issues multimedia system needs to deal with.

6) Write down the desirable features in multimedia systems.

(C) Write the detailed answers for the following.

1. Explain Multimedia systems and it characteristics.

2. Briefly explain the challenges before multimedia systems.

3. What are the components of a multimedia systems?