Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism and Communication,

Bhopal

1PGDCA4(A) Fundamentals of Multimedia

Unit 1

Introduction to Multimedia, Multimedia Definition, Concept. Need of

Multimedia, Areas of use. Development platforms for multimedia. Identifying
Multimedia elements - Text, Images, Sound, Animation and Video, Multimedia
Hardware and Software requirement, Making simple multimedia with
PowerPoint. Text as a component of Multimedia, Concepts of plain &
formatted text, RTF & HTML texts, Object Linking and Embedding concepts,
Fonts – Need and types

1.1 Introduction to Multimedia

In this Unit, we will learn the preliminary concepts of Multimedia, the basic elements
of Multimedia, Text component of Multimedia.

1. Introduction and Concept

Common man visiting Indian Railways site IRCTC for travel purpose, accessing
State Bank of India website for online transactions come across textual data, images,
and graphics while accessing the sites. Media students access online newspaper
edition, like https://epaper.bhaskar.com, listen to audio through podcasting sites like
www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/, watch Television on second screen like
www.natgeotv.com , upload posts through social networking sites like
https://www.facebook.com. All these website contents use text, image, audio,
video, graphics and animation which are the basic elements of multimedia.

• Real-time new media communication channels like whatsapp, instagram,

facebook, twitter contents are full of multimedia elements.
• Multimedia refers to multiple mediums be it text, images, audio, video,
graphics and animation, all or few used together.
• The five senses of human – vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell reacts
according to external stimuli.
• Similarly, a medium refers to different type of data representation such as text,
images, graphics, speech, audio, and video.
• In this, Text, data, image and graphics media are known as discrete media,
whereas, audio and video media are known as continuous media.
• Thus, Reading newspaper is a multimedia experience since it integrates text
and halftone images.
• Watching Television is a multimedia experience that integrates video and
audio signals.
• Whatsapp is a multimedia experience that integrates all the elements of
multimedia.
• The perspectives of multimedia have different meaning depending on the
context and user.
• For a media student, multimedia can be used for presentation of reporting,
editing of images
• For a computer student multimedia can be used for a project presentation or
simulation.
• A mobile user may use multimedia through MMS and whatsapp
• PC vendor’s reference to multimedia may be about graphics adapter and
sound card.
• Interactive multimedia is, when the user is given an option to control over
what information is viewed and when it is viewed.
 • Hypermedia is when its designer provides a structure of linked elements
through which a user can navigate and interact.

1.2 Definition [R1]

Multimedia can have many definitions:

Multimedia is any combination of text, graphic, art, sound, animation and video
delivered by any electronic means.- Vaughan.

Multimedia is an interdisciplinary application-oriented technology that capitalizes

on the multi-sensory nature of humans. (Humans are multi-sensory as they can
communicate with sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste)- Minoli and Keinath.

Digital multimedia is defined as the integration of up to six media types in an

interactive, color computing environment.-Fetterman and Gupta.

1.3 Need of Multimedia and Areas of Use

The need of Multimedia depends on the Problem/Requirement of the

User/Audience.
 From a Student perspective,
• A lecture can be better understood by using a Powerpoint presentation.
• An experiment can be better explained using Simulation through animation.

From a Customer perspective,

• Video demo of the working of a Printer, will help the Customer do Online
purchase of a Printer better .
• Story-telling through Interactive Animations or Customized Touch-
Screen Kiosks

Multimedia has been used in many areas like:

Education:

• Use of multimedia learning packages

• Simulation of lab experiments
 • E-books - books are digitized and easily available on the Internet.

• Digital Library – Online access of Books, Journals, Magazines through

Digital Libraries

• Interactive encyclopedia,
• Live Presentations like speeches, webinars, lectures
• eLearning Programs like online and blended training

Entertainment:

• Movie making - Special effects in movie, is created by using multimedia

technology.

• Video games are one of the most interesting creations of multimedia

technology, attracting children and adults.

• Animated films
• Story-telling
• Cartoons
• Audio and video on demand

Electronic shopping:

• Multimedia technology has created a virtual arena for the e-commerce.

• Customized presentation of a selected product can be viewed by customers,
which helps them to minimize the time spent on purchase, in addition to
availability of increased choice of products.

Engineering Applications:

• CAD/CAM are used for designing mechanical, electrical and electronic parts

Medicine:

• Archives of X-ray images, CT scans, Ultra-sonography images

 • Multimedia technologies are used to prepare high-quality magnetic resonance
3D images of human bodies

Other areas that use multimedia extensively are Industrial Training,

Information Kiosks, ATM, Tourism and travel industry.

1.4 Development Platforms for Multimedia

• The traditional Development Platforms for Multimedia are Microsoft

Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, along with Software tools
supporting cross platform.

