DISTRIBUTED MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS

Lecture 1: Introduction to Multimedia

1.1Introduction
Welcome to the first lecture on introduction to multimedia. Multimedia has become an
inevitable part of any presentation. It has found a variety of applications right from
entertainment to education. The evolution of internet has also increased the demand for
multimedia content.
1.2 Lecture objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
i) Define multimedia
ii) List the elements of multimedia
iii) Enumerate the different applications of multimedia
iv) Describe the different stages of multimedia software development
1.3 Lecture Outline
Definition
Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of information content and
information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to
inform or entertain the user. Multimedia also refers to the use of electronic media to store
and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in
fine art, but with a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive
multimedia.

Evolution of Multimedia

 Newspaper - perhaps the first mass communication medium  to employ
Multimedia - they used mostly text, graphics, and images.
 
 1895 - Marconi sent his first wireless radio transmission at Pontecchio, Italy.

 invented
1901 - Maroni detected radio waves beamed across the Atlantic. Initially
 for telegraph, radio is now a major medium for audio broadcasting.

 Television - new media for the 20th century.
It brings the video and has
changed the world of mass communications.
 
Some of the important events in relation to Multimedia in Computing include:

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
 1945 - Bush wrote about Memex

 1967 - Negroponte formed the Architecture Machine Group at MIT

 1969 - Nelson & Van Dam hypertext editor at Brown

 Birth of The Internet
 
 1971 - Email
 
 1976 - Architecture Machine Group proposal to DARPA: Multiple Media
 
 1980 - Lippman & Mohl: Aspen Movie Map
 
 1983 - Backer: Electronic Book
 
 1985 - Negroponte, Wiesner: opened MIT Media Lab


 1989 - Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web to CERN
(European Council for Nuclear Research)
 
 1990 - K. Hooper Woolsey, Apple Multimedia Lab, 100 people, educ.
 
 1991 - Apple Multimedia Lab: Visual Almanac, Classroom MM Kiosk
 
 1992 - the first M-bone audio multicast on the Net


  National Center for Supercomputing Applications:
1993 - U. Illinois
NCSA Mosaic
 
 1994 - Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen: Netscape

  for platform-independent application development. Duke is the
1995 - JAVA
first applet.
 
1996 - Microsoft, Internet Explorer

Elements of Multimedia System

Multimedia means that computer information can be represented through audio, graphics,
image, video and animation in addition to traditional media (text and graphics). Hypermedia
can be considered as one type of particular multimedia application.

Categories of Multimedia
Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. Linear active
content progresses without any navigation control for the viewer such as a cinema
presentation. Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as used with

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a computer game or used in self-paced computer based training. Non-linear content is also
known as hypermedia content. Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. A recorded
presentation may allow interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation
may allow interactivity via interaction with the presenter or performer.

Features of Multimedia
Multimedia presentations may be viewed in person on stage, projected, transmitted, or
played locally with a media player. A broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia
presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be either analog or digital electronic media
technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed. Streaming
multimedia may be live or on-demand.

Multimedia games and simulations may be used in a physical environment with special
effects, with multiple users in an online network, or locally with an offline computer,
game system, or simulator. Enhanced levels of interactivity are made possible by
combining multiple forms of media content But depending on what multimedia content
you have it may vary Online multimedia is increasingly becoming object-oriented and
data-driven, enabling applications with collaborative end-user innovation and
personalization on multiple forms of content over time. Examples of these range from
multiple forms of content on web sites like photo galleries with both images (pictures)
and title (text) user-updated, to simulations whose co-efficient, events, illustrations,
animations or videos are modifiable, allowing the multimedia "experience" to be altered
without reprogramming.

Applications of Multimedia
Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, but not limited to,
advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics,
business, scientific research and spatial, temporal applications. A few application areas
of multimedia are listed below:

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Creative industries
Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from
fine arts, to entertainment, to commercial art, to journalism, to media and software
services provided for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia
designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Request for their skills
range from technical, to analytical and to creative.

Commercial
Much of the electronic old and new media utilized by commercial artists is multimedia.
Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Industrial,
business to business, and interoffice communications are often developed by creative
services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell
ideas or liven-up training. Commercial multimedia developers may be hired to design
for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as well.

Entertainment and Fine Arts

In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to
develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular
pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video
games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to
actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are
called Interactive Multimedia.

