Multimedia Fundamentals

Multimedia Characteristics

• Multimedia is the integration of multiple forms of media, such as text, images, audio, and video, to create interactive and engaging experiences.
• Four key characteristics of multimedia:
  • Computer-controlled
  • Integrated
  • Presented digitally
  • Interactive

Advantages of Multimedia

• Enhances text-only messages
• Improves traditional audio and video presentations
• Gains and holds attention
• Good for computer-phobics
• Entertaining as well as educational

Multimedia Data Elements

• Text: display of words
• Images: picture of an object
• Movies: outside the scope of traditional multimedia
• Animation: more accurate than movies
• Hyper text: link to other text
• Sounds: include speech, audio effects, ambient sound, and music

Images

• An artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subjects (object or person)
• Composed of pixels
• Two types of computer graphics:
  • Raster/bitmap images: composed of pixels, used for photo-realistic images and complex drawings
  • Vector images: composed of paths, used for lines and shapes

Graphic File Formats

• Graphic Interchange Format (GIF): supports transparency, limited to 256 colors, used for images with transparent areas, black and white images, and small-size images
• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG): most common file format for images on the web, used for photographs, natural-looking images, and images with a great deal of detail
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG): can display millions of colors, used for images with transparent areas, and images with a great deal of detail

Video

• Capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images that represents scenes in motion
• Streaming media: media that is continuously received and displayed to the end user while it is being delivered by the provider
• File formats:
  • Windows Media
  • RealMedia
  • QuickTime
  • MPEG (MPEG-4)

Animation

• A rapid display of a sequence of images or 2D artwork or model positions to create an illusion of movement
• Techniques:
  • 2D animation: figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics
  • 3D animation (cel-shading): creates computer graphics that appear to be hand-drawn
  • Stop animation: general term for an animation technique that makes static objects appear to move
  • Other techniques: puppet animation, computer animation, full animation, limited animation, rubber hose, drawn on film animation, paint-on-glass animation, clay animation (claymation), cutout animation, silhouette animation, model animation, and special effects and animation

Sounds

• A series of compression waves that moves through air or other materials
• Perception of sounds: perceived through the sense of hearing
• Creating and detecting sounds: creating and detecting sounds have similar effects, but opposite
• File formats:
  • Wave format (.wav): supported by all computers running Windows and by all popular web browsers
  • MP3 format (.mp3): one of the most popular sound formats for music recording
  • MIDI format (.mid or .midi): Musical Instrument Digital Interface, sends music information between electronic music devices, developed in 1982
  • Real-Audio format (.rm or .ram): allows streaming of audio with low bandwidths, developed by Real Media
  • AU format (.au): supported by many different software systems over a large range of platforms, developed by Apple
  • AIFF format (.aiff): not cross-platform and the format is not supported by all web browsers, developed by Apple
  • SND format (.snd): not cross-platform and the format is not supported by all web browsers, developed by Apple