Multimedia

What is multimedia?
Multimedia uses computers to present text, audio, video, animation,
interactive features, and still images in various ways and combinations
made possible through the advancement of technology. By combining
media and content, those interested in multimedia can take on and work
with a variety of media forms to get their content across. This is an
exciting new field for those interested in computers, technology, and
creative career options. Multimedia can be accessed through computers or
electronic devices and integrates the various forms together. One example
of multimedia would be combining a website with video, audio, or text
images.

Examples of typical multimedia applications include: digital video editing

and production systems; electronic newspapers and magazines; the World
Wide Web; online reference works, such as encyclopedias; games;
groupware; home shopping; interactive TV; multimedia courseware;
video conferencing; video - on - demand; and interactive movies.

Definition of multimedia
By definition Multimedia is a representation of information in an
attractive and interactive manner with the use of a combination of text,
audio, video, graphics and animation. In other words we can say that
Multimedia is a computerized method of presenting information
combining textual data, audio, visuals ( video ), Sgraphics and animation.
For examples: E-Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Video Conferencing, and
Multimedia Message Service ( MMS ).

Multimedia as name suggests is the combination of Multi and Media that

is many types of media (hardware/software) used for communication of
information.

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Components of Multimedia
Following are the common components of multimedia:

• Text - All multimedia productions contain some amount of text. The

text can have various types of fonts of fonts and sizes to suit the
profession presentation of the multimedia software.
• Graphics - Graphics make the multimedia application attractive. In
many cases people do not like reading large amount of textual matter
on the screen.
Therefore, graphics are used more often than text to explain a concept,
present background information etc. There are two types of Graphics:
o Bitmap images - Bitmap images are real images that can be
captured from devices such as digital cameras or scanners.
Generally bitmap images are not editable. Bitmap images
require a large amount of memory.

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o Vector Graphics - Vector graphics are drawn on the computer

and only require a small amount of memory. These graphics are
editable.
• Audio - A multimedia application may require the use of speech,
music and sound effects. These are called audio or sound element of
multimedia. Speech is also a perfect way for teaching. Audio are of
analog and digital types. Analog audio or sound refers to the original
sound signal. Computer stores the sound used in multimedia
application is digital audio.
• Video - The tern video refers to the moving picture, accompanied by
sound element of multimedia application gives a lot of information in
small duration of time. Digital video is useful in multimedia
application for showing real life objects. Video have highest
performance demand on the computer memory and on the bandwidth
if placed on the internet. Digital video files can be stored like any
other files in the computer and the quality of the video can still be
maintained. The digital video files can be transferred within a
computer network. The digital video clips can be edited easily.
• Animation - Animation is a process of making a static image look
like it is moving. An animation is just a continuous series of still
images that are displayed in a sequence. The animation can be used
effectively for attracting attention. Animation also makes a
presentation light and attractive. Animation is very popular in
multimedia application.

Applications of multimedia
Following are the common areas of applications of multimedia:

• Multimedia in Business - Multimedia can be used is many

applications in a business. The multimedia technology along with
communication technology has opened the door for information of
global wok groups. Today the team members may by working
anywhere and can work for various companies. Thus the work place
will become global. The multimedia network should support the
following facilities:
o Voice Mail
o Electronic Mail

