Multi Media Systems

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS SEMESTER – IV

SYYLABUS

Unit - I Multimedia: Introduction, Definitions, Where to Use Multimedia- Multimedia in

Business, Schools, Home, Public Places, Virtual Reality; Delivering Multimedia. Text:
Meaning, Fonts and Faces, Using Text in Multimedia, Computers and Text, Font Editing and
Design Tools, Hypermedia and Hypertext. Images: Before You Start to Create, Making Still
Images, Color.

Unit - II Sound: The Power of Sound, Digital Audio, MIDI Audio, MIDI vs. Digital
Audio, Multimedia System Sounds, Audio File Formats, Adding Sound to Your Multimedia
Project. Animation: The Power of Motion, Principles of Animation, Animation by Computer,
Making Animations. Video: Using Video, How Video Works and Is Displayed, Digital Video
Containers, Obtaining Video Clips, Shooting and Editing Video.

Unit - III Making Multimedia: The Stages of a Multimedia Project, the Intangibles,
Hardware, Software, Authoring Systems Designing and producing: designing the structure,
designing the user interface, a multimedia design case history, producing.

Unit - IV The Internet and Multimedia: Internet History, Internetworking,

Multimedia on the Web. Designing for the World Wide Web: Developing for the Web, Text
for the Web, Images for the Web, Sound for the Web, Animation for the Web, Video for the
Web. Delivering: Testing, Preparing for Delivery, Delivering on CD-ROM, DVD and World
Wide Web, Wrapping.

Text Book: 1. Tay Vaughan, “Multimedia: Making it work”, TMH, Eighth edition.

References: 1. Ralf Steinmetz and Klara Naharstedt, “Multimedia: Computing,

Communications Applications”, Pearson. 2. Keyes, “Multimedia Handbook”, TMH. 3. K.
Andleigh and K. Thakkar, “Multimedia System Design”, PHI. 4. Spoken Tutorial on “GIMP”
as E-resource for Learning:-http://spoken-tutorial.org 5. Spoken Tutorial on “Blender” as E-
resource for Learning:-http://spoken-tutorial.org 33 O
 Unit - I Multimedia
INTRODUCTION

Multimedia is the field concerned with the computer controlled integration of text,

graphics, drawings, still and moving images (Video), animation, audio, and any other
media where every type of information can be represented, stored, transmitted and
processed digitally.

Definitions

Multimedia is any combination of text, art, sound, animation, and video delivered to you by
computer or other electronic or digitally manipulated means.

OR

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.

OR

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.

Where to Use Multimedia: Multimedia in Business, Schools, Home, Public Places, Virtual
Reality.

Where to Use Multimedia Multimedia is appropriate whenever a human user is connected to

electronic information of any kind, at the “human interface.” Multimedia enhances minimalist, text-
only computer interfaces and yields measurable benefit by gaining and holding attention and
interest; in short, multimedia improves information retention. When it’s properly constructed,
multimedia can also be profoundly entertaining as well as useful.

Multimedia in Business Business applications for multimedia include presentations, training,

marketing, advertising, product demos, simulations, databases, catalogs, instant messaging, and
networked communications. Voice mail and video conferencing are provided on many local and
wide area networks (LANs and WANs) using distributed networks and Internet protocols.

Multimedia in Schools Schools are perhaps the destination most in need of multimedia. Many
schools in the United States today are chronically underfunded and occasionally slow to adopt new
technologies, and it is here that the power of multimedia can be maximized for the greatest long-
term benefit to all.

Multimedia at Home From gardening, cooking, home design, remodeling, multimedia has entered
the home. Eventually, most multimedia projects will reach the home via television sets or monitors
with built-in interactive user inputs—either on old-fashioned color TVs or on new high-definition
sets. Today, home consumers of multimedia own either a computer with an attached CD-ROM or
DVD drive or a set-top player that hooks up to the television, such as a Nintendo Wii, X-box, or Sony
PlayStation machine. There is increasing convergence or melding of computerbased multimedia with
entertainment and games-based media

Multimedia in Public Places In hotels, train stations, shopping malls, museums, libraries, and grocery
stores, multimedia is already available at stand-alone terminals or kiosks, providing information and
help for customers. Multimedia is piped to wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs. Such
installations reduce demand on traditional information booths and personnel, add value, and are
available around the clock, even in the middle of the night, when live help is off duty

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.

