INTRODUCTION TO MULTIMEDIA CHAPTER 3

Q.1. DEFINE MULTIMEDIA.

Ans. Multimedia can be defined as the integration of two or more media elements with
computing technology to convey information. These media elements may be sound, animation,
graphics, hypertext or video.
Q.2. Explain the usage of multimedia in business over Internet.
Ans. Organizations can sell consumer products, software, hardware and educational products
on internet. Buyers can view product images and demos and order products on internet using
multimedia software.
Job openings also published by various organizations on internet using multimedia.
Q.3. Explain the usage of multimedia in Education.
Ans. Using multimedia tutorials containing the subject material in the form of text and images
can be stored on CDs and distributed to students. Teachers can also upload tutorials for
different courses on internet and students can download the course material from internet.
Virtual Labs are made for conducting Biology / Physics / Chemistry experiments.
Q.4. What is Virtual reality?
Ans. Virtual Reality is a technology that allows a user to interact with a computer simulated
environment with the help of visual experiences, displayed on a computer screen through
speakers, headphones etc.
Q.5. Explain the different multimedia formats used in internet.
Ans. .htm or .html files are treated as an HTML file. The .xml extension indicates an XML
file and the .css extension indicates a style sheet file. Pictures are recognized by extensions
like .gif, .png and .jpg. Animation / video files also have their own formats with different
extensions like: .swf, .wav, .mp3, and .mp4.
Q.6. Explain the hardware configuration of a computer supporting multimedia
applications.
Ans. Hardware configuration of a multimedia supporting computer
1. Processor : core i5
2. Memory : 4 GB or more
3. Hard Disk: 500 GB or more
4. Graphics card : at least 512 MB RAM/1GB
5. USB port : At least one USB port
6. NIC (Network Interface Card) : For Multimedia data transmission over the network
7. Capture devices : Video camera, Video recorder, Microphone, keyboard, mouse, scanner,
etc.
8. Storage Devices : Hard disks, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, etc.
9. Output Devices : Speakers, SVGA (Super Video Graphics Adapter), Hi-Resolution
monitors, color printers etc.

Q.7. Explain the need of high-speed data transmission of multimedia data over network.

Ans. High speed network is needed so that large amount of multimedia data can be transmitted
synchronously. For example, an image may take a long time to download but the user may
take few seconds to have a look at it. This means fast networks are required to handle
multimedia data.

Q. 8. Explain the challenges faced by multimedia applications.

Ans.
o Information storage: Multimedia files have large size, e.g., a movie file. There must be
sufficient storage (hard disk, memory) in system to store such files.
o Information retrieval: Another issue in multimedia is information retrieval. e.g. in a
movie file, it’s a tedious procedure to search video sequences and find the desired frames
out of the large video file.
o Processing Power: Our CPUs must be powerful enough to execute large amount of
multimedia data.
o Network Speed: We have to use high speed network so that large amount of multimedia
data can be transmitted synchronously.
o Multimedia Handling Capability: Multimedia data may be captured in analog form but
it is always represented digitally by a computer after Analog–Digital conversion and
Sampling. The computer systems used by multimedia applications must have enough
storage, memory capacity and sound & video handling capability.
o Compression Techniques: Multimedia files are very large in size. In order to save your
storage space and transmission time over the network, different techniques for handling
different data types of multimedia data are employed video compression and audio
compression techniques.
o LIVE Telecasts: Transmitting LIVE multimedia information imposes many constraints
on the multimedia systems in terms of video and audio capturing and transmission.