Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? PDF

CHAPTER 1 What Is Multimedia? In this chapter, you will learn how to: M ultimedia is an eerie wail as two cat’s eyes appear on a dark screen. It’s the red rose that dissolves into a litt...

CHAPTER 1 What Is Multimedia? In this chapter, you will learn how to: M ultimedia is an eerie wail as two cat’s eyes appear on a dark screen. It’s the red rose that dissolves into a little girl’s face when you press “Valentine’s Day” on your iPhone. It’s a small window of video Define common multimedia laid onto a map of India, showing an old man recalling his dusty journey terms such as multimedia, to meet a rajah there. It’s an e-catalog of hybrid cars with a guide to help integration, interactive, you buy one. It’s a real-time video conference with colleagues in Paris, HTML, and authoring and London, and Hong Kong, using whiteboards, microphones, and question qualify the characteristics techniques (see www.webtrain.com) on your office computer. At home, it’s of multimedia: nonlinear an interactive geometry lesson for a fifth-grader. At the arcade, it’s goggle- versus linear content faced kids flying fighter planes in sweaty, virtual reality. On a DVD, it’s the Describe several different interactive video sequence (or screen hot spots) that explain how the Harry environments in which mul- Potter movie was made—all using your remote control. timedia might be used, and Multimedia is any combination of text, art, sound, animation, and several different aspects of video delivered to you by computer or other electronic or digitally manipu- multimedia that provide a lated means. It is richly presented sensation. When you weave together benefit over other forms of the sensual elements of multimedia—dazzling pictures and animations, information presentation engaging sounds, compelling video clips, and raw textual information— Describe the primary you can electrify the thought and action centers of people’s minds. When multimedia delivery you give them interactive control of the process, they can be enchanted. ­methods—the Internet, This book is about creating each of the elements of multimedia and wireless, CD-ROM, and about how you can weave them together for maximum effect. This book is DVD—as well as cite the history of multimedia and for computer beginners as well as computer experts. It is for serious mul- note important projected timedia producers—and for their clients as well. It is for desktop publish- changes in the future of ers and video producers who may need a leg-up as they watch traditional multimedia methods for delivery of information and ideas evolve into new, technology- driven formats. This book is also for hobbyists, who want to make albums and family histories on the World Wide Web; for mainstream businesses, where word-processed documents and spreadsheets are illustrated with audio, video, and graphic animations; for public speakers, who use anima- tion and sound on large monitors and auditorium projection systems to present ideas and information to an audience; for information managers, who organize and distribute digital images, sound, video, and text; and for educators and trainers, who design and present information for learning. If you are new to multimedia and are facing a major investment in hardware, software, and the time you will need to learn each new tool, take a gradual approach to these challenges. Begin by studying each element of  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 1 multimedia and learning one or more tools for creating and editing that element. Get to know how to use text and fonts, how to make and edit The implementation of colorful graphic images and animate them into movies, and how to record multimedia capabilities in and edit digital sound. Browse the computer trade periodicals that contain computers is just the latest the most up-to-date information. Your skills will be most valuable if you episode in a long series: develop a broad foundation of knowledge about each of the basic elements cave painting, hand-crafted of multimedia. manuscripts, the printing Producing a multimedia project or a web site requires more than cre- press, radio, and television. ative skill and high technology. You need organizing and business talent... These advances reflect as well. For example, issues of ownership and copyright will be attached the innate desire of man to to some elements that you wish to use, such as text from books, scanned create outlets for creative images from magazines, or audio and video clips. The use of these resources expression, to use technology often requires permission, and even payment of a fee to the owner. Indeed, and imagination to gain the management and production infrastructure of a multimedia project empowerment and freedom may be as intense and complicated as the technology and creative skills for ideas. you bring to bear in rendering it. Keys to successful development of a mul- timedia project are management of digital tools and skill sets, teamwork, Glenn Ochsenreiter, Director, general project management, documenting and archiving the process, and Multimedia PC Council delivering the completed product on time and within budget. Definitions Multimedia is, as described previously, a woven combination of digitally manipulated text, photographs, graphic art, sound, animation, and video elements. When you allow an end user—also known as the viewer of a multimedia project—to control what and when the elements are deliv- ered, it is called interactive multimedia. When you provide a structure of linked elements through which the user can navigate, interactive multi- media becomes hypermedia. Although the definition of multimedia is a simple one, making