Chapter-2

Multimedia Basics and Representation

Building blocks of Multimedia:-

The following are the elements or building blocks of multimedia.

1. Text

2. Audio /Sound

3. Graphics/Images

4. Video

5. Animation

1. Text:-

 Text is the basic element of multimedia.

 It involves the use of
o Text types
o Size
o Colour
o Background colour
 In multimedia application, other media or screen can be linked through the use of text.
This is called as hypertext.
For example MMS.pdf or flower.jpg
 To produce an effective multimedia program, there are 3 things that need to be
considered. They are as follows:
o Length of the message
o The position of the text on the screen and
o The legibility of the text

2. Audio/Sound:-

 Sound comprises the spoken word, voices, music and noise.

 Sound is produced by means of vibration and perceived by sense of hearing.
 Sound is measured in decibel(dB).Sound waves are known as waveforms.
 Sound is described in terms of two characteristics:-
o Frequency(Pitch)
o Amplitude ( Loudness)
 Frequency is a measure of how many vibrations occur in one second. This is
measured in Hertz(Hz) and is directly corresponds to the pitch of the sound.

o The more frequent vibration occurs the higher the pitch of the sound.
Low Pitch High Pitch

 Amplitude is the maximum displacement of a wave from the equilibrium position. For
the loud sound , the amplitude is high.

Low amplitude High Amplitude

 Audio recording come in two basic types.

1. Analog audio
2. Digital audio

 Analog refers to audio recorded using methods that replicate the original sound waves.
Cassette tapes is an example of analog medium.
  Digital audio is recorded by taking samples of the original sound wave at a specified
rate. CD’s and Mp3 files are examples of digital medium.
 Analog sound wave replicates the original sound wave ,whereas the digital sound
wave only replicates the sampled sections of the original sound wave.

 The potential fidelity(reproduction) of an analog recording depends on the

o Sensitivity of the equipment and
o The medium used to record and playback the recording.
 Digital audio fidelity depends on the rate at which the recording equipment sampled
the original sound wave over a specified period of time.

Digital Audio:-

Digital audio data is the representation of sound , stored in the form of samples point.

Sample:- is a value or a set of values at a point in time or space.

Sampling:- is the reduction of continuous time signal into discrete time signal.

Sampling rate:-defines the number of samples per second taken from a continuous signal to
make a discrete or digital signal.
Capture and Playback of digital audio:-

Quality of digital audio depends on,

1.Sampling rate

2.Sample size (Resolution):-The number of bits used to record the value of the sample

in a digitized signal.

The size of the audio file depends on,

1. Sampling frequency

2. Bit depth or Sample size

3. Numer of channels (Mono, Stereo)

4. Lossiness of compression

Common audio file formats are.

1. WAV(Wave form audio file format),

2. Mp3(MPEG-3)

3. AIFF(Audio Interchange File Format).

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface):-

 MIDI is an interface, which forms a protocol adopted by the electronic music

industry that enables computers, synthesizers, keyboards and other musical
devices to communicate with each other.
 In other words, MIDI acts as an interface between music instruments and
computer .
 MIDI device is inexpensive and is readily available.

MIDI Ports: MIDI uses five pin connector. Among the 5 pins, only 3 pins are
used. Both the ends of the MIDI line are same.

The pins are MIDI IN,MIDI OUT,MIDI Thru

MIDI IN:-MIDI data enters each item of the MIDI equipment through MIDI IN
port.

MIDI OUT:-All the MIDI data generated by individual pieces of equipment are
sent out through MIDI OUT port.

MIDI Thru:- used to connect more than one devices which forms a chain.That
chain structure is called as daisy chain.

Storing and play back the MIDI data:-

MIDI uses Synthesizer and Sequencer for playing and storing the MIDI data
respectively.

Sequencer:-Sequencer is a special hardware device for storing and editing a

sequence of musical events in the form of MIDI data.

Synthesizer:-is a standalone sound generator that can vary in pitch ,loudness and
tone.

MIDI SETUP:-

MIDI IN MIDIOUT MIDITHRU

MASTER KEYBOARD(MUSICAL INSTRUMENT)

MIDI IN MIDIOUT MIDI OUT MIDI IN

COMPUTER MIDI MODULE
  MIDI Keyboard produces no sound; instead it generates a sequence of
MIDI instructions called MIDI messages.
 MIDI OUT of the keyboard is connected to the MIDI IN of the synthesizer
and THRU to each of the additional sound modules.
 During recording, a keyboard sends a MIDI messages to the sequencer
which records them.
 During playback, messages are sent from the sequencer to all sound
modules and synthesizer which play the music.

Advantages of MIDI over digital audio:-

1. MIDI files are more compact than digital audio files and the size of the

MIDI file is completely independent of playback quality.

2. Because they are small, MIDI files embedded in web pages ;load and play
more quickly than their digital equivalents.
3. We can change the length of the MIDI file without changing the pitch of
the music. That is ,MIDI data is completely editable.

Disadvantages:-

1 .MIDI does not represent sound or spoken dialog; MIDI is only for musical

Instruments.

Images:-

Still images can be created by using computer software . There are two types of still
images.

1.Bit map (Paint quality) images

2.Vector based (Plain quality) Graphics

 Bitmaps are used for photorealistic images and those drawings require fine
details.
 Vector drawn objects are used for lines, boxes, circles, polygons and other
geometric shapes that can be mathematically expressed in angles, coordinates
and distances.
 A drawn object can be filled with color and patterns and we can select it as a
single object.
 The appearance of both the types of images depends on the display resolution
and the capabilities of our graphics hardware and monitor.
 1.Bitmap images:-

 Bitmap image can be defined as a collection of pixels .that is each sample in

an image is called pixel or pels.