• The Multimedia PC (MPC) Marketing Council developed two specifications

Level 1 and Level 2, to encourage the adoption of multimedia capabilities.

• In 1990, Level 1 specification was developed, to provide a baseline

definition of multimedia computing in functionality, hardware components,
and software components.

• Level 1 specification included several compact disc – read-only memory

(CD-ROM) drives that provided data at sustained transfer rates varying from
90 to 150 kilobytes per second, 8-bit sound cards, and 16-color and 256-
color (SVGA) video adapters.

• In 1993, Level 2 specification developed, builds on the first specification

and focuses on enhanced multimedia capabilities.

• Basic tools supporting Multimedia development include:

✓ World Wide Web (browser-based playback) - HTML 5, CSS,
Flash, Dreamweaver

✓ Programming Applications (native playback) - Director,

LiveCode

✓ Artwork Development - Photoshop, Illustrator

✓ Animation Development (2D and 3D) - After Effects, Maya

✓ Audio Editing - Sound Forge, Audition

✓ Video Editing - Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro

 ✓ Compression - Adobe Media Encoder, Sorenson Squeeze

1.5 Identifying Multimedia elements

There are five basic elements of multimedia: text, images, audio, video and
animation.

Example - Text in fax, Photographic images, Geographic information system maps,

Voice commands, Audio messages, Music, Graphics, Moving graphics animation,
Full-motion stored and live video, Holographic images.

Text and images are static objects, whereas audio, video and animations are dynamic
objects that move or change.

Text –

• Text is most commonly used to communicate information.

• It has alphanumeric characters, in addition to special characters.
• It involves the use of text types, sizes, fonts, colours and background colours.
• Multimedia applications support linked content, through Hypertext.
• Text in SMS, FAX, Email are examples of this element in Communication.
• Common file types include: TXT, DOC, DOCX, PDF.
Images
• Images/Illustrations are the oldest form of media
• They help to illustrate ideas through still pictures.
• There are two types of images - Bitmaps and Vector
• Bitmap images are real images that can be captured from devices such as
cameras.
• Vector graphics are created using software in the computer .
• This multimedia element enables to generate, represent, process, manipulate,
and display pictures.
• Common file types for Images include: JPG, PNG, TIF, BMP

Audio
• The speech, music and sound effects used in multimedia is digital audio.
• Multimedia applications use audio or the sound element like, website or
presentation can add audio files from a musical background, or a voiceover /
spoken explanation.
• There are two basic type of audio or sound; analog and digital.
• The original sound signal is termed as Analog audio.
• The digital sampling of the original sound is termed as Digital audio.
• Common file types for Audio include: MP3, WAV, WMA
Video
• Video presents moving pictures and typically combines images and sound for
a multimedia experience.
• This technology records, synthesizes, and displays images known as frames
in such sequences at a fixed speed that makes the creation appear as moving;
this is how we see a completely developed video.
• To watch a video without any interruption, video device must display 25 to
30 frames/second.
• Common file types for Video include AVI, WMV, FLV, MOV, MP4

Animation
• Animation is the process of making a static image to look as if it is moving.

• It helps in creating, developing, sequencing, and displaying a set of images

technically known as frames.
• Digital animation can be classified as 2D two dimension and 3D Three
dimension animations.
 • GIFs, an abbreviation for graphic image files, are small files that present a
single image or rapidly display a sequence of a few images to give the
appearance of motion.
• AdobeFlash is the most common tool for creating these animations.
• Common file types for Animation include: GIF, FLV

1.6 Hardware and Software requirement

• Hardware refers to a physical piece of a device or computer, for example a

keyboard, mouse, hard drive, monitor, memory chip, CPU etc.
• Hardware devices used commonly can be categorized into input, output and
storage devices.
• Hardware devices in these categories can be used for Multimedia
development during preproduction, production and post production phases.
• Hardware devices can also be used for Multimedia experience by the User.
For example, a speaker to enjoy the audio, a camera to capture images.
• Alphanumeric keyboards and optical character recognition, Digital cameras
and scanners, Video camera, Microphones and midi keyboards, Mice,
trackballs, joy sticks, drawing tablets are all examples of multimedia
hardware.
• System requirements in general include- Operating system, Minimum CPU or
processor speed, Minimum GPU or video memory for displays and graphics
hardware, Minimum system memory (RAM), Minimum free storage space,
Audio hardware (sound card, speakers, etc), available ports (USB, Ethernet,
etc), Wireless connectivity
Software Tools include –

• Word processing tools like Microsoft Word, Open Office Word

• Graphic and Image Editing Tools like CorelDraw, Photoshop
• Sound Editing Tools like Soundrecorder from Microsoft, Apple’s QuickTime
Player pro, Sonic Foundry’s SoundForge for Windows, Soundedit, Audacity
• OCR Software
• 3-D Modeling and Animation Tools, Painting and Drawing Tools like
CorelDraw, Freehand, Designer and Canvas
1.8 Making simple multimedia with PowerPoint