Delivering Multimedia Multimedia requires large amounts of digital memory when stored in an end
user’s library, or large amounts of bandwidth when distributed over wires, glass fiber, or airwaves on
a network. The greater the bandwidth, the bigger the pipeline, so more content can be delivered to
end users quickly. Virtually all personal computers sold today include at least a CD-ROM player, and
the software that drives these computers is commonly delivered on a CD-ROM disc. Many systems
also come with a DVD player combination that can read and burn CD-ROMs as well..

TEXT

Text Meaning: Text is an important component used in many multimedia applications. They
are characters that are used to create words, sentences and paragraphs. Text alone
provide just one source of information.

Even a single word may be cloaked in many meanings, so as you begin working with text, it is
important to cultivate accuracy and conciseness in the specific words you choose. In multimedia,
these are the words that will appear in your titles, menus, and navigation aids as well as in your
narrative or content.Using text and symbols for communication is a very recent human development
that began about 6,000 years ago in the Mediterranean Fertile Crescent.

Fonts and Faces

A typeface is a family of graphic characters that usually includes many type sizes and styles. A font is
a collection of characters of a single size and style belonging to a particular typeface family. Typical
font styles are boldface and italic. Your computer software may add other style attributes, such as
underlining and outlining of characters. Type sizes are usually expressed in points; one point is
0.0138 inch, or about 1/72 of an inch. The font’s size is the distance from the top of the capital
letters to the bottom of the descenders in letters such as g and y. Helvetica, Times, and Courier are
typefaces; Times 12-point italic is a font. In the computer world, the term font is commonly used
when typeface or face would be more correct. A font’s size does not exactly describe the height or
width of its characters. This is because the x-height (the height of the lowercase letter x) of two fonts
may vary, while the height of the capital letters of those fonts may be the same (see Figure 2-1).
Computer fonts automatically add space below the descender (and sometimes above) to provide
appropriate line spacing, or leading (pronounced “ledding,” named for the thin strips of lead
inserted between the lines by traditional typesetters). A typeface is a family of graphic characters
that usually includes many type sizes and styles. A font is a collection of characters of a single size
and style belonging to a particular typeface family. Typical font styles are boldface and italic. Your
computer software may add other style attributes, such as underlining and outlining of characters.
Type sizes are usually expressed in points; one point is 0.0138 inch, or about 1/72 of an inch. The
font’s size is the distance from the top of the capital letters to the bottom of the descenders in
letters such as g and y. Helvetica, Times, and Courier are typefaces; Times 12-point italic is a font. In
the computer world, the term font is commonly used when typeface or face would be more correct.
A font’s size does not exactly describe the height or width of its characters. This is because the x-
height (the height of the lowercase letter x) of two fonts may vary, while the height of the capital
letters of those fonts may be the same (see Figure 2-1). Computer fonts automatically add space
below the descender (and sometimes above) to provide appropriate line spacing, or leading
(pronounced “ledding,” named for the thin strips of lead inserted between the lines by traditional
typesetters).

Figure: Measurement of type

Typefaces of fonts can be described in many ways, but the most common characterization of a
typeface is serif and sans serif. The serif is the little decoration at the end of a letter stroke. Arial,
Optima, Verdana are some examples of sans serif font. Serif fonts are generally used for body of the
text for better readability and sans serif fonts are generally used for headings.

The following fonts shows a few categories of serif and sans serif fonts.
Using Text in Multimedia

Imagine designing a project that used no text at all. Its content could not be at all complex, and you
would need to use many pictures and symbols to train your audience how to navigate through the
project. Certainly voice and sound could guide the audience, but users would quickly tire of this
because greater effort is required to pay attention to spoken words than to browse text with the
eye.