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o Multimedia based FAX

o Office Needs
o Employee Training
o Sales and Other types of Group Presentation
o Records Management
• Multimedia in Marketing and Advertising - By using multimedia
marketing of new products can be greatly enhanced. Multimedia boost
communication on an affordable cost opened the way for the
marketing and advertising personnel. Presentation that have flying
banners, video transitions, animations, and sound effects are some of
the elements used in composing a multimedia based advertisement to
appeal to the consumer in a way never used before and promote the
sale of the products.
• Multimedia in Entertainment - By using multimedia marketing of
new products can be greatly enhanced. Multimedia boost
communication on an affordable cost opened the way for the
marketing and advertising personnel
Presentation that have flying banners, video transitions, animations,
and sound effects are some of the elements used in composing a
multimedia based advertisement to appeal to the consumer in a way
never used before and promote the sale of the products.
• Multimedia in Education - Many computer games with focus on
education are now available. Consider an example of an educational
game which plays various rhymes for kids. The child can paint the
pictures, increase reduce size of various objects etc apart from just
playing the rhymes. Several other multimedia packages are available
in the market which provide a lot of detailed information and playing
capabilities to kids.
• Multimedia in Bank - Bank is another public place where multimedia
is finding more and more application in recent times. People go to
bank to open saving/current accounts, deposit funds, withdraw money,
know various financial schemes of the bank, obtain loans etc. Every
bank has a lot of information which it wants to impart to in customers.
For this purpose, it can use multimedia in many ways. Bank also
displays information about its various schemes on a PC monitor
placed in the rest area for customers. Today on-line and internet
banking have become very popular. These use multimedia

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extensively. Multimedia is thus helping give service to their customers

and also in educating them about banks attractive finance schemes.
• Multimedia in Hospital - Multimedia best use in hospitals is for real
time monitoring of conditions of patients in critical illness or accident.
The conditions are displayed continuously on a computer screen and
can alert the doctor/nurse on duty if any changes are observed on the
screen. Multimedia makes it possible to consult a surgeon or an expert
who can watch an ongoing surgery line on his PC monitor and give
online advice at any crucial junctures.
Inn hospitals multimedia can also be used to diagnose an illness with
CD-ROMS/ Cassettes/ DVDS full of multimedia based information
about various diseases and their junior staff of doctors and nurses.
Multimedia displays are now extensively used during critical
surgeries.
• Multimedia Pedagogues - Pedagogues are useful teaching aids only
if they stimulate and motivate the students. The audio-visual support
to a pedagogue can actually help in doing so. A multimedia tutor can
provide multiple numbers of challenges to the student to stimulate his
interest in a topic. The instruction provided by pedagogue have moved
beyond providing only button level control to intelligent simulations,
dynamic creation of links, composition and collaboration and system
testing of the user interactions.
• Communication Technology and Multimedia Services - The
advancement of high computing abilities, communication ways and
relevant standards has started the beginning of an era where you will
be provided with multimedia facilities at home. These services may
include:
o Basic Television Services
o Interactive entertainment
o Digital Audio
o Video on demand
o Home shopping
o Financial Transactions
o Interactive multiplayer or single player games
o Digital multimedia libraries
o E-Newspapers, e-magazines

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Components of Multimedia
The multiple modalities of text, audio, images, drawings, animation, and
video in multimedia are put to user in ways as diverse as

• Video teleconferencing
• Distributed lectures for higher education
• Telemedicine
• Cooperative work environments that allow business people to edit
a shared document or school children to share a single game using
two mice that pass control back and forth Searching (very) large
video and image databases for target visual objects.
• "Augmented" reality: placing real appearing computer graphics and
video objects into scenes so as to take the physics of objects and
lights (e.g., shadows) into account.
• Audio cues for where video - conference participants are seated, as
well as taking into account gaze direction and attention of
participants.
• Building searchable features into new video and enabling very high
to very low bitrate use of new, scalable multimedia products.
• Making multimedia components editable – allowing the user side
to decide what components, video, graphics, and so on are actually
viewed and allowing the client to move components around or
delete them – making components distributed.
• Building "inverse - Hollywood" applications that can recreate the
process by which a video was made, allowing storyboard pruning
and concise video summarization.
• Using voice recognition to build an interactive environment – say a
kitchen wall web browser.

From the computer science student's point of view, what makes

multimedia interesting is that so much of the material covered in
traditional computer science areas bears on the multimedia enterprise:
networks, operating systems, real - time systems, information retrieval.
Like databases, multimedia touches on many traditional areas.