it work can be complicated. Not only do you need to understand how to make each multimedia element stand up and dance, but you also need to know how to use multimedia computer tools and technologies to weave them together. The people who weave multimedia into meaningful tapestries are called multimedia developers. The software vehicle, the messages, and the content presented on a computer, television screen, PDA (personal digital assistant), or mobile phone together constitute a multimedia project. If the project is to be shipped or sold to consumers or end users, typically delivered as a down- load on the Internet but also on a CD-ROM or DVD in a box or sleeve, with or without instructions, it is a multimedia title. Your project may also be a page or site on the World Wide Web, where you can weave the elements of multimedia into documents with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or DHTML (Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language) or XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and play rich media files created in such 2 Multimedia: Making It Work programs as Adobe’s Flash, LiveMotion, or Apple’s QuickTime by install- Multimedia is a very effective ing plug-ins into a browser application such as Internet Explorer, Safari, presentation and sales tool. Google Chrome, or Firefox. Browsers are software programs or tools for If you’re being driven some- viewing content on the Web. See Chapter 12 for more about plug-ins, where in the back seat of a car, multimedia, and the Web. you may not remember how A multimedia project need not be interactive to be called multimedia: you got to your destination. users can sit back and watch it just as they do a movie or the television. If you had been driving the In such cases a project is linear, or starting at the beginning and running car yourself, chances are you through to the end. When users are given navigational control and can could get there again. Studies wander through the content at will, multimedia becomes nonlinear and indicate that if you’re stimu- user interactive, and is a powerful personal gateway to information. lated with audio, you will have Determining how a user will interact with and navigate through the about a 20 percent reten- content of a project requires great attention to the message, the scripting tion rate. With audio-visual, or storyboarding, the artwork, and the programming. You can break an retention is up to 30 percent entire project with a badly designed interface. You can also lose the mes- and in interactive multimedia sage in a project with inadequate or inaccurate content. presentations, where you are Multimedia elements are typically sewn together into a project using really involved, the retention authoring tools. These software tools are designed to manage individual rate is as high as 60 percent. multimedia elements and provide user interaction. Integrated multime- dia is the “weaving” part of the multimedia definition, where source docu- Jay Sandom, ments such as montages, graphics, video cuts, and sounds merge into a final Einstein & Sandom presentation. In addition to providing a method for users to interact with the project, most authoring tools also offer facilities for creating and edit- For viewers presented with ing text and images and controls for playing back separate audio and video graphics and words, not just files that have been created with editing tools designed for these media. words alone, there was a 23 The sum of what gets played back and how it is presented to the viewer on percent increase in retention a monitor is the graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced “gooey”). (ability to remember infor- The GUI is more than just the actual graphics on the screen—it also often mation) and an 89 percent provides the rules or structure for the user’s input. The hardware and soft- increase in transfer (ability to ware that govern the limits of what can happen here are the multimedia creatively apply information). platform or environment. From: Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer, Cambridge Where to Use Multimedia University Press, 2001 Multimedia is appropriate whenever a human user is connected to elec- tronic information of any kind, at the “human interface.” Multimedia 100 89 enhances minimalist, text-only computer interfaces and yields measurable benefit by gaining and holding attention and interest; in short, multimedia improves information retention. When it’s properly constructed, multi- 50 media can also be profoundly entertaining as well as useful. 23 Multimedia in Business 0 Business applications for multimedia include presentations, training, % increase in % increase in retention transfer marketing, advertising, product demos, simulations, databases, catalogs,  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 3 instant messaging, and networked communications. Voice mail and video conferencing are provided on many local and wide area networks (LANs and WANs) using distributed networks and Internet protocols. After a morning of mind-numbing overhead presentations delivered from the podium of a national sales conference, a multimedia presentation can make an audience come alive. Most presentation software packages let you make pretty text and add audio and video clips to the usual slide show of graphics and text material. Multimedia is enjoying widespread use in training programs. Flight attendants learn to manage international terrorism and security through simulation. Drug enforcement agencies of the UN are trained using inter- active videos and photographs to recognize likely hiding places on air- planes and ships. Medical doctors and veterinarians can practice surgery methods via