Designing with Text: Computer screens provide a very small workspace for developing complex
ideas. At some time or another, you will need to deliver high-impact or concise text messages on the
computer screen in as condensed a form as possible. From a design perspective, your choice of font
size and the number of headlines you place on a particular screen must be related both to the
complexity of your message and to its venue.

On the other hand, if you are creating presentation slides for publicspeaking support, the
text will be keyed to a live presentation where the text accents the main message. In this case, use
bulleted points in large fonts and few words with lots of white space. Let the audience focus on the
speaker at the podium, rather than spend its time reading fine points and subpoints projected on a
screen
 iii)Installed Fonts:Before you can use a font, it must be recognized by the computer’s
operating system. If you want to use fonts other than those installed with your basic operating
system, you will need to install them. When you install applications, fonts are often added to your
collection. The most commonly reported fonts available on Windows computers are Tahoma,
Microsoft Sans Serif, Verdana, and Courier New. On Macs expect Helvetica, Lucida Grande, and
Courier.

iv)Animating Text There are plenty of ways to retain a viewer’s attention when displaying
text. For example, you can animate bulleted text and have it “fly” onto the screen. You can “grow” a
headline a character at a time.

v) Symbols and Icons: Symbols are concentrated text in the form of stand-alone graphic
constructs. Symbols convey meaningful messages. The trash can symbol, for instance, tells you
where to throw away old files.

vi) Menus for Navigation An interactive multimedia project or web site typically consists of a
body of information, or content, through which a user navigates by pressing a key, clicking a mouse,
or pressing a touch screen. The simplest menus consist of text lists of topics. Users choose a topic,
click it, and go there. As multimedia and graphical user interfaces become pervasive in the computer
community, certain intuitive actions are being widely learned.

vii) Buttons for Interaction: In multimedia, buttons are the objects, such as blocks of text, a
pretty blue triangle, or a photograph, that make things happen when they are clicked. They were
invented for the sole purpose of being pushed or prodded with cursor, mouse, key, or finger—and to
manifest properties such as highlighting or other visual or sound effects to indicate that you hit the
target. On the Web, text and graphic art may be buttons.

viii)Fields for Reading You are already working uphill when you design text to be read on the
screen. Experiments have shown that reading text on a computer screen is slower and more difficult
than reading the same text in hard-copy or book form. Indeed, many users, it seems, would rather
print out their reports and e-mail messages and read them on paper than page through screens of
text. Reading hard copy is still more comfortable

Computers and Text

Very early in the development of the Macintosh computer’s monitor hardware, Apple chose
to use a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. This matches the standard measurement of the printing
industry (72 points per inch) and allows desktop publishers and designers to see on the monitor
what their printed output will look like (WYSIWYG)

Character Sets and Alphabets: Knowing that there is a wide selection of characters
available to you on your computer and understanding how you can create and use special and
custom-made characters will broaden your creative range when you design and build multimedia
projects. The ASCII Character Set The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is
the 7-bit character coding system most commonly used by computer systems in the United States
and abroad. ASCII assigns a number or value to 128 characters, including both lower- and uppercase
letters, punctuation marks, Arabic numbers, and math symbols. Also included are 32 control
characters used for device control messages, such as carriage return, line feed, tab, and form feed.

The extended character set is most commonly filled with ANSI (American National Standards
Institute) standard characters, including often-used symbols, such as ¢ or ∞, and international
diacritics or alphabet characters, such as ä or ñ. This fuller set of 255 characters is also known as the
ISOLatin-1 character set; it is used when programming the text of HTML web pages

Unicode As the computer market has become more international, one of the resulting
problems has been handling the various international language alphabets.

Languages in the World of Computers In modern Western languages, words are made up of symbols
or letters strung together, representing as a whole the sounds of a spoken word.

Font Editing and Design Tools

Special font editing tools can be used to make your own type, so you can communicate an
idea or graphic feeling exactly. With these tools, professional typographers create distinct text and
display faces. Graphic designers, publishers, and ad agencies can design instant variations of existing
typefaces.
Making Pretty Text

Hypermedia and Hypertext Multimedia: the combination of text, graphic, and audio
elements into a single collection or presentation—becomes interactive multimedia when you give
the user some control over what information is viewed and when it is viewed. Interactive
multimedia becomes hypermedia when its designer provides a structure of linked elements through
which a user can navigate and interact.