The Multimedia principle is a theory studied in depth by Richard Mayer

that states words and graphics are more conductive to learning, rather

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than just text or graphics alone. The theory is based on the idea that
learners learn better when they engage in relevant cognitive pressing such
as attending to the relevant material in the lesson, mentally organizing the
material into a coherent cognitive representation and mentally integrating
the material with their existing knowledge.(Mayer 154) His study also
shows that learners may engage in less in-depth learning with just text
alone, not connecting what they have read with new or prior knowledge.

Studies have shown that there are two main channels that we use to
process information, the auditory and visual channel. The auditory
channel processes sounds that we hear while the visual channel processes
things that we see. By combining these two process studies have shown
that learners, learning will be more in depth and stay in the learners
memory longer. Their studies have also shown that to many visuals or too
much text can overload the learner so their needs to be a balance between
the two and they should always relate so their needs to be a balance
between the two and they should always relate so they do not confuse the
learners learning process. Graphics always be relevant to the words on the
page.

Types graphics:

Decorative graphics serve to decorate the age without enhancing the

message of the lesson and can often be a distraction to learners.

Representational graphics portray a single element, such as a photo along

with a caption explaining the photo. The graphic below is a picture of
Mount Everest with an explanation of camps necessary to make a summit
attempt.

Multimedia Hardware
Most of the computers now-a-days come equipped with the hardware
components required to develop/view multimedia applications. Following
are the various categories in which we can define the various types of
hardware required for multimedia applications.

Processor - The heart of any multimedia computer is its processor.

Today Core 15 or higher processor is recommended for a multimedia
computer.

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• CPU is considered as the brain of the computer.

• CPU performs all types of data processor operations.
• It stores data, intermediate result and instructions (program).
• It controls the operations of all parts of computer.

Memory and Storage Devices - You need memory for storing

various files used during production, original audio and video clips,
edited pieces and final mined pieces. You also need memory for
backup of your project files.
• Primary Memory - Primary memory holds only those data and
instructions on which computer is currently working. It has limited
capacity and data gets lost when power is switched off. It is
generally made up of semiconductor device. These memories are
not as fast as registers. The data and instructions required to be
processed earlier reside in main memory. It is divided into two
subcategories RAM and ROM.

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• Flash Memory - Cache memory is a very high speed

semiconductor memory, which can speed up CPU. It acts as a
buffer between the CPU and main memory . It is used to hold those
parts of data and program which are most frequently used by CPU.
The parts of data and programs are transferred from disk to cache
memory by operating system, from where CPU can access them.
• Secondary Memory: This type of memory is also known as
external memory or non-volatile. It is slower than main memory.
These are used for storing Data/Information permanently. CPU
directly does not access these memories; instead they are accessed
via input-output routines. Contents of secondary memories are first
transferred to main memory and then CPU can access it. For
example, disk, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.

Sr.
No. Keys Description

Typing These keys include the letter keys (A-Z) and digits
1 keys (0-9) which generally give same layout as
Keys
that of typewriters.
It is used to enter numeric data or cursor
Numeric movement. Generally, it consists of a set of 17
2
Keypad keys that are laid out in the same configuration
used by most adding machine and calculators.
The twelve functions keys are present on the
Function keyboard. These are arranged in a raw along the
3
Keys top of the keyboard. Each function key has unique
meaning and is used for some specific purpose.

Control These keys provide cursor and screen control. It

4
Keys includes four directional arrow key. Control keys

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also include Home, End, Insert, Delete, Page UP,

Page Down, Control(Ctrl), Alternate(Alt),
Escape(Esc).