Multimedia presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint

• A multimedia presentation differs from a normal presentation

where the former contains some form of its elements like animation or
images.
• Multimedia presentation contains at least one of the following
elements - Video or movie clip, Animation, Sound as voice-over,
background music or sound clips, Navigation structure
• The easiest way to create a multimedia presentation in Microsoft
PowerPoint is by adding a video, a soundtrack or animation.
• The biggest advantage of making multimedia presentations in
PowerPoint is that it is easy for anyone to be able to edit the
presentation.
• An example of how you can introduce multimedia effects in a presentation is
shown in the taxi sequence on the left . It starts with a line drawing being made
on the screen and is then followed up with a taxi fading in.
• The sequence is part of one of Microsoft PowerPoint templates - Refer taxi
animated template.

1.9 Text as a component of Multimedia, Concepts of plain & formatted text,

RTF & HTML texts,
TEXT

• All communication products encompass Text. For instance, when we read

newspaper, magazine, book, send/receive sms, email, create a webpage,
read/write a blog.
• Text is important to design labels for title screens, menus, and buttons using
words that have the most precise and powerful meanings to express.
• As every medium uses Text, may it be a Pamplet, TV News reporting, or an
animated movie, Text forms the important component of Multimedia.
• Text or data is a block of characters with each character represented by a fixed
number of binary digits knows as ASCII, Unicode.
• The basic unit of text is character and special symbols that are available in the
predefined set.
• The sizes of text or data files are usually small.

Text in digital form can be classified broadly as unformatted or plain text, formatted
text, and hypertext.

• Unformatted or plain text is the raw text, appears as typed by the user, without
any changes. It refers to textual data in ASCII format. Plain text is the most
portable format, as it is supported by every application. A Notepad is
commonly used to create plain text. Its file format is .txt.

• Formatted text is the text in which, the appearance of the text like font style,
size, colours are changed using text editors or word processing applications.
Microsoft Word is commonly used to create formatted text. Its file format is
.doc.
• RTF or Rich Text Format, is a document file format developed
by Microsoft for cross-platform document including text and graphics
interchange. While a normal text file stores only plain text, RTF files can
 include extra information about font style, formatting, images, and more.
They are great for cross-platform document sharing because they are
supported by lots of apps. RTF file is useful format for basic formatted text
documents such as instructions manuals, resumes, letters, and modest
information documents. These document support bold, italic, underline text
formatting, Left, right, center justification. Font specification and document
margins are also supported. Microsoft Word is commonly used to create
formatted text. Its file format is .RTF.

• Hypertext is one of the core structures of Multimedia presentation, enables

non linear access of text in same page, or in a different page. Even, other
media or screen can be linked and accessed either sequentially or non linear
way, through the use of text. Hyper text markup language – HTML is used to
create webpages, has provisions to create hyperlinks. Structured
documentation like headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, links, quotes, and
interactive forms are supported by HTML. The HTML elements has "tags"
specified by angle brackets within the web page content. Its file format is
.html. PowerPoint and Word also provide this option.
Sources of Text:

• Sources of Text can be input through keyboard directly

• Generate text from the scanned version of a paper document or image using
an Optical Character Recognition System (OCR)
• Copy text from an existing file or application
• Converting sound to text through Speech to Text Converter

1.10 Object Linking and Embedding concepts

 • Object Linking and Embedding or OLE is a component document technology
from Microsoft that allows to dynamically link files and applications together.
• Example- an Excel spreadsheet can be embedded within a
Microsoft Word document using OLE
• Insert worksheet cells into the document as an Excel object. Microsoft Office
Word runs Excel when double-click the cells, and Excel commands can be
used to work with the worksheet content.
• The main differences between linked objects and embedded objects are where
the data is stored and how you update the data after you place it in the Word
file.
• Either a link to the object or a copy of the object is placed in the document.

Linked and embedded objects in an Office for Windows document

1. Embedded object
2. Linked object
3. Source file

Linked objects
• When an object is linked, information can be updated if the source file is
modified.
• Linked data is stored in the source file.
• The Word file, or destination file, stores only the location of the source file,
and it displays a representation of the linked data.
• Use linked objects if file size is a consideration.

Linking is also useful when you want to include information that is maintained
independently, such as data collected by a different department, and when you need
to keep that information up-to-date in a Word document.