Hypertext system: the “text” part of this term represents the project’s content and meaning,
rather than the graphical presentation of the text. Hypertext is what the World Wide Web is all
about.

The Power of Hypertext:

In a fully indexed hypertext system, all words can be found immediately. Suppose you search a large
database for “boats,” and you come up with a whopping 1,623 references,

Using Hypertext

Special programs for information management and hypertext have been designed to present
electronic text, images, and other elements in a database fashion
Searching for Words

Although the designer of a hypermedia database makes assumptions, he or she also presents users
with tools and a meaningful interface to exercise the assumptions.

Following are typical methods for word searching in hypermedia systems:

■ Categories Selecting or limiting the documents, pages, or fields of text within which to search for a
word or words.

■ Word relationships Searching for words according to their general proximity and order. For
example, you might search for “party” and “beer” only when they occur on the same page or in the
same paragraph. 58 Multimedia: Making It Work

■ Adjacency Searching for words occurring next to one another, usually in phrases and proper
names. For instance, find “widow” only when “black” is the preceding adjacent word.

■ Alternates Applying an OR criterion to search for two or more words, such as “bacon” or “eggs.”

■ Association Applying an AND criterion to search for two or more words, such as “skiff,” “tender,”
“dinghy,” and “rowboat.”

■ Negation Applying a NOT criterion to search exclusively for references to a word that are not
associated with the word. For example, find all occurrences of “paste” when “library” is not present
in the same sentence.

■ Truncation Searching for a word with any of its possible suffixes. For example, to find all
occurrences of “girl” and “girls,” you may need to specify something like girl#. Multiple character
suffixes can be managed with another specifier, so geo* might yield “geo,” “geology,” and
“geometry,” as well as “George.”

■ Intermediate words Searching for words that occur between what might normally be adjacent
words, such as a middle name or initial in a proper name.

■ Frequency Searching for words based on how often they appear: the more times a term is
mentioned in a document, the more relevant the document is to this term.

. Images: Before You Start to Create, Making Still Images, Color.

Multimedia on a computer screen is a composite of elements: text, symbols, photograph-like

bitmaps, vector-drawn graphics, three-dimensional renderings, distinctive buttons to click, and
windows of motion video. Some parts of this image may even twitch or move so that the screen
never seems still and tempts your eye.

Before You Start to Create: At the beginning of a project, the screen is a blank canvas, ready for
you, the multimedia designer, to express your craft. The screen will change again and again during
the course of your project as you experiment, as you stretch and reshape elements, draw new
objects and throw out old ones, and test various colors and effects
Plan Your Approach

Whether you use templates and ready-made screens provided by your authoring system, clip art or
objects crafted by others, or even if you simply clone the look and feel of another project—there will
always be a starting point where your page is “clean.” But even before reaching this starting point,
be sure you have given your project a good deal of thought and planning.

Organize Your Tools: Most authoring systems provide the tools with which you can create the
graphic objects of multimedia (text, interactive buttons, vector-drawn objects, and bitmaps) directly
on your screen.

Configure Your Computer Workspace

When developing multimedia, it is helpful to have more than one monitor to provide lots of screen
real estate (viewing area). In this way, you can display the full-screen working area of your project or
presentation and still have space to put your tools and other menus. This is particularly important in
an authoring system such as Flash or Director, where the edits and changes you make in one window
are immediately visible in the presentation window

Making Still Images

Still images may be small or large, or even full screen. They may be colored, placed at random on the
screen, evenly geometric, or oddly shaped. Still images may be a single tree on a wintry hillside.

still images are generated by the computer in two ways: as bitmaps (or paint graphics) and
as vector-drawn (or just plain “drawn”) graphics. Bitmaps may also be called “raster” images

Bitmaps A bit is the simplest element in the digital world, an electronic digit that is either on
or off, black or white, or true (1) or false (0). This is referred to as binary, since only two states (on or
off ) are available. A map is a twodimensional matrix of these bits. A bitmap, then, is a simple matrix
of the tiny dots that form an image and are displayed on a computer screen or printed.

