MULTIMEDIA

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW
Multimedia is an interactive media and provides multiple ways to
represent information to the user in a powerful manner. It provides an
interaction between users and digital information. It is a medium of
communication. Some of the sectors where multimedia's is used
extensively are education, training, reference material, business
presentations, advertising and documentaries.

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), graphics and animations.
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.
 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 and sizes to suit the profession presentation of the multimedia software.

 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 −

1. 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.

2. 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 analogue and digital types. Analog audio or sound refers to the original sound signal.
Computer stores the sound in digital form. Therefore, the sound used in multimedia application is
digital audio.

Video
The term video refers to the moving picture, accompanied by sound such as a picture in
television.
Video 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

Common areas of applications of multimedia:

 Multimedia in Business
Multimedia can be used in many applications in a business. The multimedia technology
along with communication technology has opened the door for information of global work
groups. Today the team members may be working anywhere and can work for various
companies. Thus the work place will become global.

The multimedia network should support the following facilities −

•Voice Mail
•Electronic Mail
•Multimedia based FAX
•Office Needs
•Employee Training
•Sales and Other types of Group Presentation
•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

 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 extensively.
Multimedia is thus helping banks 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 juncture.

 In 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 treatment. Some hospitals
extensively use multimedia presentations in training 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 −
•Basic Television Services
•Interactive entertainment
•Digital Audio
•Video on demand
•Home shopping
•Financial Transactions
•Interactive multiplayer or single player games
•Digital multimedia libraries
 MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS

 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 hardwares
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.
•CPU is considered as the brain of the computer.
•CPU performs all types of data processing 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.

 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.

 Digitizer
Digitizer is an input device, which converts analogue information into a
digital form. 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.
 Voice Systems
Following are the various types of input devices which are used in
multimedia systems.

 Microphone is an input device to input sound that is then stored in digital

form. The microphone is used for various applications like adding sound
to a multimedia presentation or for mixing music.
 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 Video Camera is an input device to input images/video that is

then stored in digital form. The digital video camera is used for various
applications like adding videos to a multimedia presentation or for
personal purposes.
 Following are the various types of output devices which are used in multimedia systems.

 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 −

 Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor 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 'e' 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.
 Flat-Panel Display Monitor 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, video games, monitors, laptop
computer, graphics display. The flat-panel displays are divided into two
categories

 Emissive Displays are devices that convert electrical energy into light.
Examples are plasma panel and LED (Light-Emitting Diodes).

 Non-Emissive Displays use optical effects to convert sunlight or light

from some other source into graphics patterns. Example is LCD (Liquid-
Crystal Device)
Printers
Printer is the most important output device, which is used to print information
on paper.
 Dot Matrix Printer one of the most popular printers 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.

 Daisy Wheel Head is lying on a wheel and Pins corresponding to characters

are like petals of Daisy (flower name) that is why it is called Daisy Wheel
Printer. These printers are generally used for word-processing in offices
which require a few letters to be send here and there with very nice quality
representation.
 Line Printers are printers, which print one line at a time.

 Laser Printers are non-impact page printers. They use laser lights to produce the dots
needed to form the characters to be printed on a page.

 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 modes available. Colour
printing is also possible. Some models of Inkjet printers can produce multiple copies of
printing also.

 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 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.
 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

•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 −

•Creating new file, opening existing file, saving file and printing it.
•Insert symbol, formula and equation in the file.
•Correct spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
•Align text within margins.
•Insert page numbers on the top or bottom of the page.
•Mail-merge the document and making letters and envolpes.
•Making tables with variable number of columns and rows.
 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
and resize them using these tools. Drawing file can be imported or exported
in many image formats like .gif, .tif, .jpg, .bmp, etc. Some examples of
drawing software are Corel Draw, Freehand, Designer, Photoshop, Fireworks,
Point etc.

These software have following features −

•Tools to draw a straight line, rectangular area, circle etc.
•Different colour selection option.
•Pencil tool to draw a shape freehand.
•Eraser tool to erase part of the image.
•Zooming for magnified pixel editing.
 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 −

•Record your own music, voice or any other audio.
•Record sound from CD, DVD, Radio or any other sound player.
•You can edit, mix the sound with any other audio.
•Apply special effects such as fade, equalizer, echo, reverse and more.
 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.

 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 aritistic 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 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.
 SAMPLE QUESTIONS

1.Scenario: Enhancing User Engagement with Multimedia

1. Question: How would you integrate multimedia elements (videos, infographics, interactive
charts) into a website to enhance user engagement? Provide a detailed plan including the
types of multimedia you would use and the expected impact on user behavior.

2.Scenario: Multimedia in Educational Content

1. Question: A university wants to improve its online courses by incorporating multimedia
content. What types of multimedia would you recommend for different subjects (e.g., science,
history, language arts)? Explain how each type of multimedia can enhance learning outcomes.

3.Scenario: Marketing Campaign Using Multimedia

1. Question: Design a multimedia marketing campaign for a new product launch. What
multimedia elements would you include (e.g., social media videos, interactive ads, virtual
reality experiences)? Describe how each element will contribute to the campaign’s success.
4. Scenario: Multimedia for Accessibility
1. Question: A company wants to make its multimedia content more accessible to people with
disabilities. What strategies would you implement to ensure that videos, images, and
interactive content are accessible to all users? Provide specific examples and tools you
would use.

5. Scenario: Evaluating Multimedia Effectiveness

2. Question: After implementing multimedia content on a website, how would you measure its
effectiveness? Discuss the metrics you would track (e.g., engagement rates, time on page,
conversion rates) and the tools you would use to gather this data.

6. Scenario: Multimedia in Customer Support

3. Question: How can multimedia content be used to improve customer support services?
Propose a plan that includes the use of video tutorials, interactive FAQs, and live chat
support. Explain how these elements can enhance the customer experience.
 END OF
OVERVIEW OF
MULTIMEDIA
ATTEMPT ALL
QUESTIONS