CGMA unit 6 part 1

BASICS OF MULTIMEDIA

Multimedia

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.

Multimedia is a media that uses multiple form of information content and information processing.

Elements of Multimedia:

• Text
• Graphic
• Animation
• Video
• Audio

Text:

Characters that are used to create words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Graphics:

A digital representation of non-text information, such as a drawing, chart, or photograph.

                                    

Animation:

Flipping through aseries of still images. It is a series of graphics that create an illusion of motion.

Video:

photographic images that are played back at speeds of 15 to 30 frames a second and the provide the appearance of full motion.

Audio:
music, speech, or any other sound.

Types of Multimedia

1. LinearPresentation: Linear active content progresses often without any navigational control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation.

2. Non-linear Interactive: uses interactivity to control progress as with a video game or self-paced computer based training. Hypermedia is an example of non-linear content.

Data Streams

A multimedia system is characterised by the computer-controlled generation, manipulation, presentation, storage, and communication of independent discrete and continuous media.

The ability to handle   continuous media, such as audio or video, distinguishes multimedia systems from most conventional computer systems. Continuous media, while being actually discrete, appear smooth to the human observer when presented regularly and periodically at sufficiently high frequencies. Therefore, continuous media are time dependent, and their processing is subject to time constraints.

A good way to describe the propagation of continuous media data through a system or over a network is the  stream metaphor: a sequence of data units flows from sources to sinks along the data path. A set of related data substreams, each carrying one particular continuous medium, forms a  multimedia data stream.

Hardware and Software Requirements

Multimedia hardware requirements consist of the following items:
(a) The processing unit;
 (b) The memory;
(c) Universal Serial Bus (USB) Device;
 (d) Graphics Card and Graphical Processing Unit (GPU);
(e) Hard drive;
(f) Monitor; dan
(g) External storage and optical device.

Applications of Multimedia

• Advertisements
• Art
• Education
• Entertainment
• Engineering
• Medicine
• Mathematics
• Business
• Scientific research

Multimedia Authoring
These are the tools which provide the capability for creating a complete multimedia presentation, including interactive user control, are called authoring tools/programs.
examples: Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director ,Author ware ,Quest.

In other words multimedia authoring is the creation of multimedia productions, sometimes called Movies or Presentations. As we are interested in computer science, we are mostly interested in interactive applications.

Several tools are used for developing interactive multimedia. These are:
• authoring systems
• authoring languages
• generic languages (e.g. C, C++, JAVA)

Authoring tools should possess the following capabilities:
1. Interactivity
2. Playback
3. Editing
4. Programming / Scripting
5. Cross Platform
6. Internet Playability
7. Delivery/Distribution
8. Project organization


Types of authoring authoring tools
• Card and page‐based tools-
Card and page‐based authoring systems provide a simple and easily understood metaphor for organizing multimedia elements. It contains media objects such as buttons, text fields, and graphic graphic objects. It provides a facility for linking objects to pages or cards.
Example - HyperCard (Mac) , ToolBook (Mac / Windows)

• Icon‐based, event‐driven tools-
Icon‐based, event‐driven tools provide a visual programming approach to organize and present multimedia.  Multimedia elements and interaction cues are organized as objects in a flowchart. Flowchart can be built by dragging appropriate icons from a library, and then adding the content.
Examples- Authorware(Mac/Windows), IconAuthor (Windows)

• Time‐based tools-
Time‐based tools are best suited for messages with a beginning and an end. Some time‐based tools facilitate navigation and interactive control.
Example: Example: ‐ Macromedia Director / Flash (Mac/Windows)