Multimedia

The word 'Multimedia' is a combination of two words, 'Multi' and 'Media'. Multi means many and
media means material through which something can be transmitted or send. Multimedia combined all
the media elements like text and graphics to make the information more effective and attractive.

Components of Multimedia

The various components of multimedia are Text, Audio, Graphics, Video and Animation. All these
components work together to represent information in an effective and easy manner.

1)Text: Text is the most common medium of representing the information. In multimedia, text is mostly
use for titles, headlines, menu etc. The most commonly used software for viewing text files are
Microsoft Word, Notepad, Word pad etc. Mostly the text files are formatted with ,DOC, TXT etc
extension.

2)Audio: In multimedia audio means related with recording, playing etc. Audio is an important
component of multimedia because this component increases the understandability and improves the
clarity of the concept. audio includes speech, music etc. The commonly used software for playing audio
files are:
i) Quick Time
ii) Real player
iii) Windows Media Player

3) Graphics: Every multimedia presentation is based on graphics. The used of graphics in multimedia
makes the concept more effective and presentable. The commonly used software for viewing graphics
are windows Picture, Internet Explorer etc. The commonly used graphics editing software is Adobe
Photoshop through which graphics can be edited easily and can be make effective and attractive.

4) Video: Video means moving pictures with sound. It is the best way to communicate with each other.
In multimedia it is used to makes the information more presentable and it saves a large amount of time.
The commonly used software for viewing videos are:
i) Quick Time
ii) Window Media Player
iii) Real Player

5) Animation: In computer animation is used to make changes to the images so that the sequence of the
images appears to be moving pictures. An animated sequence shows a number of frames per second to
produce an effect of motion in the user's eye. Some of the commonly used software for viewing
animation are:
i) Internet Explorer
ii) Windows Pictures
iii) Fax Viewer

Application of multimedia

Nowadays the application of Multimedia is observed in various fields such as Education, Entertainment,
Business and so on. To communicate the message in the form of picture, sound, video, animation is the
primary role of multimedia. Some of the application of multimedia are as follows:

1) Multimedia in Education: Multimedia is becoming popular in the field of education. It is commonly

used to prepare study material for the students and also provide them proper understanding of
different subjects. Nowadays Edutainment, a combination of Education and Entertainment has become
very popular. This system provides learning as well as provides entertainment to the user.

2) Multimedia in Entertainment: Computer graphics techniques are now commonly used in making
movies and games. this increase the growth of multimedia.

i) Movies: Multimedia used in movies gives a special audio and video effect. Today multimedia has
totally changed the art of making movies in the world. Difficult effect, action is only possible through
multimedia.

ii) Games: Multimedia used in games by using computer graphics, animation, videos have changed the
gaming experience. Presently, games provide fast action, 3-D effects and high-quality sound effects
which is only possible through multimedia.

3) Multimedia in Business: Today multimedia is used in every aspect of business. These are some of the
applications:

i) Videoconferencing: This system enables to communicate using audio and video between two different
locations through their computers. When the information is sent across the world, this technology
provides cost benefits to the business which saves their time, energy and money.

ii) Marketing and advertisement: Nowadays different advertisement and marketing ideas about any
product on television and internet is possible with multimedia.

Input/output Technologies

Input devices
Input devices take data from the 'outside world' (i.e. outside of the computer) and send it to the Central
Processing Unit for processing. Data can be collected and entered into a computer in a range of ways.
These include, for example, a keyboard, a mouse, a graphics tablet, a touch screen, a bar code reader, a
magnetic stripe reader and so on. So, data from the world outside of the computer is entered into the
computer system using ‘input devices.

Output devices
Every computer system will need to have a way of displaying information or printing information out so
that it is useful to humans. There needs to be, therefore, some ‘output devices’. A very useful output
device is a VDU (or Visual Display Unit). Another handy one that allows us to produce ‘hardcopy’ (i.e. a
printout on paper) is a printer. Speakers or headphones would be useful in these circumstances!

Storage devices
Of course, the computer might not want to display or print out the results of some processing
immediately. It might simply want to store the results for another time. It therefore needs some storage
devices. Storage devices will store data, even when the power to the computer is switched off. When
the power is switched on again, the data can be retrieved. For this reason, storage devices are known as
‘non-volatile’ devices. Examples include USB pen drives, hard disks, CDs, CD R/Ws, DVDs, SD and micro
SD cards, Blu-ray disks and magnetic tape. The hard drive is a very important storage device in our
computer that deserves a special mention at this point in time. Not only does it hold all of our files, even
when the power is switched off, it also holds your operating system and all of the programs we want to
use, too.

Another increasingly important 'storage device' is cloud storage. This is where we store data on
someone else's computer system by uploading files to it across the Internet. This means that we don't
have to use our own storage space and our files in theory should be backed up by the cloud company
and safe from viruses, although some people are concerned about file security; they have lost control
over what happens to their data once it has been uploaded. As long as we have an Internet connection,
we can get our files back at any time from any computer. There are many free services available we can
set up and use, including Dropbox, Apple iCloud, SkyDrive and Google Drive.

File Format

A file format is the structure of how information is stored in a computer file. File formats are designed to
store specific types of information, such as JPEG and TIFF for image or raster data.

Categories of files

 Uncompressed: files that are not compressed and are capable of having a large file size.
 Lossless: files that are compressed but doesn’t lose any quality to the file.
 Lossy: files that lose some quality when being compressed.

Kind of file format

 Audio file format

 Video file format
 Image file format

Audio file format

 Audio is an electrical or other representation of sound.

 It is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system.
 It can be a raw bitstream but it is usually container format or an audio data format with storage
layer.

1. Mp3- MPEG audio Layer 3 file. It is a standard technology and format for compressing a
sound sequence into a very small file(about one- twelfth the size of the original file) while
preserving the original level of sound quality when it is played. It is a lossy compression.
2. WAV- Wav is a file extension for an audio file format created by Microsoft. The wav file has
become a standard PC audio file format for everything from system and games sounds to CD
quality audio.
3. WMA- (Windows Media Audio) WMA is a Microsoft file format for encoding digital audio
files similar to MP3 through can compress files at a higher rate than MP3.
 Video File Format

 AVI -

 WMV

Image File Fomat

 JPG
 TIF

 GIF

 PNG