COLOR
A color may be expressed in known physical values (humans, for example, perceive colors with
wavelengths ranging from 400 to 600 nanometers on the electromagnetic spectrum), and several
methods and models describe color space using mathematics and values.

Understanding Natural Light and Color

Light comes from an atom when an electron passes from a higher to a lower energy level; thus each
atom produces uniquely specific colors. This explanation of light, known as the quantum theory.

Color is the frequency of a light wave within the narrow band of the electromagnetic
spectrum to which the human eye responds. The letters of the mnemonic ROY G. BIV, learned by
many of us to remember the colors of the rainbow, are the ascending frequencies of the visible light
spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Light that is infrared, or below the
frequency of red light and not perceivable by the human eye
 Computerized Color

there are actually two basic methods of making color: additive and subtractive

In the additive color method, a color is created by combining colored light sources in three
primary colors: red, green, and blue (RGB). This is the process used for cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid
crystal (LCD), and plasma displays.

Subtractive Color In the subtractive color method, color is created by combining colored
media such as paints or ink that absorb (or subtract) some parts of the color spectrum of light and
reflect the others back to the eye.
 Unit - II Sound

Definition
Sound is perhaps the most sensuous element of multimedia. It is meaningful “speech” in any
language, from a whisper to a scream. It can provide the listening pleasure of music, the startling
accent of special effects, or the ambience of a mood-setting background.

The Power of Sound

When something vibrates in the air by moving back and forth (such as the cone of a
loudspeaker), it creates waves of pressure. These waves spread like the ripples from a pebble tossed
into a still pool, and when they reach your eardrums, you experience the changes of pressure, or
vibrations, as sound. In air, the ripples propagate at about 750 miles per hour, or Mach 1 at sea level.
Sound waves vary in sound pressure level (amplitude) and in frequency or pitch. Many sound waves
mixed together form an audio sea of symphonic music, speech, or just plain noise. Acoustics is the
branch of physics that studies sound. Sound pressure levels (loudness or volume) are measured in
decibels (dB); a decibel measurement is actually the ratio between a chosen reference point on a
logarithmic scale and the level that is actually experienced.

Digital Audio Digital audio is created when you represent the characteristics of a sound
wave using numbers—a process referred to as digitizing. You can digitize sound from a microphone,
a synthesizer, existing recordings, live radio and television broadcasts, and popular CD and DVDs. In
fact, you can digitize sounds from any natural or prerecorded source.

Making Digital Audio Files

You should focus on two crucial aspects of preparing digital audio files: ■ Balancing the need
for sound quality against file size. Higher quality usually means larger files, requiring longer
download times on the Internet and more storage space on a CD or DVD. ■ Setting proper recording
levels to get a good, clean recprding.

Setting Proper Recording Levels

Editing Digital Recordings

MIDI Audio MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communications standard

developed in the early 1980s for electronic musical instruments and computers. It allows music and
sound synthesizers from different manufacturers to communicate with each other by sending
messages along cables connected to the devices. MIDI provides a protocol for passing detailed
descriptions of a musical score, such as the notes, the sequences of notes, and the instrument that
will play these notes.

MIDI vs. Digital Audio In contrast to MIDI data, digital audio data is the actual
representation of a sound, stored in the form of thousands of individual numbers (samples). The
digital data represents the instantaneous amplitude (or loudness) of a sound at discrete slices of
time. MIDI data is to digital audio data what vector or drawn graphics are to bitmapped graphics.
That is, MIDI data is device dependent; digital data is not. Just as the appearance of vector graphics
differs depending on the printer device or display screen, the sounds produced by MIDI music files
depend on the particular MIDI device used for playback.

MIDI has several advantages over digital audio and two huge disadvantages.

Advantages

■ MIDI files are much more compact than digital audio files, and the size of a MIDI file is
completely independent of playback quality.

■ You can change the length of a MIDI file (by varying its tempo) without changing the pitch
of the music

■ MIDI cannot easily be used to play back spoken dialog, although expensive and technically
tricky digital samplers are available.

