Multimedia Concept & Topics

Prof. R. M. Farouk
 Multimedia Concept & Topics

• Multimedia Concept

• Multimedia Computing

• Multimedia Classification

• Multimedia Topics

• Multimedia Driving Forces

• Multimedia Applications
 Multimedia Concept & Topics
• Multi: more than one

• Medium (singular): middle, intermediary, mean

• Media (plural): means for conveying information

- Media in the press, newspaper, radio and TV context - mass media

- Media in communications: cables, satellite, network – transmission media

- Media in computer storage: floppy, CD, DVD, HD, USB – storage media

- Media in HCI context: text, image, audio, video, CG – interaction media

• Multimedia: refers to various information forms text, image, audio, video, graphics, and

animation in a variety of application environments

Multimedia : product, application, technology, platform, board, device, network computer, system,

classroom, school, …
 What is Multimedia Computing?
• Computing: Computer-based technologies and applications
What computers? Various forms of computers/devices!
• In terms of computing, four fundamental multimedia attributes:
- Digitized: All media including audio/video are represented in digital format
- Distributed: The information conveyed is remote, either pre-produced and
stored or produced in real time, distributed over networks
- Interactive: It is possible to affect the information received, and send own
information, in a non-trivial way beyond start, stop, fast forward
- Integrated: The media are treated in a uniform way, presented in an
orchestrated way, but are possible to manipulate independently
• Definition of Multimedia:
Computer-based techniques of text, images, audio, video, graphics, animation,
and any other medium where every type of information can be represented,
processed, stored, transmitted, produced and presented digitally.
 Benefits of Multimedia

• Increased learning effectiveness

• Gains and holds attention
• More appealing
• Reduces training cost
• Easy to use
• Give information cost
• Provides high quality of presentations
• Multi-sensorial
• Integrated and interactive
• Can be used as a wide variety of audience
 A Classification of Multimedia

• Text - ASCII/Unicode, HTML, Postscript, PDF

• Audio – Sound, music, speech, structured audio (e.g. MIDI)

• Still Image - Facsimile, photo, scanned image

• Video (Moving Images) – Movie, a sequence of pictures

• Graphics – Computer produced image

• Animation – A sequence of graphics images

• Discrete Media (DM, Static): text, image, graphics

• Continuous Media (CM, Dynamic): audio, video, animation

 System Implications of Multimedia

Multimedia imposes new requirements on all parts of the system architecture:

• Representation
- digitization and coding (compressing)
• Storage
- database, larger volumes and new access patterns
• Processing
- OS, scheduling, indexing, searching
• Understanding
- speech/object recognition, content analysis
• Production
- more complex authoring and user interface software
• Presentation
- user perception, user friendly in HCI (Human Computer Interface)
• Protection
– media encryption, copyright, privacy
• Distribution
- media delivery and broadcast
• Communication
- media transmission over network/internet, session control
 Forces Driving the Multimedia Revolution

• Evolution of communication and data networks: Increasing

availability of bandwidth on demand in the office, home,

road.... Thanks to high-speed data modems, cable modems,

hybrid fiber-coax systems, xDSL, wireless.

• Ubiquitous access to network. Via local-area networks (LAN),

wireline and wireless networks, Internet, world wide web,

-----“anywhere, anytime”.

• Fast processor and large capacity storage devices, including

3-D hardware. Moore’s law: computation and memory

capacity of chips doubles every 18 months or so.

 Forces Driving the Multimedia Revolution

• New algorithms and data structures. Compression techniques,

graphics, computer vision, speech understanding...
• Smart terminals such as digital phones, screen phones,
multimedia PC’s, web-TV, personal digital assistants, etc.,
accessing and interacting the network with wired and wireless
connections.
• And of foremost importance, the digitization of virtually any
device : cameras, video capture and playback devices,
Handwriting terminals, sound capture, etc., together with plug-
and-play standards; and the digitization of text/audio/video
documents and libraries that allows better communications,
storage, and fast access and browsing.
 Technological Aspects

• Techniques for compressing and coding the various media: models, algorithms, forms,

standards, etc.

• Communications aspects: downloading and streaming techniques, synchronization,

layering of signals, issues involved in the definition of QoS (quality of service.)

• Techniques for accessing multimedia signals by providing tools that match user to the

machine:“natural” spoken language queries, media conversion tools and multimodal user

interface (speech recognition, lip reading, face tracking, OCR,..), agents that monitor the

multimedia sessions and provide assistance in all phases of access and utilization.

• Techniques for organizing, storing and retrieving multimedia, for searching and browsing

individual multimedia documents and libraries.

 Examples of Multimedia Applications

• Residential services • Science and technology

– Video-On-Demand – Virtual environment
– Video phone, A/V – Scientific visualization,
conferencing prototyping
– Home shopping • Entertainment
• Business services – Games
– Corporate education – Interactive TV
– E-business – Post production of movie
and music
• Education
• Medicine,
– Digital libraries
Web applications, etc.
– Distance learning
 What will we know?

• Text encoding and decoding

• Still image representation encoding/decoding
• Video encoding and decoding
• Sound encoding/decoding
• Animation and graphics
 Text encoding

Run Length Encoding Algorithm

Data files frequently contain the same character repeated many
times in a row. For example, text files use multiple spaces to
separate sentences, indent paragraphs, format tables &
charts, etc. Digitized signals can also have runs of the same
value, indicating that the signal is not changing. For instance,
an image of the nighttime sky would contain long runs of the
character or characters representing the black background.
Likewise, digitized music might have a long run of zeros
between songs. Run-length encoding is a simple method of
compressing these types of files.
 Text encoding

• Examples
 Text encoding

• For example, if the input string is

“wwwwaaadexxxxxx”, then the function
should return “w4a3d1e1x6”.
 Text encoding

• Huffman Encoding

Step 1: Pick two letters x,y from alphabet with the smallest frequencies and

create a subtree that has these two characters as leaves. (greedy idea)

Label the root of this subtree as z .

Step 2: Set frequency f(z)=f(x)+f(y) A’=AU{z}-{x,y} Remove x,y and add

z creating new alphabet

. Repeat this procedure, called merge, with new alphabet A’ until an alphabet

with only one symbol is left. The resulting tree is the Huffman code
Text encoding
Text encoding
Text encoding
Text encoding
Text encoding
 Technological Aspects

• Delta Encoding: In science, engineering, and

mathematics, the Greek letter delta (Δ) is used to denote
the change in a variable. The term delta encoding, refers to