PRINCIPLES OF

MULTIMEDIA

WHAT IS MULTIMEDIA

Means of communication through multiple media

New technological field multus = numerous , multiple media = means or intermediary therefore , implies “multiple means” Multiple intermediaries between the source

and sink of information “multiple means” by which information is

stored , transmitted , presented or perceived

MULTIPLE MEANS

Text (e.g. books , letter, newspapers ) Images and graphics (photo-graphs, charts, maps, logos,

sketches) Sound ( radio, gramophone records, audio

cassettes) Video and animation ( TV, video cassettes and motion pictures)

CHARACTORISTICS OF MULTIMEDIA

There is no general consensus(agreement)on the exact defination

According to Vaughan [vaughan98] Multimedia is any combination of text,

graphic, art, sound, animation vedio delivered by any electronic means.

As per Minoli & Keinath [Minoli93] multimedia is an interdisciplinary

application oriented technology and capitalization on the multi-sensory nature of Humans (mind co-ordinates sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste)

IMPORTANT CHARACTORISTICS OF MULTIMEDIA

Multiple media Non-linearity Scope of interactivity Integrity Digital Representation

MULTIPLE MEDIA

Before multimedia era Text was the only mode of communication and it is still continued to be.

It is now more and more supplemented by Images(Pictures captured by camera) ,Graphics (sketches, diagrams, portraits), Sounds, Movies (images and sounds)

Movies ― real-world incidents motion pictures(recorded on film) motion video(recorded on magnetic media) ― artificial or imaginary scenarios animation Required large storage space and powerful

processors ,Pentium has provided

NON-LINEARITY

Capability of jumping or navigating during presentation without appreciable delay that is to go forward or backward and starting, stopping, pausing the show if required

E.g. audio and video cassettes TV shows and motions pictures are

considered linear

INTERACTIVITY

To make non-linearity possible user needs to interact with the presentation .

This interaction is possible through a set of embedded interactivity elements like Buttons, Menu items or Hyperlinks

By using this elements user can navigate to the interest of his area.

User can interact only when the presentation is capable of accepting inputs from the user

DIGITAL REPRESENTATION

Audio and video cassette players are magnetic tapes i.e. sequential access storage device that creates delay in accessing arbitrary portions of data which is unsuitable for multimedia requirements

Multimedia requires instant access to different portions of the presentations.

Digital computers stores data on random access devices like hard disk, floppy disk and compact disk.

The rotation of the disk and the redial movement of read/write enables instant access to different portions of data recorded on disk surface.

Producd and played back on digital platform

INTEGRITY

In one entity presentation the means of media used should work harmoniously i.e. they should maintain integrity with each other .

For example, Live telecasting technology .

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

Hardware and software requirements of multimedia can be divided into two class

Multimedia Playback : usually requires smaller amount of resources , those which are sufficient for viewing an existing multimedia presentation

Multimedia Production : generally requires greater and more powerful resources and should fulfill all requirements for designing and developing a multimedia presentation.

In both cases however storage and processing requirements are much greater than non-multimedia PCs, because media components like images, audio and video occupy large file sizes and require powerful processors for manipulation and presentation, as compared to plain text files.

MULTIMEDIA PLAYBACK Processor should be at least Pentium class and a

minimum of 8 MB RAM is required, although 32 MB is recommended for smoother playback.

Hard disk should be at least 540 MB in capacity; have 15 ms access time and should be able to provide 1.5 MB/sec sustained throughput.

The monitor and Video Display Adapter should conform to SVGA standards and should be able to support 800 x 600 display mode with true color (16.7 million colors). Amount of VRAM should be at least 4MB.

The PC should be equipped with a CD-ROM drive having a speed of at least 4X but higher speeds like 36X are recommended. Most of the multimedia presentations are delivered and executed from a CD-ROM disc. In future this specification might be replaced by a DVD

CONTINUED……The PC should be equipped with a CD-ROM drive having a speed of at least 4X but higher speeds like 36X are recommended. Most of the multimedia presentations are delivered and executed from a CD-ROM disc. In future this specification might be replaced by a DVD drive.To be able to hear sounds, the PC should have a sound card with attached speakers.Input devices like standard 101-keys keyboard and two-button mouse should be present.Multimedia PC system software should be compatible with Windows 95 or higher, with standard software for playback of media files in standard formats (e.g. Windows Media Player).In some cases application programs like Web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer), media players (e.g. QuickTime Movie Player, Real Media Player) and document readers (e.g. PowerPoint Viewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader) might be required to display additional content.

MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

For production work processors should be at least of the Pentium II class or higher. Memory should be at least 128 MB with 256 MB recommended.

Multimedia production work require a huge amount of disk space and so typic -. requirements would be around 10 GB with 40 GB recommended.

Like playback systems monitor and video display adapter should conform to SVGA standards and should be able to support 800 x 600 display mode with true color. VRAM amount should be at least 4 MB with 8 MB recommended.

The PC should be equipped with a CD-ROM drive having a speed of at least 4X but higher speeds like 36X are recommended. In addition the PC should also have a CD-writer as most of the multimedia presentations are delivered on a CD-ROM disc. In the future this might be replaced by a DVD writer.

CONTINUED…..

For playback of audio components the PC should have a sound card and attached speakers. In addition for recording of sound like human speech or environmental sounds, one or more microphones would be required, capable of being connected to the sound card.

Standard input devices like the keyboard and mouse would be required. Additional input devices and accessories would be required for digitizing media components. A scanner would be required for converting paper images into the electronic form, while a video capture card would be required for converting analog video from a video cassette to the digital form

CONTINUED…..