In general, use MIDI in the following circumstances:

Digital audio won’t work because you don’t have enough memory or bandwidth.

■ You have a high-quality MIDI sound source.

■ You have complete control over the machines on which your program will be delivered, so
you know that your users will have high-quality MIDI playback hardware.

■ You don’t need spoken dialog

The most important advantage of digital audio is its consistent playback quality, but this is
where MIDI is the least reliable!

Multimedia System Sounds You can use sound right off the bat on your computer
because beeps and warning sounds are available as soon as you install the operating system. Open
the Sound Control Panel to listen to your system sounds, change them, or make a new, custom
sound.

Audio File Formats

A sound file’s format is simply a recognized methodology for organizing and (usually)
compressing the digitized sound’s data bits and bytes into a data file.

Adding Sound to Your Multimedia Project

Whether you’re working on a Macintosh or in Windows, you will need to follow certain steps
to bring an audio recording into your multimedia project.

Here is a brief overview of the process:

1. Determine the file formats that are compatible with your multimedia authoring software
and the delivery medium(s) you will be using (for file storage and bandwidth capacity).
 2. Determine the sound playback capabilities (codecs and plug-ins) that the end user’s
system offers.

3. Decide what kind of sound is needed (such as background music, special sound effects,
and spoken dialog). Decide where these audio events will occur in the flow of your project. Fit the
sound cues into your storyboard (see Chapter 10), or make up a cue sheet.

4. Decide where and when you want to use either digital audio or MIDI data.

5. Acquire source material by creating it from scratch or purchasing it.

6. Edit the sounds to fit your project. 7. Test the sounds to be sure they are timed properly
with the project’s images. This may involve repeating steps 1 through 4 until everything is in sync.

Space Considerations

The substantial amount of digital information required for highquality sound takes up a lot
of storage space, especially when the quantity is doubled for two-channel stereo. It takes about
1.94MB to store 11 seconds of uncompressed stereo sound.

Audio Recording If your project requires CD-quality digitized sound at 44.1 kHz and 16 bits,
you should hire a sound studio. High-fidelity sound recording is a specialized craft, a skill learned in
great part by trial and error, much like photography. If you do decide to do it yourself at CD-quality
levels, be prepared to invest in an acoustically treated room, high-end amplifiers and recording
equipment, and expensive microphones.

Digital audio tape (DAT) systems provide a tape-based 44.1 kHz, 16-bit record and playback
capability. You may, however, find that DAT is high-fidelity overkill for your needs, because the
recordings are too accurate, precisely recording glitches, background noises, microphone pops, and
coughs from the next room. A good editor can help reduce the impact of these noises, but at the
cost of time and money.

Keeping Track of Your Sounds In an elaborate project with many sounds, it is important to
maintain a good database, keeping a physical track of your original material—just in case you need
to revert to it when your disk drive crashes or you accidentally delete the work file.

Audio CDs The method for digitally encoding the high-quality stereo of the consumer CD
music market is an international standard, called ISO 10149. This is also known as the Red Book
Audio standard (derived simply from the color of the standard’s book jacket).

Sound for Your Mobile Ringtones are perhaps the most widely- and often-heard sounds in
today’s world. Unlike plain old telephones, where a pulsating 90-volt signal is sent down copper
wires to energize a hammer that klangs a bell, there is no bell in a digital mobile telephone. When
the mobile receives a notice that someone is calling, the unit’s software takes over and, depending
on the programmed options, plays the user’s choice of ringtone—either generated by internal MIDI
software or played from a stored sound file.

Sound for the Internet There are several methods for playing digital or MIDI sound from a
web page. The sound is actually not part of the web page but is a separate file with its own address
on the Internet, which is “embedded” in the page. Web browsers associate files with applications
and plug-ins

Testing and Evaluation Putting everything together can be tough, but testing and evaluating
what you’ve done can be even tougher—especially if your project involves a complicated live
presentation, or if you’re shipping a commercial multimedia application. Unless you plan ahead,
problems will not emerge until you begin testing.