· Multimedia Infrastructure and Format

3. Lesson 1-Selection of proper hardware, software and file format

Following is a description of infrastructure requirement for producing multimedia resources.
Hardware Requirement
The special hardware requirement can be described in four categories i. e. Input devices,
Output devices, Storage devices and Communication devices.

(i) Input Devices

Input devices usually used for the production of multimedia resources are as follows.
· Keyboard
A keyboard is the most common method of interaction with a computer. The most common
keyboard for PCs is the 101 style, although many styles are available with more or fewer
special keys, LEDs, and other features.
· Mouse
A mouse is the standard tool for interacting with a graphic user interface. The buttons on the
mouse provide additional user input, such as pointing and double-clicking to open a document
or the click and drag operation, or to move to and select an item on a pull-down menu, to
access context sensitive help.
· Touch screen
Touch screens are monitors that usually have a textured coating across the glass face. This
coating is sensitive to pressure and registers the location of the user’s finger when it touches
the screen initiative to pressure and registers the location of the user’s finger when it touches
the screen. Touch screens are excellent for applications in a kiosk, at a trade show or in a
museum delivery system.
· Scanner
Scanner is the most useful equipment used in a multimedia project. It may be flat bed, hand
held and drum scanners. The most commonly used scanner for multimedia application is color
flatbed scanners that provide resolute of 600 dots per inch (dpi) or better.
• Optical Character Recognition Device
After scanning, a document can be converted into a word processing document on the
computer without retyping or rekeying, with the help of OCR system. OCR system uses a
combination of hardware and software to recognize characters. Some examples of OCRs are
omni page from Scan soft, Rescore from Maxsoft-Ocron. The OCR terminal can be of use to a
multimedia developer because it recognizes not only printed characters but also handwriting.
This facility may be beneficial at a kiosk or in general education environment where user
friendliness is a goal, because there are growing demand for a more personal and less
technical interface to data and information.
· Voice Recognition System
Voice Recognition systems can be used for the hands-free interaction with the computer. These
behavioral biometric systems usually provide a unidirectional cardioid, noise cancelling
microphone that automatically filters out background noise and learn to recognize voice prints.
These systems can trigger common menu events such as save, open, quiet, print and other
commands that are more specific to the application.
· Digital Camera and Video Camera
Digital cameras capture the still image or video of a given number of pixels (resolution) and the
images are stored in the camera’s memory to be uploaded later to a computer. The resolution
of digital camera is determined by megapixel rating. Video camera is a camera capable of
recording live motion video with audio for later display. Data may be uploaded from the
camera’s memory using a USB cable connected to the computer.

(ii) Output Devices

Following is a brief description of output devices used in a multimedia project.
·
Monitors
The monitors for a multimedia application must be high-end, large screen graphics monitor and
liquid crystal display. Serious multimedia developers often attach more than one monitor to their
computer, using add-on graphics boards. This is because many authoring systems allow
working with several open windows at a time. So, one monitor may be dedicated to view the
work the developer is designing, and editing tasks can be performed in windows on other
monitors that do not block the view of the work.
· Audio devices
All the computers are equipped with an internal speaker and a dedicated sound chip, and they
do are capable of audio without additional hardware. To abate advantages of inbuilt stereo
sound external speakers are required. Altec Lansing’s three-piece amplified speaker system is
designed for multimedia applications.
· Video devices
Video display devices, often called graphics adapters, enable the computer to present
information on monitors capable of displaying up to 16 million colors. Television pictures can be
displayed on the computer by installing a video digitizing board.
· Projectors
Projector is required to show the presentation to large number of viewers. Cathode ray tube
projectors, liquid crystal display, digital high processing projectors, and liquid crystal on silicon
projectors may be used for the multimedia applications.
· Printers
With the advent of reasonably priced colour printers, a hard copy output has entered the
multimedia scene. Many printers are available in the market i.e. laser printer, solid-ink printer,
dye-sublimation printer, liquid inkjet printer and printers based on toner technology. Laser
printers are the best in terms of quality output.

