Multimedia Production Stages and Tools

Multimedia Production Stages

• The purpose of multimedia production is to display and present multimedia elements.
• A well-developed plan saves time, money, and multiple modifications.
• The rule of thumb for development is 80% planning, 20% production.

Planning Stage

• Determine the messages and objectives of the project.
• Identify how each content and objective may work within the authoring system.
• Plan what writing skills, graphic art, music, video, and other multimedia expertise will be required.
• Ensure the developer/company's reputation is not damaged by a premature or erroneous release.

Testing Stage

• Alpha testing: an alpha release is the first working draft of the project, only for internal circulation.
• Alpha testing is usually done "in-house" by team members.
• Alpha testing is expected to have problems or be incomplete.
• Beta testing: done with a wider array of testers, representative of real users, and not involved with the actual production.
• Beta level bugs are typically less virulent than alpha bugs.
• Managing beta test feedback is critical.

Delivery Stage

• The final project package is delivered to the end user.
• Delivering the project on optical disks or on the web by hosting the pages on a web server.
• Issues on delivery on the web include:
  • Creating a domain name that is easy to remember.
  • Web server can be bought and host the site in-house or outsource to a web hosting company.
  • Considerations for web hosting include storage, connection bandwidth, technical support, security, and search engine registration service.

Multimedia Production Team

• A team of skilled individuals is required to create a good multimedia project.
• Transferring multimedia assets from one platform to another must be done with care.
• Criteria for team selection include:
  • Type and speed of processor.
  • Size of hard disk storage.
  • Connection to network.
  • Screen resolution (higher pixels numbers produce sharper image/video).
  • Sound card features (8-bit, 16-bit, etc.).
  • Video compression facilities.

Hardware Requirements

• Platforms and Processors:
  • Windows OS running on Intel-based IBM PC.
  • Apple Macintosh Operating System.
• High-quality multimedia can be created on specialized workstations from Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and sometimes mainframe computers.
• Input Devices:
  • A wide variety of ways of interacting with multimedia applications.
• Multimedia Storage:
  • High storage demands require careful estimation and consideration of storage media.
  • Examples include optical disks, hard drives, magnetic storage media, and cloud storage.
• Multimedia Connections:
  • Speed of presentation depends on the appropriate connection between devices.
  • Collection of computers and other hardware components interconnected by communication channels.
  • Examples include LAN and WAN, cable and wireless connections (ethernet, fiber optic, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), and ISP.

Software Requirements

• Program used to create, edit, and combine multimedia elements.
• Good ideas, talent, creative skills, and good organization of work are essential.
• Categories of software tools include:
  • Text editing tools.
  • Painting and drawing tools.
  • 2-D, 3-D modeling and animation tools.
  • Image editing tools.
  • Sound editing tools.
  • Digital movie tools.
• Examples of software tools include:
  • Text editing tools: Notepad, Microsoft Powerpoint.
  • Painting and drawing tools: Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Powerpoint, Autocad, Inkscape.
  • 2-D, 3-D animation tools: Adobe After Effects, Blender, etc.
  • Image editing tools: Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, etc.