Pixels are infinitely small point samples

 Pixel: The smallest image resolution element.

 Each pixel has a numerical value, that is, the number of bits available to code
a pixel which is dependent on the type of images.

Image Sampling:- discretize the image in the spatial domain( image into pixels)

Spatial / Image resolution : depends on number pixels used to represent the image.

Image quantization :- converts the pixel values into bits.

Types of digital image models:-

1. Binary image:-
a. The images are represented by two values ( 0 & 1) .0 is used to represent
black color and 1 for white color.
b. Binary images are important in image analysis and object detection applic
 2. Gray-scale images:-

a.Usually we use 256 levels for each pixel. That means, the numerical value

for gray levels range from 0 (for black pixels) to FF (256) for white. Thus we

need 8 bits to represent each pixel (28 = 256)

b.Gray scale ranges from black to grays and finally to white.

3.Color images:-

I . RGB Color model

o RGB –Red,Green,Blue Model. These are the Primary colors.

o Each color is represented with 8-bits.So each RGB color pixel have a depth of
24-bits.

CMY Model:R+B->Magenta,B+G ->Cyan,G+R->Yellow C+ M+Y=Black(K)

CMYK color model is called as secondary color model.

II. HSV/HSB color Model:-

o H-Hue,S-Saturation,V/B-Value/Brightness
o Hue:-Human perception about the color. It is expressed as a number from 0
degree to 360 degree.
o At 0 degree- the red color is perceived by human being
o At 180 degree – green color is perceived and at 360 degree- blue is perceived
by human being.
o Saturation:- Amount of gray value added from 0 degree to 360 degree in the
color circle.
o Value ( Brightness):-decides the brightness / intensity of the color from 0
degree to 100 degree.
III. YUV color model:-
o Y-luminanace
o UV represents chrominance
o We can get the RGB from YUV color model.
o From RGB to YUV
 Y=0.299 R+0.587G+0.114B
U=0.492(B-Y)
V=0.877(R-Y)
Advantages of Bitmap images:-
 It is faster to process because it use the native Microsoft bitmap format as a raw
image.
 Use JPEG,for photo sharing on to the web, because of its size and quality.
 Used for simple animation, because it supports interlaced images.

Drawbacks:-

 If we rescale the bitmap image ,it does not provide a good quality.
 Bitmaps can easily be converted into vector images using auto tracing method.

Software used for bitmap :-

 Adobe photoshop & Illustrator

 Macromedia flash
 Corel painter
 Corel draw
 Quack express

The files formats supported by bitmap images are,

1.BMP(Bitmap Format)

2.GIF(Graphical Interchange Format)

3.JPEG(Joint Photographic Expert Group)

4.PNG(Portable Network Graphic)

Advantages of vector drawn graphics:-

 Quality is good when resizing

 Easy to create
 Cannot be converted into bitmap images.

Disadvantage:

 It cannot be used for image processing

Vector drawn graphics File Format &software:-

1.Adobe illustrator

2.EPS(Encapsulated Post Script)

3.PDF(Portable Document Format)

4.AI(Adobe Illustrator Artwork)

5.DXF( Drawing Exchange format)-for Corel draw

Video:-

 Video consist of text, audio, images in the synchronization form.

 Analog video signal is continuous in space and time.
 Video sampling:- breaks the signals into frames with the size of 720x480 pixels or
704x576 pixels.
 Video Quantization:- Convert pixel values into smaller values and then binary values.
 During video quantization, each pixel is represented by abitdepth of 8 bits
representing luminance and color information.

Color systems in video:-

• Video signals are often transmitted to the receiver over a single television channel

– In order to encode color, a video signal is decomposed into three sub-signals: a

luminance signal and two color signals.

– Since human vision is more sensitive to brightness than to color, a more

suitable color encoding system separates the luminance from color
information. Such models include YUV, YIQ, etc.

1. The YUV color model:

While RGB model separates colors, YUV model separates brightness

(luminance) information from the color information. Y is the luminance component
(brightness) and U and V are color components

It is obtained from RGB using the following equations.

Y = 0.299 R + 0.587 G + 0.144 B

U=B–Y

V=R-Y

3. YIQ color model

• YIQ color model is a similar encoding system like YUV.

• It produces the I and Q colors and adds the modulated signal to the luminance
Y.

– It is obtained from RGB using the following equations.

Y = 0.3 R + 0.59 G + 0.11 B

 I = 0.60 R – 0.28 G – 0.32 B

Q = 0.21 R – 0.52 G + 0.31 B

Types of color Video Signal:-

1.Compont Video signal

2.Composite Video Signal

3.Seperated Video Signal(S-Video)

1. Component Video signal:-

 Each primary is sent as a separate video signal.

 The primaries can either be RGB or YUV transformation them.
 Best color production.

Disadvantage:-Requires more bandwidth and good synchronization of the 3 components.

2. Composite Video signal :-

 Single cable is used for both chrominance (color) and luminance (Y) signal.
 Disadvantage : Therefore ,some interference between the two signals.

3. S-Video( Separated Video) signal:-

 A compromise between component analog signal and composite video signal.

 It uses 2 wires. One for luminance and One for luminance.

Video storing format:-

Format Resolution Number of colors displayed

CGA(Color Graphics Array) 320x200 Pixels 4
EGA(Enhanced Graphics 640x350 Pixels 16
Array)
VGA(Video GA) 640x480 Pixels 256
S-VGA(Supper VGA) 1024x768 256