Special Keyboard also contains some special purpose keys

5 Purpose such as Enter, Shift, Caps Lock, Num Lock, Space
Keys bar, Tab, and Print Screen.

Input Devices - Following are the various types of input devices

which are used in multimedia systems.
• Keyboard - Most common and very popular input device is
keyboards. The keyboard is like that of traditional typewriter,
although there are some additional keys provided for performing
some additional functions. Keyboards are of two sizes 84 keys or
101/102 keys, but now 104 keys or 108 keys keyboard is also
available for Windows and Internet. The keys are following:

• Mouse - Mouse is most popular Pointing device. It is a very

famous cursor-control device. It is a small palm size box with
around ball at its base which senses the movement of mouse and
sends corresponding signals to CPU on pressing the buttons.
Generally, it has two buttons called left and right button and scroll
bar is present at the mid. Mouse can be used to control the position
of cursor on screen, but it cannot be used to enter text into the
computer.

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• Joystick - Joystick is also a pointing device, which is used to move

cursor position on a monitor screen. It is a stick having a spherical
ball at its both lower and upper ends. The lower spherical ball
moves in a socket. The joystick can be moved in all four directions.
The function of joystick is similar to that of a mouse. It is mainly
used in Computer Aided Designing (CAD) and playing computer
games.

• Light Pen - Light pen is a pointing device, which is similar to a

pen. It is used to select a displayed menu item or draw pictures on
the monitor screen. It consists of a photocell and an optical system
placed in a small tube. When light pen's tip is moved over the
monitor screen and pen button is pressed, its photocell sensing
element detects the screen location and sends the corresponding
signal to the CPU.

• Track Ball - Track ball is an input device that is mostly used in

notebook or laptop computer, instead of a mouse. This is a ball,
which is half inserted and by moving fingers on ball, pointer can be
moved. Since the whole device is not moved, a track ball requires
less space than a mouse. A track ball comes in various shapes like
a ball, a button and square.

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• Scanner - Scanner is an input device, which works more like a

photocopy machine. It is used when some information is available
on a paper and it is to be transferred to the hard disc of the
computer for further manipulation. Scanner captures images from
the source which are then converted into the digital form that can
be stored on the disc. These images can be edited before they are
printed.

• Digitizer - Digitizer is an input device, which converts analog

information into a digital from. Digitizer can convert a signal from
the television camera into a series of numbers that could be stored
in a computer. They can be used by the computer to create a
picture of whatever the camera had been pointed at. Digitizer is
also known as Tablet or Graphics Tablet because it converts
graphics and pictorial data into binary inputs. A graphic tablet as
digitizer is used for doing fine works of drawing and images
manipulation applications.

• Magnetic Ink Card Reader (MICR) - MICR input device is

generally used in banks because of a large number of cheques to be
processed everyday. The bank's code number and cheque number
are printed on the cheques with a special type of ink that contains
particles of magnetic material that are machine readable. This

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reading process is called Magnetic Ink Character Recognition

(MICR). The main advantage of MICR is that it is fast and lees
error prone.

• Optical Character Reader (OCR) - OCR is an input device used

to read a printed text. OCR scans text optically character by
character, converts them into a machine readable code and stores
the text on the system memory.

• Bar Code Readers - Bar Code Reader is a device used for reading
bar coded data (data in form of light and dark lines). Bar coded
data is generally used in labeling goods, numbering the books, etc.
It may be a hand-held scanner or may be embedded in a stationary
scanner. Bar Code Reader scans a bar code image, converts it into
an alphanumeric value, which is then fed to the computer to which
bar code reader is connected.

• Optical Mark Reader (OMR) - OMR is a special type of optical

scanner used to recognize the type of mark made by pen or pencil.
It is used where one out of a few alternatives is to be selected and
marked. It is specially used for checking the answer sheets of
examinations having multiple choice questions.

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• Voice Systems - Following are the various types of input devices

which are used in multimedia systems.
• Microphone - Microphone is an input sound that is then stored in
digital form. The microphone is used for mixing music.

• Speaker - speaker is an output device to produce sound which is

stored in digital form. The speaker is used for various applications
like adding sound to a multimedia presentation or for movies
displays etc.