simulation prior to actual surgery. Mechanics learn to repair engines. Salespeople learn about product lines and leave behind software to train their customers. Fighter pilots practice full-terrain sorties before spooling up for the real thing. Increasingly easy-to-use authoring programs and media production tools even let workers on assembly lines create their own training programs for use by their peers. Multimedia around the office has also become more commonplace. Image capture hardware is used for building employee ID and badging History has proven that databases, scanning medical insurance cards, for video annotation, and for advances in the way we real-time teleconferencing. Presentation documents attached to e-mail communicate can give rise and video conferencing are widely available. Laptop computers and high- to entirely new communi- resolution projectors are commonplace for multimedia presentations on cation cultures. Much like the road. Mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) utilizing the transition from radio to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communications technology make communication TV, the evolution from text and the pursuit of business more efficient. messaging to multimedia As companies and businesses catch on to the power of multimedia, messaging (MMS) marks the cost of installing multimedia capability decreases, meaning that more a whole new era of mobile applications can be developed both in-house and by third parties, which communications, combining allow businesses to run more smoothly and effectively. These advances images with sound and text. are changing the very way business is transacted by affirming that the use of multimedia offers a significant contribution to the bottom line Jorma Ollila, while also advertising the public image of the business as an investor in Chairman and CEO of Nokia technology. Multimedia in Schools Here, in the country that Schools are perhaps the destination most in need of multimedia. Many invented the Internet, every schools in the United States today are chronically underfunded and occa- child should have the chance sionally slow to adopt new technologies, and it is here that the power of to get online. multimedia can be maximized for the greatest long-term benefit to all. The U.S. government has challenged the telecommunications indus- Barack Obama, try to connect every classroom, library, clinic, and hospital in America to President of the United States 4 Multimedia: Making It Work the information superhighway. Funded by telephone surcharges (eRate), most schools and libraries in America are now connected. Steps have also been taken to provide governmental support for state-of-the-art technol- ogy in low-income rural and urban school districts. The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) has established similar aims for schools in the United Kingdom. Multimedia will provoke radical changes in the teaching process dur- ing the coming decades, particularly as smart students discover they can go beyond the limits of traditional teaching methods. There is, indeed, a move away from the transmission or passive-learner model of learning to the experiential learning or active-learner model. In some instances, teachers may become more like guides and mentors, or facilitators of learning, leading students along a learning path, rather than the more traditional role of being the primary providers of information and under- standing. The students, not teachers, become the core of the teaching and learning process. E-learning is a sensitive and highly politicized subject among educators, so educational software is often positioned as “enrich- ing” the learning process, not as a potential substitute for traditional teacher-based methods. Figure 1-1 shows a selection of instructional videos used for train- ing emergency medicine specialists. Such online e-learning provides a cost-effective vehicle to learn clinical techniques outside of the hospital setting. From real-time echocardiographic images to explanations of the chemistry of synaptic transmission, multimedia is used as an effective teaching medium in medicine and other disciplines. An interesting use of multimedia in schools involves the students themselves. Students can put together interactive magazines and news- letters, make original art using image-manipulation software tools, and interview students, townspeople, coaches, and teachers. They can even make video clips with cameras and mobile phones for local use or uploading to YouTube. They can also design and run web sites. As schools become more a part of the Internet, multimedia arrives by glass fiber and over a network ITV (Interactive TV ) is widely used among campuses to join stu- dents from different locations into one class with one teacher. Remote trucks containing computers, generators, and a satellite dish can be dis- patched to areas where people want to learn but have no computers or schools near them. In the online version of school, students can enroll at Figure 1-1 Multimedia e-learning is a powerful, convenient, and cost-effective schools all over the world and interact with particular teachers and other tool for both instructors and students. students—classes can be accessed at the convenience of the student’s From Tintinalli’s Emergency Medicine: A lifestyle while the teacher may be relaxing on a beach and communi- Comprehensive Study Guide, 6e, available cating via a wireless system. Washington On Line (www.waol.org), for online at www.accessmedicine.com.  