MULTIMEDIA

Is the 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.
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

Multimedia contrasts with media that use only basic computer displays such as text-only or
traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material.

Examples of multimedia
E-Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Video Conferencing, and Multimedia Message Service (MMS)
 CATEGORIES OF MULTIMEDIA
• 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 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. Recorded presentation may allow

interactivity via a navigation system. 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

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

APPLICATION OF MULTIMEDIA
• 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. 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

• Entertainment and Fine Arts

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

• Education

In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called

CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia 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
 • 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 to provide information and help. Such installation
reduces demand on traditional information personnel, and they can work around the clock, even
in the middle of the night, when live help is off duty. Hotel list nearby restaurant, maps of the
city, airline schedules, and provide guest services such as automated checkout. Printers are often
attached so users can walk away with a printed copy of the information.

ADVANTAGES OF MULTIMEDIA
• It is very user-friendly It doesn’t take much energy out of the user, in the sense that you
can sit and watch the presentation, you can read the text and hear the audio
• It is multi sensorial (multi-sensory) It uses a lot of the user’s senses while making use of
multimedia, for example hearing, seeing and talking.

• It is integrated and interactive All the different mediums are integrated through
the digitization process. Interactivity is heightened by the possibility of easy feedback.

• It is flexible. Being digital, this media can easily be changed to fit different situations and
audiences.

• It can be used for a wide variety of audiences, Ranging from one person to a whole
group. Example online games where multiple user play different roles

• It can bring a number of advantages to the education. It can help learners come to a
deeper understanding through supporting materials when new material is being presented

DISADVANTAGE OF MULTIMEDIA
• Information overload. Because it is so easy to use, it can contain too much information
at once.

• It takes time to compile Even though it is flexible, it takes time to put the original draft
together

 It can be expensive. Multimedia makes use of a wide range of resources, which can cost
you a large amount of money.

• Too much makes it unpractical. Large files like video and audio has an effect of the
time it takes for your presentation to load. Adding too much can mean that you have to
use a larger computer to store the files. In case you want to upload it onto the Internet,
there are a few factors to keep in mind, for example bandwidth and the user’s abilities.

HARDWARE REQUIRED FOR MULTIMEDIA

 Processor

The heart of any multimedia computer is its processor. CPU performs all types of data
processing operations. It stores data, intermediate result and instructions (program). Today
Core i5 or higher processor is recommended for a multimedia computer. For example
computers to play heavy resource games

 Memory and Storage Devices

Memory is required for storing various files used during production, original audio and video
clips, edited pieces and final mined pieces. Memory is required for backup of 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 divided into two subcategories RAM and ROM.

• Flash Memory: Cache memory is a very high speed 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.

• 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

 Input Devices 

Following are the various types of input devices which are used in multimedia systems.

 Mouse:  Mouse is most popular pointing device. It is a very famous cursor-control

device. It is a small palm size box with a round ball at its base which senses the
movement of mouse and sends corresponding signals to CPU on pressing the
buttons. Mouse can be used to control the position of cursor on screen, but it cannot be
used to enter text into the computer.

• Keyboard: Most common and very popular input device is keyboard. The keyboard helps
in inputting the data to the computer.

• Light Pen: Light pen is a pointing device, which is similar to a pen. It is used to select a
displayed menu item or draw pictures on the monitor screen. It consists of a photocell and
an optical system placed in a small tube

• Scanner: Scanner is an input device, which works more like a photocopy machine. It is
used when some information is available on a paper and it is to be transferred to the hard
disc of the computer for further manipulation

• Digitizer: Digitizer is an input device, which converts analog information into a digital
form. Digitizer is also known as Tablet or Graphics Tablet. 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.
 • Bar Code Readers: Bar Code Reader is a device used for reading bar coded data (data in
form of light and dark lines). Bar coded data is generally used in labelling goods,
numbering the books, etc.

• Microphone: Microphone is an input device to input sound that is then stored in digital
form

• Digital Camera: Digital camera is an input device to input images that is then stored in
digital form. The digital camera is used for various applications like adding images to a
multimedia presentation or for personal purposes.

 Output Devices

Following are few of the important output devices, which are used in Computer Systems

 Monitors: 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.
 Printers: Printer is the most important output device, which is used to print information
on paper.

• Screen Image Projector: 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.

• Speakers and Sound Card: Computers need both a sound card and speakers to hear
audio, such as music, speech and sound effects. Most motherboards provide an on-board
sound card

MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE
• 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
 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.

• 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, and 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.

 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.

 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.

 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 artistic 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.