• Digital Camera – Digital camera is an input device to input

images that is then stored in digital form. The digital camera is
used for various applications like adding images to a multimedia
presentation or for personal purposes.

• Digital Video Camera – Digital Video camera is an input device

to input images/video that is then stored in digital form. The digital

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video camera is used for various applications like adding videos to

a multimedia presentation or for personal purposes.

Output Devices – Following are few of the important output devices,

which are used in Computer Systems:
• Monitors – Monitor commonly called as Visual Display Unit
(VDU) is the main output device of a computer. It forms images
from tiny dots, called pixels, that are arranged in a rectangular
form. The sharpness of the image depends upon the number of the
pixels. There are two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors:
o Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor - In the CRT, display
is made up of small picture elements called pixels for short.
The smaller the pixels, the better the image clarity or
resolution. It takes more than one illuminated pixel to form
whole character, such as the letter 'r' in the word help. A
finite number of characters can be displayed on a screen at
once. The screen can be divided into a series of character
boxes - fixed location on the screen where a standard
character can be placed. Most screens are capable of
displaying 80 characters of data horizontally and 25 lines
vertically.

o Flat-Panel Display Monitor - The flat-panel display refers

to a class of video devices that have reduced volume,
weight and power requirement compared to the CRT. You
can hang them on walls or wear them on your wrists.
Current uses for flat-panel displays include calculators,

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video games, monitors, laptop computer, graphics display.

The flat-panel displays are divided into two categories:
Emissive Displays - The emissive displays are
devices that convert electrical energy into light.
Examples are plasma panel and LED (Light-Emitting
Diodes).
Non-Emissive Displays - The Non-emissive displays
use optical effects to convert sunlight or light from
some other source into graphics patterns. Examples is
LCD (Liquid-Crystal Device).

• Printers - Printer is the most important output device, which is

used to print information on paper.
o Dot Matrix Printer - In the market, one of the most
popular printers is Dot Matrix Printer because of their ease
of printing features and economical price. Each character
printed is in form of pattern of Dot's and head consists of a
Matrix of Pins of size (5*7, 7*9, 9*7 or 9*9) which comes
out to form a character that is why it is called Dot Matrix
Printer.

o Daisy Wheel – Head is lying on a wheel and Pins

corresponding to characters are like petals of Daisy (flower
names) that is why it is called Daisy Wheel Printer. These
printers are generally used for word-processing in offices
which representation.

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o Line Printers - Line Printers are printers, which print one

line at a time.

o Laser Printers - These are non-impact page printers. They

use laser lights to produce the dots needed to form the
characters to be printed on a page.

o Inkjet Printers - Inkjet printers are non-impact character

printers based on a relatively new technology. They print
characters by spraying small drops of ink onto paper. Inkjet
printers produce high quality output with presentable
features. They make less noise because no hammering is
done and these have many styles of printing models
available. Color printing is also possible. Some models of
inkjet printers can produce multiple copies of printing also.

o Screen Image Projector - Screen image projector or

simply projector is an output device used to project
information from a computer on a large screen so that a
group of people can see it simultaneously. A presenter first
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makes a PowerPoint presentation on the computer. Now a

screen image projector is plugged to a computer system and
presenter can make a presentation to a group of people by
projecting the information on a large screen. Projector
makes the presentation more understandable.

o Speakers and Sound Card - Computers need both a sound

card and speakers to hear audio, such as music, speech and
sound effects. Most motherboards provide an on-board
sound card. This built-in-sound card is fine for the most
purposes. The basic functions of a sound card are that it
converts digital sound card are that it converts digital sound
signals to analog for speaker making it louder or softer.