Embedded objects
 • When you embed an Excel object, information in the Word file doesn't change
if you modify the source Excel file.
• Embedded objects become part of the Word file and, after they are inserted,
they are no longer part of the source file.
Because the information is totally contained in one Word document, embedding is
useful when you don't want the information to reflect changes in the source file, or
when you don't want the document recipients to be concerned with updating the
linked information. ( Source : Microsoft documentation)

1.11 Fonts – Need and types

• As, texts are the major sources of information. text within the document
needs to be taken care while creating content.
• Fonts provide attractive appearance and preserves the aesthetic value of your
content.
• Font as a medium of communication, helps to present the information in a
professional way.
• The right choice of color, font and text size can prove to be vital for
communicating the information to target audience.
• It creates an information hierarchy. To highlight the important topics by
using varied font sizes.
• It grasps the audience's attention.

Font and Font files

• A typeface is a collection of letters. Every letter is unique, but certain shapes

are shared across letters.
• A typeface represents shared patterns across a collection of letters.
• Thus. typeface is a family of graphic characters that generally includes many
type sizes and styles.
• Serif and Sans serif are simplest and common way to categorize a typeface.
• A serif is a small shape or projection that appears at the beginning or end of a
stroke on a letter. Typeface with serifs are called a serif typeface.
• Serif are used in the body of the text for better readability. Times, Times New
Roman, Bookman are the example fonts of serif category.
• A typeface without serifs is called a sans serif typeface, from the French word
“sans” that means "without."
• Sans serif fonts are used for headings. Arial, Optima, Verdana are example
sans serif font.
• A font is a collection of characters of a single size and style belonging to a
particular typeface family.
• The common font styles in use are bold, italic, and underline, others include
superscript, emboss, strikethrough.

• Font name refers to font files which contain the actual description of the
character appearance.
• Example default Standard font types are Times New Roman.
• Customized font types are created or downloaded through internet.
• The font files that has information about character descriptions are classified
into two categories, Vector format and Bitmap format
• In Vector format, character descriptions are stored mathematically and
revealed as True type fonts. When the characters are scaled, distortion does
not occur. The file format is TTF.
• In Bitmap format, character description is a collection of pixels. When the
characters are scaled, distortion occur.
• Type sizes when expressed in points, one point is 0.0138 inch, or about 1/72
of an inch
• The size of a font does not exactly describe the height or width of its characters
. This is because the x-height or the height of lower case character x of two
fonts may differ.
• Leading is the space between lines.
• Kerning is the space between individual characters.
• Alignment can be left, right, centered, or justified.
References

1. https://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave.Marshall/Multimedia/node10.html
2. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/basics_of_computer_science/basics_of_com
puter_science_multimedia.htm

3. http://www.creativemediaoc.com/multimedia.htm
4. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/multimedia/multimedia-
pc-specifications
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6. https://support.microsoft.com/en-ie/office/linked-objects-and-embedded-
objects-0bf81db2-8aa3-4148-be4a-c8b6e55e0d7c
7. https://material.io/design/typography/understanding-typography.html#type-
properties
8. http://notes4learners.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_11.html
9. Ebook on Fundamentals of Multimedia can be accessed from:
https://users.dimi.uniud.it/~antonio.dangelo/MMS/materials/Fundamentals_
of_Multimedia.pdf
 10. Presentation on basics of Multimedia can be accessed from
http://www.ftms.edu.my/images/Document/MMGD0101%20-
%20Introduction%20to%20Multimedia/MMGD0101%20chapter%201.pdf

Image references:

Topics Image references

Introduction to • https://steemit.com/anime/@zulfajri/multimedia-in-a-daily-
Multimedia, life-started-from-phone-laptop-and-other-equipment-we-
Multimedia are-not-disappeared-from-multimedia-and-digital
Definition, Concept
Need of Multimedia, • https://www.admecindia.co.in/sites/default/files/use-of-
Areas of use. multimedia-in_various-fields_0.jpg
Development
platforms for
multimedia
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Multimedia elements life-started-from-phone-laptop-and-other-equipment-we-
- Text, Images, are-not-disappeared-from-multimedia-and-digital
• https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-35744907
Sound, Animation
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and Video play-2019-whats-next-audio-tech
• https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/social-media-video/
• http://hindi.fansshare.com/gallery/photos/15405937/popey
e-teaser-clip-animatio/?displaying
Multimedia Hardware • https://steemit.com/anime/@zulfajri/multimedia-in-a-daily-
and Software life-started-from-phone-laptop-and-other-equipment-we-
requirement are-not-disappeared-from-multimedia-and-digital
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PowerPoint
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of Multimedia, • https://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave.Marshall/Multimedia/node11
Concepts of plain & .html
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HTML_Example
formatted text,
_Code_new.png
RTF & HTML texts, • https://www.howtogeek.com/358854/what-is-an-rtf-file-
Object Linking and and-how-do-i-open-one/
Embedding concepts

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types
 • https://material.io/design/typography/understanding-
typography.html#type-properties
• https://steemit.com/anime/@zulfajri/multimedia-in-a-daily-
life-started-from-phone-laptop-and-other-equipment-we-
are-not-disappeared-from-multimedia-and-digital

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