I Power

Multimedia Technology

Technologies

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USB The Universal Serial Bus is a means of

connecting external devices such as scanners, keyboards, mice to a PC port.

Key Features: Fast transfer rate: 12 Mbps for fast devices

and 1.5Mbps for keyboards and mice. You can connect many devices at once: Daisy

Chaining. No need to configure new equipment. Simply

plug and play

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USB (Cont.) USB2

This is an improved

version of USB which has three operating speeds:

1.5, 12 and 480 Mbps.

USB Connection

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Firewire IEEE 1394 Used for connecting audio/visual and multimedia

applications like digital camcorders, digital cameras and digital TV equipment, music systems.

Key Features: High speed up to a max of 800Mbps (1.6 and 3.2

Gbps versions are under development). It is capable of delivering the speeds needed to

support the handling and transmitting of multimedia data.

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Firewire IEEE 1394 (Cont.)

Using fibre-optic cables, firewire 800 can send data at 800 Mbps over distances if 100 meters.

It supports up to 63 devices by daisy chaining on the one connection.

Key Features:It can handle compressed video, digitised audio and system commands on the common bus simultaneously.

Firewire Connection

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Wireless Communications WiFi

WiFi networks use radiotechnologies.This wireless technology can be used to connect computers to each other to for a LAN, the internet, even to a wired LAN.Can connect wireless printers, servers, notebooks, PDA’s and Desktops.Available in two speeds, 11Mbps and 54Mbps.

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Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short range wireless

transmission system used for: Mobile phones PDA’s Printers Keyboard / Mouse Modems

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Bluetooth Adaptor

Bluetooth (Cont.) Key Parameters:

Range: 10 meters or 100 meters with a booster. Speed: 720 kbps (a 10Mbps version is planned) Data can be exchanged by up to eight devices

simultaneously.

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Developments in Technology You need to know about developments in

storage technology. Particular attention should be paid to:

Decreasing size and price. Increasing capacity.

Examples should be taken from optical magnetic, optical and holographic technologies.

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Holographic Storage CDs, DVDs and magnetic storage all store

bits of information on the surface of a recording medium.

Scientists are now working on a new optical storage method, called holographic memory, that will go beneath the surface and use the volume of the recording medium for storage, instead of only the surface area.

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Holographic Storage (Cont.) Three-dimensional data storage will be

able to store more information in a smaller space and offer faster data transfer times.

Holographic memory offers the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal.

A terabyte of data equals 1,024 gigabytes.

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Real 3-D display The old standard way of achieving 3-D display is

using a pair of special glasses. Emerging technologies don’t require these. Spatial 3-D display technology uses a rotating

projection lens to create an image that appears to occupy 3-D space in a transparent dome.

This is a high end technology designed for specialist use and is very expensive.

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Virtual 3-D displays These are 3-D displays that have been developed

for use with virtual reality systems. They usually use a variation on goggles or a

helmet that has two monitors producing the 3-D effect.

They can be relatively inexpensive.

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3-D flat panel displays Flat panel displays are being developed to

produce a 3-D image. One version uses ‘Parallax illumination’. This involves:

Creating two slightly different images of the same data;

Directing these images to two separate regions so that each eye receives different data, fooling the brain into seeing one 3-D display.

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Who uses 3-D displays? At present they are used by people working

on: Creating and using simulations; Research projects; Image processing.

Eventually this technology will be commercially available to us all and 3-D displays will be common place.