Education
In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly
called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopaedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the
user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated
illustrations in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to
describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment.

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Engineering
Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for
anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial
training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration
between creative professionals and software engineers.

Industry
In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to
shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing
employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via
virtually unlimited web-based technologies.

Mathematical and Scientific Research

In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia is mainly used for modeling and
simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular
substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance.

Medicine
In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can
simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria
and then develop techniques to prevent it.

Multimedia in Public Places

In hotels, railway stations, shopping malls, museums, and grocery stores, multimedia will
become available at stand-alone terminals or kiosks to provide information and help.
Such installation reduce demand on traditional information booths and personnel, add
value, and they can work around the clock, even in the middle of the night, when live
help is off duty. A menu screen from a supermarket kiosk that provide services ranging
from meal planning to coupons. Hotel kiosk list nearby restaurant, maps of the city,
airline schedules, and provide guest services such as automated checkout. Printers are

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often attached so users can walk away with a printed copy of the information. Museum
kiosk are not only used to guide patrons through the exhibits, but when installed at
each exhibit, provide great added depth, allowing visitors to browser though richly
detailed information specific to that display.

Convergence of Multimedia (Virtual Reality)

At the convergence of technology and creative invention in multimedia is virtual reality, or
VR. Goggles, helmets, special gloves, and bizarre human interfaces attempt to place you
“inside” a lifelike experience. Take a step forward, and the view gets closer, turn your head,
and the view rotates. Reach out and grab an object; your hand moves in front of you. Maybe
the object explodes in a 90-decibel crescendo as you wrap your fingers around it. Or it slips
out from your grip, falls to the floor, and hurriedly escapes through a mouse hole at the
bottom of the wall. VR requires terrific computing horsepower to be realistic. In VR, your
cyberspace is made up of many thousands of geometric objects plotted in three-dimensional
space: the more objects and the more points that describe the objects, the higher resolution
and the more realistic your view. As the user moves about, each motion or action requires the
computer to recalculate the position, angle size, and shape of all the objects that make up
your view, and many thousands of computations must occur as fast as 30 times per second to
seem smooth. On the World Wide Web, standards for transmitting virtual reality worlds or
“scenes” in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) documents (with the file name
extension .wrl) have been developed. 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 Rockwell space shuttles have made many dry runs before doing
the real thing. At the California Maritime academy and other merchant and unloading of oil
tankers and container ships. Specialized public game arcades have been built recently to
offer VR combat and flying experiences for a price. From virtual World Entertainment in
walnut Greek, California, and Chicago, for example, BattleTech is a ten-minute interactive
video encounter with hostile robots. You compete against others, perhaps your friends, who
share coaches in the same containment Bay. The

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computer keeps score in a fast and sweaty firefight. Similar “attractions” will bring VR to
the public, particularly a youthful public, with increasing presence during the 1990s. The
technology and methods for working with three-dimensional images and
for animating them are discussed. VR is an extension of multimedia-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.

Stages of Multimedia Application Development

A Multimedia application is developed in stages as all other software are being
developed. In multimedia application development a few stages have to complete
before other stages being, and some stages may be skipped or combined with other
stages. Following are the four basic stages of multimedia project development :
g) Planning and Costing : This stage of multimedia application is the first stage which
begins with an idea or need. This idea can be further refined by outlining its messages
and objectives. Before starting to develop the multimedia project, it is necessary to plan
what writing skills, graphic art, music, video and other multimedia expertise will be
required. It is also necessary to estimate the time needed to prepare all elements of
multimedia and prepare a budget accordingly. After preparing a budget, a prototype or
proof of concept can be developed.
h) Designing and Producing : The next stage is to execute each of the planned
tasks and create a finished product.
Testing : Testing a project ensure the product to be free from bugs. Apart from bug
elimination another aspect of testing is to ensure that the multimedia application meets
the objectives of the project. It is also necessary to test whether the multimedia project
works properly on the intended deliver platforms and they meet the needs of the
clients.
Delivering : The final stage of the multimedia application development is to pack
the project and deliver the completed project to the end user. This stage has several steps
such as implementation, maintenance, shipping and marketing the product

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1.4 End of lecture activities (self –tests)

1. Create the credits for an imaginary multimedia production. Include several outside
organizations such as audio mixing, video production, and text based dialogues.
2. Review List five applications of multimedia.