Multimedia Software
Multimedia software tells the hardware what to do. For example,
multimedia software tells the hardware to display the color blue, play the
sound of cymbals crashing etc. To produce these media elements
(movies, sound, text, animation, graphics etc.) there are various software
available in the market such as Paint Brush, Photo Finish, Animator,
Photo Shop, 3D Studio, Corel Draw, Sound Blaster, IMAGINET, Apple
Hyper Card, Photo Magic, Picture Publisher.

Multimedia Software Categories

Following are the various categories of Multimedia Software

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• Device Driver Software – These software's are used to install and

configure the multimedia peripherals.
• Media Players – Media players are applications that can play one
or more kind of multimedia file format.
• Media Conversion Tools – These tools are used for encoding /
decoding multimedia contexts and for converting one file format to
another.
• Multimedia Editing Tools - These tools are used for creating and
editing digital multimedia data.
• Multimedia Authoring Tools – These tools are used for combing
different kinds of media formats and deliver them as multimedia
contents.

Multimedia Application:
Multimedia applications are created with the help of following
mentioned tools and packages.

The sound, text, graphics, animation and video are the integral part of
multimedia software. To produce and edit these media elements, there
are various software tools available in the market. The categories of
basic software tools are:

• Text Editing Tools – These tools are used to create letters,

resumes, invoices, purchase orders, user manual for a project
and other documents. MS-Word is a good example of text tool.
It has following features:
o Creating new file, opening existing file, saving file and
printing it.
o Insert symbol, formula and equation in the file.
o Correct spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
o Align text within margins.
o Insert page numbers on the top or bottom of the page.
o Mail-merge the document and making letters and envelopes.
o Making tables with variable number of columns and row.
• Painting and Drawing Tools - These tools generally come
with a graphical user interface with pull down menus for quick
selection. You can create almost all kinds of possible shapes

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and resize them using these tools. Drawing file can be imported
or exported in many image formats like .gif, .tiff, .jpg, .bmp,
etc. Some examples of drawing software are Corel Draw,
Freehand, Designer, Photoshop, Fireworks, Point etc. These
software have following features:
o Tools to draw a straight line, rectangular area, circle etc.
o Different color selection option.
o Pencil tool to draw a shape freehand.
o Eraser tool to erase part of the image.
o Zooming for magnified pixel editing.
• Image Editing Tools - Image editing tools are used to edit or
reshape the existing images and pictures. These tools can be
used to create an image from scratch as well as images from
scanners, digital cameras, clipart files or original artwork files
created with painting and drawing tools. Examples of image
editing or processing software are Adobe Photoshop and Paint
Shop Pro.
• Sound Editing Tools - These tools are used to integrate sound
into multimedia project very easily. You can cut, copy, paste
and edit segments of a sound file by using these tools. The
presence of sound greatly enhances the effect of a mostly
graphic presentation, especially in a video. Examples of sound
editing software tools are: Cool Edit Pro, Sound Forge and Pro
Tools. These software have following features:
o Record your own music, voice or any other audio.
o Record sound from CD, DVD, Radio or any other sound
player.
o You can edit, mix the sound with any other audio.
o Apply special effects such as fade, equalizer, echo,
reverse and more.
• Video Editing Tools - These tools are used to edit, cut, copy,
and paste your video and audio files. Video editing used to
require expensive, specialized equipment and a great deal of
knowledge. The artistic process of video editing consists of
deciding what elements to retain, delete or combine from
various sources so that they come together in an organized,
logical and visually planning manner. Today computers are

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powerful enough to handle this job, disk space is cheap and

storing and distributing your finished work on DVD is very
easy. Examples of video editing software are Adobe Premiere
and Adobe After Effects.
• Animation and Modeling Tools - An animation is to show the
still images at a certain rate to give it visual effect with the help
of Animation and modeling tools. These tools have features like
multiple windows that allow you to view your model in each
dimension, ability to drag and drop primitive shapes into a
scene, color and texture mapping, ability to add realistic effects
such as transparency, shadowing and fog etc. Examples of
Animations and modeling tools are 3D studio max and Maya.

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