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 5 example, offers classes to students who do not wish to spend gas money, fight traffic, and compete for parking space; they even provide training to An interactive episode of professors so they can learn how best to present their classes online. Wild Kingdom might start out with normal narration. Multimedia at Home “We’re here in the Serengeti From gardening, cooking, home design, remodeling, and repair to gene- to learn about the animals.” alogy software (see Figure 1-2), multimedia has entered the home. Even- I see a lion on the screen tually, most multimedia projects will reach the home via television sets or and think, “I want to learn monitors with built-in interactive user inputs—either on old-fashioned about the lion.” So I point color TVs or on new high-definition sets. The multimedia viewed on these at the lion, and it zooms up sets will likely arrive on a pay-for-use basis along the data highway. on the screen. The narra- Today, home consumers of multimedia own either a computer with tion is now just about the an attached CD-ROM or DVD drive or a set-top player that hooks up lion. I say, “Well that’s really to the television, such as a Nintendo Wii, X-box, or Sony PlayStation interesting, but I wonder machine. There is increasing convergence or melding of computer- how the lion hunts.” I point based multimedia with entertainment and games-based media tradition- at a hunt icon. Now the lion ally described as “shoot-em-up.” Nintendo alone has sold over 118 million is hunting, and the narrator game players worldwide along with more than 750 million games. Users tells me about how it hunts. I with TiVo technology (www.tivo.com) can store 80 hours of television dream about being the lion. I viewing and gaming on a stand-alone hard disk. select another icon and now see the world from the lion’s point of view, making the same kinds of decisions the lion has to make—with some hints as I go along. I’m told how I’m doing and how well I’m surviving. Kids could get very motivated from experi- encing what it’s like to be a lion and from wanting to be a competent lion. Pretty soon they’d be digging deeper into the information resource, finding out about animals in different parts of the world, studying geography from maps displayed on the screen, learning which animals are endangered species.... Figure 1-2 Genealogy software such as Reunion from Leister Produc- Trip Hawkins, Founder, tions lets families add text, images, sounds, and video clips as they build Electronic Arts their family trees. 6 Multimedia: Making It Work First Person From time to time during my child- prototypes among those with her hallowed memory. hood I would hear bits and pieces about me. I clothed the farm I never open one of these of family lore about my great- and the neighboring hills now ancient volumes with- grandfather, Victor C. Vaughan, who and dales with romance. Rob out seeing her face, as with had been, at least it seemed from Roy’s cave was a certainty. I lighted candle she came to snatches of occasional conversation, discovered it in a high bluff my room and gently urged a Famous Person many years ago. on the creek. I read the me to go to bed. Not until adulthood, though, did I works of Dickens and Thack- come across his autobiography and eray with like avidity and Victor C. Vaughan continued to learn have a chance to meet him as a real recited the Prisoner of Chillon and apply eagerness and enthusi- person. Today he comes to mind and the Corsair. These and asm to every subject. Among his when we discuss “radical changes books of like character filled accomplishments, he became Dean in the teaching process.” He was my library shelves. There of the Medical School at the Univer- educated the old-fashioned way on were also volumes of ancient sity of Michigan and President of a small farm in Missouri; I’ll let him history and I remember with the American Medical Association. tell you what it was like: what eagerness and enthu- He was Surgeon General during the siasm I read the Decline and great Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918... I received the better Fall of the Roman Empire. and, it is said, he remained bitter to part of my education at “Poor training,” a present- his last days that science, his great home. My wise mother day educator would say, for love, was unable to unravel the did not pretend to dictate one whose adult life was causes of that disaster. my instruction. She simply to be devoted to science. It may be that today’s multimedia placed the books she desired This may be true, but I am and interactive distance learning me to read within my reach reciting facts. I cannot deny using video and audio delivered and supplied no others. I sat that my scientific work might across broadband connections may many a night into the wee have been more productive not be sufficient to compete with small hours and absorbed, had my early training been the light of a sycamore ball floating by the light of a sycamore different. However, I am not in a cup of grease. It may be that ball floating in a cup of making a plea for a handi- the fundamental driver toward the grease, the wonderful stories cap, and I remain grateful success of any person’s education of Walter Scott. I knew to my mother for the books remains, simply and plainly, eager- every one of his characters I read in childhood. They ness and enthusiasm. in detail and sought their continue to be associated Live Internet pay-for-play gaming with multiple players has also become popular, bringing multimedia to homes on the broadband Inter- net, often in combination with CD-ROMs or DVDs inserted into the user’s machine. Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone and Sony’s Station web site boast more than a million registered users each—Microsoft claims to  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 7 be the most successful, with tens of thousands of people logged on and playing every evening. My wife, the keeper of remotes, has rigged an Multimedia in Public Places entertainment system in our In hotels, train stations, shopping malls, museums, libraries, and grocery house that includes a remote stores, multimedia is already available at stand-alone terminals or kiosks, controlled, ceiling mounted providing information and help for customers. Multimedia is piped to 96" × 96" drop-down wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs. Such installations reduce screen, a 27" 16 × 9 format demand on traditional information booths and personnel, add value, and LCD screen, and an 1100 are available around the clock, even in the middle of the night, when live lumin Dell LCD projector help is off duty. The way we live is changing as multimedia penetrates our connected to Wavecable, day-to-day experience and our culture. Imagine a friend’s bout of maudlin our Internet provider. We drunk dialing (DD) on a new iPhone, with the camera accidentally can watch our own CDs or enabled. Internet or Wavecable’s TV/ Figure 1-3 shows a menu screen from a supermarket kiosk that pro- HDTV on our big screen vides services ranging from meal planning to coupons. Hotel kiosks list while we track a sports show nearby restaurants, maps of the city, airline schedules, and provide guest on the smaller screen off services such as automated checkout. Printers are often attached so that another Wavecable box. We users can walk away with a printed copy of the information. Museum have three cable boxes in kiosks are not only used to guide patrons through the exhibits, but when our house. installed at each exhibit, provide great added depth, allowing visitors to browse through richly detailed information specific to that display. Joe Silverthorn, Interactive Media Professor, Olympic College Figure 1-3 Kiosks in public places can make everyday life simpler. 8 Multimedia: Making It Work The power of multimedia has been part of the human experience for many thousands of years, and the mystical chants of monks, cantors, and shamans accompanied by potent visual cues, raised icons, and persuasive text has long been known to produce effective responses in public places. Scriabin, the 19th-century Russian composer, used an orchestra, a piano, a chorus, and a special color organ to synthesize music and color in his Fifth Symphony, Prometheus. Probably suffering from synesthesia (a strange condition where a sensory stimulus, such as a color, evokes a false response, such as a smell), Scriabin talked of tactile symphonies with burning incense scored into the work. He also claimed that colors could be heard; Table 1-1 lists the colors of his color organ. Frequency (Hz) Note Scriabin’s Color 256 C Red 277 C# Violet 298 D Yellow 319 D# Glint of steel 341 E Pearly white shimmer of moonlight 362 F Deep red 383 F# Bright blue 405 G Rosy orange 426 G# Purple 447 A Green 469 A# Glint of steel 490 B Pearly blue Table 1-1 Scriabin’s Color Organ Prometheus premiered before a live audience in Moscow in 1911, but the color organ had proved technologically too complicated and was elimi- nated from the program. Then Scriabin died suddenly of blood poisoning from a boil on his lip, so his ultimate multimedia vision, the Mysterium, remained unwritten. He would have reveled in today’s world of MIDI syn- thesizers (see Chapter 4), rich computer colors, and video digitizers, and, though smell is not yet part of any multimedia standard, he would surely have researched that concept, too. The platforms for multimedia presenta- tion have much improved since Scriabin’s time. Today, multimedia is found in churches and places of worship as live video with attached song lyrics  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 9 shown on large screens using elaborate sound ­systems with special effects lighting and recording facilities. Scriabin would have loved this. People who work in VR do not see themselves as part Virtual Reality of “multimedia.” VR deals At the convergence of technology and creative invention in multimedia is with goggles and gloves virtual reality, or VR. Goggles, helmets, special gloves, and bizarre human and is still a research field interfaces attempt to place you “inside” a lifelike experience. Take a step where no authoring prod- forward, and the view gets closer; turn your head, and the view rotates. ucts are available, and you Reach out and grab an object; your hand moves in front of you. Maybe the need a hell of a computer to object explodes in a 90-decibel crescendo as you wrap your fingers around develop the real-time 3-D it. Or it slips out from your grip, falls to the floor, and hurriedly escapes graphics. Although there is through a mouse hole at the bottom of the wall. a middle ground covered by VR requires terrific computing horsepower to be realistic. In VR, your such things as QuickTime cyberspace is made up of many thousands of geometric objects plotted VR and VRML that gives in three-dimensional space: the more objects and the more points that multimedia developers a describe the objects, the higher the resolution and the more realistic your “window” into VR, people view. As you move about, each motion or action requires the computer to often confuse multimedia recalculate the position, angle, size, and shape of all the objects that make and VR and want to create up your view, and many thousands of computations must occur as fast as futuristic environments 30 times per second to seem smooth. using multimedia-authoring On the World Wide Web, standards for transmitting virtual reality tools not designed for that worlds or scenes in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) docu- purpose. ments (with the filename extension.wrl) have been developed. Intel and software makers such as Adobe have announced support for new 3-D Takis Metaxis, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, technologies. Wellesley College Using high-speed dedicated computers, multi-million-dollar flight simulators built by Singer, RediFusion, and others have led the way in commercial application of VR. Pilots of F-16s, Boeing 777s, and Rock- well space shuttles have made many simulated dry runs before doing the real thing. At the Maine Maritime Academy and other merchant marine officer training schools, computer-controlled simulators teach the intricate loading and unloading of oil tankers and container ships. Virtual reality (VR) is an extension of multimedia—and it uses the basic multimedia elements of imagery, sound, and animation. Because it requires instrumented feedback from a wired-up person, VR is perhaps interactive multimedia at its fullest extension. Delivering Multimedia Multimedia requires large amounts of digital memory when stored in an end user’s library, or large amounts of bandwidth when distributed over 10 Multimedia: Making It Work wires, glass fiber, or airwaves on a network. The greater the bandwidth, the bigger the pipeline, so more content can be delivered to end users quickly. CD-ROM, DVD, Flash Drives CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory, see Chapter 7) discs can be mass-produced for pennies and can contain up to 80 minutes of full-screen video, images, or sound. The disc can also contain unique mixes of images, sounds, text, video, and animations controlled by an authoring system to provide unlimited user interaction. Discs can be stamped out of polycarbonate plastic as fast as cookies on a baker’s production line and just as cheaply. Virtually all personal comput- ers sold today include at least a CD-ROM player, and the software that drives these computers is commonly delivered on a CD-ROM disc. Many systems also come with a DVD player combination that can read and burn CD-ROMs as well. Multilayered Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) technol- ogy increases the capacity and multimedia capability of CDs to 4.7GB on a single-sided, single-layered disc to as much as 17.08GB of storage on a double-sided, double-layered disc. CD and DVD burners are used for reading discs and for making them, too, in audio, video, and data formats. DVD authoring and integration software allows the creation of interactive front-end menus for both films and games. In the very long term, however, CD-ROM and DVD discs are but interim memory technologies that will be replaced by new devices such as flash drives and thumb drives that do not require moving parts. As high- speed connections become more and more pervasive and users become better connected, copper wire, glass fiber, and radio/cellular technologies may prevail as the most common delivery means for interactive multime- dia files, served across the broadband Internet or from dedicated computer farms and storage facilities. The Broadband Internet These days telecommunications networks are global, so when information providers and content owners determine the worth of their products and how to charge money for them, information elements will ultimately link up online as distributed resources on a data highway (actually more like a toll road), where you will pay to acquire and use multimedia-based information. Curiously, the actual glass fiber cables that make up much of the phys- ical backbone of the data highway are, in many cases, owned by railroads and pipeline companies who simply buried the cable on existing rights of way, where no special permits and environmental studies are necessary.  Chapter 1 What Is Multimedia? 11 One railroad in the United States invested more than a million dollars in a special cable-laying trenching car; in the United Kingdom, fiber-optic cable runs in the towpaths of the decaying 19th-century canal and barge system. Bandwidth on these fiber-optic lines is leased to others, so com- peting retailers such as AT&T, Verizon, MCI, and Sprint may even share the same cable. Full-text content from books and magazines is downloadable; fea- ture movies are played at home; real-time news feeds from anywhere on earth are available; lectures from participating universities are monitored for education credits; street maps of cities are viewable—with recom- mendations for restaurants, in any language—and online travelogues include testimonials and video tracks. Just think—each of these inter- faces or gateways to information is a multimedia project waiting to be developed! http://earth.google.com http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview www.moviefone.com www.netflix.com www.travelocity.com www.nytimes.com www.5pm.co.uk Showtimes for many major cities, restaurants, vacation trips, and current news items are quickly available on the Web. Interactive multimedia is delivered to many homes throughout the world. Interest from a confluence of entertainment mega-corps, informa- tion publishers and providers, cable and telephone companies, and hard- ware and software manufacturers is driving this inevitable evolution, and profound changes in global communications strategy are on the drawing boards. What will be piped through this new system for entertainment, reference, and lifelong learning experiences are the very multimedia ele- ments discussed in the chapters of this book, including text, graphics, ani- mation, sound, and video. The actual content provided, let us hope, will be excellent fare, gener- ated by thinking and caring creative people using ideas that will propel all of us into a better world. Entertainment companies that own content easily