Multimedia PC system software is required along with additional software for editing

E.g. - Adobe Photoshop and CoreiDraw (for image editing), CoolEdit and SoundForge (for audio editing), Adobe Premiere and Adobe AfterEffects (for video editing), Macromedia Flash and Kinetix 3D Studio Max (for creating animation).

Authoring software are used to integrate all the edited media into a single presentation and build naigationa1 pathways for accessing the media. Examples include Macromedia Director and Asymmetrix ToolBook.

To display Web content web browsers would be required. Examples are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. To create web content HTML and javaScript editors might be required. Examples include Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia DreamWeaver

APPLICATIONS OF

MULTIMEDIA

APPLICATIONS

Multimedia has found extensive applications in various and varied fields. Following are some of the main areas where this technology is applied.

Home Entertainment : computer based games for kids, interactive encyclopedias, story-telling, cartoons, Audio/Video-on-demand systems etc. Computer games are one of the best applications of multimedia because of the high amount of interactivity involved

Educational Purposes : Learning packages, Different aspects of the course curriculum which cannot be explained or grasped easily through simple text and images (as offered by the books) could be presented through video clips, animation, 3D modeling, audio annotations, etc. for making them more comprehensible. E-learning programs.

CONTINUED….. Industrial Training : Computer Based Training

(CBT) packages for employees, both technical and marketing. Successful organizations are required to maintain a high level of staff training and development

Information Kiosks :These are devices where information is accessed through a touch screen and viewed on a monitor .e.g. placing order on net, Train timings, PNR status, Electronic shopping center offering wide range of information product and services, market research etc.

Corporate Presentations : the salient features and activities of a company, product, business partner , logos, graphs, etc.

CONTINUED…..

Business :Items difficult to stock like glass utensils, industrial equipment, etc. can be displayed to perspective buyers by company sales people through multimedia presentation. Real estate agents can display interior and exterior of buildings along with necessary information like dimension and price. Architects and engineers can transform blueprints into buildings and products. The benefits include saving on space, inventory and distribution.

Tourism and Travel Industry : Travel companies can market packaged tours by showing prospective customers glimpses of the places they would like to visit, details on lodging, fooding, special attractions, etc.

Electronic Shopping :user can purchase any item whichever he wishes to purchase by viewing it on the screen as it is in the shop and place orders online

CONTINUED…..

Communication and Networks : real-time interactions between people who need to work together but cannot be in the same place at the same time.

Medicines :Multimedia technologies can be used to prepare high-quality magnetic resonance 3D images of human bodies and practice complicated surgical procedures. Archives of X- ray images, CT scans, ultra-sonography images, etc. will enable doctors to provide better consultations, and could serve as an expert system. Transmission of these images over geographical boundaries can help in the growth of 'tele-medicine' where doctors separated by distance can consult together to find solutions to complicated problems.

Engineering Applications : Multimedia is used extensively in designing mechanical, electrical, electronic and architectural parts through the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications.

CONTINUED….. Enable engineers to develop software

representations of products from various viewpoints, rotate scale and move parts and portions, zoom on to critical parts and try out various combinations before deciding on the final product implementation.

Content Based Storage and Retrieval(CBSR) Systems: As large repositories of non-texual media elements like images, audio/videos ,fingerprint from police records to identify a criminal ,photograph, or a recorded speech, or a video clip from surveillance cameras inside store or bank. These techniques are proving to be immensely helpful especially in cases where there are no additional or prior information about the person in question.

SCOPE OF MULTIMEDIA

SCOPE Multimedia includes a combination of text, still

images, audio, animation, video, and interactivity content forms. At present, scope of Multimedia course is much more than Animation, the reason behind is its course contents and future career options, a person after doing this course can opt any field such as Graphic Designer, Layout Artist, Image Editor, Template Artist, Interface Designer, Web Designer, Web Master, Presentation Artist, Audio/Video Editor, 3D Animator, Game Designer, Sound Producer, Visual Effects Artist, Multimedia Professional, Instructional Artist etc. A person who takes pleasure in drawing and computers can simply make a winning career out of computer animation and multimedia.

MULTIMEDIA DATABASES

DATABASES Multimedia database is a link of databases like any other

databases containing multimedia collections. Multimedia data typically means digital images, audio,

video, animation and graphics together with text data. A multimedia database is a database that hosts one or

more primary media file types such as .txt (documents), .jpg (images), .swf (videos), .mp3 (audio), etc.

There are three main categories of multimedia data: Static media (time-independent, i.e. images and

handwriting) Dynamic media (time-dependent, i.e. video and sound

bytes) Dimensional media (i.e. 3D games or computer-aided

drafting program s- CAD) Why multimedia database? Multimedia database is

capable of handling huge volume multimedia objects which a general database fails to do effectively

CONTINUED….. Contents of MMDB : An MMDB needs to manage several

different types of information pertaining to the actual multimedia data. They are:

1] Media data - This is the actual data representing images, audio, video that are captured, digitized, processes, compressed and stored.

2] Media format data - This contains information pertaining to the format of the media data after it goes through the acquisition, processing, and encoding phases. For instance, this consists of information such as the sampling rate, resolution, frame rate, encoding scheme etc.

3] Media keyword data - This contains the keyword descriptions, usually relating to the generation of the media data. For example, for a video, this might include the date, time, and place of recording, the person who recorded, the scene that is recorded, etc. This is also called as content descriptive data.

4] Media feature data - This contains the features derived from the media data. A feature characterizes the media contents. For example, this could contain information about the distribution of colors, the kinds of textures and the different shapes present in an image. This is also referred to as content dependent data.