converted to multimedia projects are teaming up with cable TV companies. Film studios are creating new divisions to produce interactive multimedia and wealthy talents have formed new companies to join in on 12 Multimedia: Making It Work the action. Google is scanning millions of books and periodicals. Even without a clear business model with known profits, large media corpora- tions are uniting to create huge conglomerates to control the content and delivery of tomorrow’s information. Some companies will own the routes for carrying data, other compa- nies will own the hardware and software interfaces at the end of the line, at offices and homes. Some will knit it all together and provide supply-on- demand and billing services. Regardless of who owns the roadways and the hardware boxes, multimedia producers will create the new literature and the rich content sent along them. This is a fresh and exciting industry that is coming of age, but one that is still faced with many growing pains.  Chapter 1 Review Chapter Summary For your review, here’s a summary of the important Areas in which multimedia presentations are concepts discussed in this chapter. suitable include education, training, marketing, advertising, product demos, databases, catalogs, Define common multimedia terms such as entertainment, and networked communications. multimedia, integration, interactive, HTML, and authoring and qualify various characteristics of Describe the primary multimedia delivery multimedia: nonlinear versus linear content methods—the Internet, wireless, CD-ROM, and DVD—as well as cite the history of multimedia Multimedia is any combination of text, graphic and note important projected changes in the art, sound, animation, and video delivered by future of multimedia computer or other electronic means. Multimedia projects often require a large amount Multimedia production requires creative, of digital memory; hence they are often stored on technical, organizing, and business ability. CD-ROM or DVDs. Multimedia presentations can be nonlinear (inter- Multimedia also includes web pages in HTML or active) or linear (passive). DHTML (XML) on the World Wide Web, and Multimedia can contain structured linking called can include rich media created by various tools hypermedia. using plug-ins. Multimedia developers produce multimedia titles Web sites with rich media require large amounts using authoring tools. of bandwidth. Multimedia projects, when published, are multi- The promise of multimedia has spawned media titles. numerous mergers, expansions, and other ventures. Describe several different environments in which These include hardware, software, content, and multimedia might be used, and several different delivery services. aspects of multimedia that provide a benefit over The future of multimedia will include high- other forms of information presentation bandwidth access to a wide array of multimedia Multimedia is appropriate wherever a human resources and learning materials. interacts with electronic information. Key Terms authoring tools (2) environment (2) multimedia element (11) bandwidth (9) font (1) multimedia project (1) browser (2) graphical user interface (GUI) (2) multimedia title (1) burner (10) HTML (1) nonlinear (2) CD-ROM (10) hypermedia (1) platform (2) content (2) integrated multimedia (2) scripting (2) convergence (5) interactive multimedia (1) storyboarding (2) DHTML (1) ITV (4) web site (1) digitally manipulated (1) linear (2) XML (1) distributed resource (10) multimedia (0) DVD (10) multimedia developer (1) 13  Key Term Quiz 1. _______________ is any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation, and video delivered to you by computer or other electronic means. 2. _______________ allows an end user to control what and when the elements are delivered. 3. _______________ is a structure of linked elements through which the user can navigate. 4. A _______________ multimedia project allows users to sit back and watch it just as they do a movie or the television. 5. _______________ tools are software tools designed to manage individual multimedia elements and provide user interaction. 6. The sum of what gets played back and how it is presented to the viewer on a monitor is the _______________. 7. The hardware and software that govern the limits of what can happen are the multimedia _______________. 8. The information that makes up a multimedia presentation is referred to as _______________. 9. CD and DVD _______________ are used for reading and making discs. 10. HTML and DHTML web pages or sites are generally viewed using a _______________. Multiple-Choice Quiz 1. LAN stands for: a. a multimedia project a. logical access node b. a CD-ROM b. link/asset navigator c. a web site c. local area network d. a multimedia title d. list authoring number e. an authoring tool e. low-angle noise 5. A project that is shipped or sold to consumers or 2. A browser is used to view: end users, typically in a box or sleeve or on the a. program code Internet, with or without instructions, is: b. storyboards a. a CD-ROM c. fonts b. an authoring tool d. Web-based pages and documents c. a multimedia project e. videodiscs d. a multimedia title 3. The “ROM” in “CD-ROM” stands for: 6. The 19th-century Russian composer who used a. random-order memory an orchestra, a piano, a chorus, and a special color b. real-object memory organ to synthesize music and color in his Fifth c. read-only memory Symphony, Prometheus was: d. raster-output memory a. Rachmaninoff e. red-orange memory b. Tchaikovsky c. Scriabin 4. The software vehicle, the messages, and the d. Rimsky-Korsakoff content presented on a computer or television e. Shostakovich screen together make up: 14  7. Which one of the following is not/are not c. personal digital assistant typically part of a multimedia specification? d. practical digital accessory a. text e. portable digital armor b. odors 12. The glass fiber cables that make up much of the c. sound physical backbone of the data highway are, in d. video many cases, owned by: e. pictures a. local governments 8. VR stands for: b. Howard Johnson a. virtual reality c. television networks b. visual response d. railroads and pipeline companies c. video raster e. book publishers d. variable rate 13. DVD stands for: e. valid registry a. Digital Versatile Disc 9. According to one source, in interactive b. Digital Video Disc multimedia presentations where you are really c. Duplicated Virtual Disc involved, the retention rate is as high as: d. Density-Variable Disc a. 20 percent e. Double-View Disc b. 40 percent 14. Genealogy software is used to c. 80 percent a. Study benthic sediments d. 60 percent b. Organize class reunions e. 100 percent c. Display family trees 10. Which of the following is displayable on a web d. Compute shortest routes for ambulances page after installation of a browser plug-in? e. Open e-mail a. Windows 7 15. Which of the following is not a technology likely b. Adobe Flash to prevail as a delivery means for interactive c. Mozilla multimedia files? d. Internet Explorer a. copper wire e. Firefox b. glass fiber 11. PDA stands for: c. radio/cellular a. primary digital asset d. floppy disk b. processor digital application e. CD-ROM Essay Quiz 1. Briefly discuss the history and future of multimedia. How might multimedia be used to improve the lives of its users? How might it influence users in negative ways? What might be its shortcomings? 2. You are a marketing director for a small telecommunications company. You are considering using multimedia to market your company’s product. Put together an outline detailing the benefits and drawbacks of using a CD-ROM presentation, a multimedia web site, or a television advertisement. 3. Multimedia is shifting from being localized (contained on a CD-ROM) to being distributed (available on the World Wide Web). What are some of the implications of this? Who will have access to the presentation? How will you keep it secure? How will you distribute it? 15 Lab Projects Project 1.1 You have been given the task of creating an interactive Web presentation for marketing a new bicycle. Visit four different bicycle web sites using a suitable search tool. For each web site you visit, write in the table below the name of the site, its URL, and: 1. Describe each site in terms of its multimedia incorporation. 2. Discuss whether its multimedia content is appropriate and where and how additional media content might improve the site. 3. Describe what multimedia presentation formats it uses. Video? Virtual reality? 3-D animations? Site 1 URL (address): Describe the GUI. What navigational elements does it have? What colors does it use? Is it cluttered? Is the content relevant and appropriate? What additions/deletions of content might improve the site? Describe any multimedia presentations of specific products. What formats did they use? Site 2 URL (address): Describe the GUI. What navigational elements does it have? What colors does it use? Is it cluttered? Describe any multimedia presentations of specific products. What formats did they use? Site 3 URL (address): Describe the GUI. What navigational elements does it have? What colors does it use? Is it cluttered? Describe any multimedia presentations of specific products. What formats did they use? Site 4 URL (address): Describe the GUI. What navigational elements does it have? What colors does it use? Is it cluttered? Describe any multimedia presentations of specific products. What formats did they use? 16  Project 1.2 Review an educational multimedia CD-ROM title, and then fill out the table that follows. Title of CD Describe the GUI. What navigational elements does it have? What color scheme(s) does it use? Is it cluttered? Describe the educational content. Is it well organized? Would you be able to easily learn the subject matter using this package? Describe the product in terms of its multimedia ­incorporation. Discuss whether its multimedia content is appropriate and where and how additional media content might improve the site. Project 1.3 Contact a local multimedia development company. Ask them what kinds of products they develop and whether they would describe two projects they have recently completed. Be sure that they provide you with enough infor- mation to answer each of the following questions. Multimedia Project 1 1. Name of project. 5. How did the production of the project develop? 2. Kind of product created. 6. How long did the project take to complete? 3. What authoring tool(s) were used to create the 7. What problems were encountered? project? 4. Who made up the development team for the project? Multimedia Project 2 1. Name of project. 5. How did the production of the project develop? 2. Kind of product created. 6. How long did the project take to complete? 3. What authoring tool(s) were used to create the 7. What problems were encountered? project? 4. Who made up the development team for the project? Project 1.4 Visit a large public area such as a shopping mall, the downtown area of a city, or a museum. Locate a kiosk or other public multimedia installation. Spend 15 minutes observing who uses it and for how long. 1. Describe the installation. Where was it located? Is there a lot of foot traffic going past it? Is it conveniently located? Is it accessible to a wide range of users (tall, short, disabled, wheelchair, or vision impaired)? 2. Describe the usage pattern. Characterize the users. Were children attracted to it? Did users “play” with it? 17