(iii) Storage Devices

Multimedia data requires very high storage capacity. The storage devices used are given as
follows.
· RAM
The Random-Access Memory should be very good for graphics, audio and video production
and writing multimedia products. Graphics memory also called VRAM (Video random access
memory) for high resolution colour display may be used.
· Hard Disc
There should be relatively fast hard drive systems for processing graphics, audio and video.
Now fast, less expensive and large capacity HDD are available in the market. 120GB Hard disc
is recommended for multimedia production.
·

Magnetic Tapes
It is a plastic ribbon which is usually ½ inch or ¼ inch wide, and 50 to 2400 feet long. Data are
recorded on the tape in the form of tiny invisible magnetised and non-magnetized spots on the
coated surface of the tape. The tape ribbon is itself stored in reels or in small cartridge or
cassette. Four mm digital audio tape is most widely used type of magnetic tape in multimedia
applications. It uses a tape ribbon of 4mm and 60or 90 meters long enclosed in a cartridge.
· Magnetic Disc
Magnetic disc is a thin plate made of plastic usually coated on both sides with a magnetizable
recording material. The information written on it can be erased or reused indefinitely. The
information stored can be read many times, without affecting its quality. Floppy disc and hard
disc are examples of magnetic disc. Most popular magnetic discs used in multimedia
application are Zip disc, Jaz disc, super disc etc.
· Optical Disc
Optical discs can store extremely large amount of data in a limited space. An optical-disc
storage system consists of a rotating disc, which is coated with a thin metal or some other
material that is highly reflective. Laser beam technology is used for recording and reading data
on the disc. These are also called laserdiscs. It is found in the form of CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD.
CD-R is Compact Disc Recordable., CD-RW is Compact Disc Rewritable, and DVD is Digital
Video Disc. There are three types of DVD, DVD-RW, DVD-Video and DVDROM. CDs and
DVDs are the best for multimedia storage because of its huge storage capacity.
· Pen Drive and External Hard Disc
The latest development in storage is the evolution of pen-drive and external hard-disc.

(iv) Communication Devices

Multimedia data file size, especially for graphics; audio and video are quite large. Therefore, the
key issue for multimedia communication is bandwidth. Band width is the amount of information
that can be transmitted across a network of computers within a stipulated period of time. It is
measured in kilobits per second (kbps) or megabits per second (mbps). Communication
systems have created two classes of multimedia products, synchronous or real time and
asynchronous. Synchronous applications are able to transmit and receive data in real time
allowing the end user to view or hear data as it is being captured or created. Asynchronous
applications use a store and forward method in which data is transmitted and stored for future.
Primary communication devices for multimedia are as under (Hillman, 1998).

Modem
Modem modulates and de-modulates analogue signals. The modem speed is the most
important consideration in communicating multimedia files. These files contain the graphics,
audio and video and usually it is needed to move as much data as possible in a short time.
Today’s standards dictate at least a 56-kbps modem. Compression saves significant
transmission time and cost over long distance. Fifty-six kbps V.90 depends on hardware-based
compression algorithm to crunch the data before sending it and decompressing it upon arrival at
the receiving end (Vaughan, 2008).

· Network Devices
For higher transmission speed by telephone Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is
recommended for multimedia. ISDN lines offer a 128-kbps data transfer rate. These are used
for internet access, networking and audio and video conferencing. Now a faster technology
known as DSL technology using a dedicated line has overtaken ISDN in popularity.
As there are so many variables in selecting hardware for a multimedia platform, a group of
companies formed an organization called the Multimedia PC Marketing Council (MPC) in 1990
to set minimum standards for multimedia hardware. MPC Level-1published in
1990dictated that a system is considered as Level 1 system with configuration as 16 MHZ
386SX or compatible microprocessor, 2 MB of RAM, 30 MB Hard disc, 3.5-inch high-density
Discette drive, single speed CD-ROM drive with a 150KB per second data transfer rate, 8bit
soundboard, VGA compatible display adapter, Colour VGA compatible monitor, 101 key
keyboard, two-button mouse, standard serial and parallel ports, MIDI port, joystick port and
support for either Microsoft Windows version 3.0, with multimedia extensions, or for Windows
version 3.1.
These standards were updated in 1993 with Level-2 specifications, and again updated in
1995 as MPC-3. The MPC-3standard delineates the specifications for multimedia as75 MHz
Pentium Processor, 8 MB RAM, 540 MB Hard disc, 3.5-inch high-density Discette drive,
Quad speed CD-ROM drive with a 600 KB per-second data transfer rate, 16-bit, wave-table,
MIDI sound card, MPEG-1 hardware and software capable of 30 frames per second, 352 by
240 pixels, 15 bits per pixel (Vaughan, 2008). Current machines have surpassed even this
level, with storage space now measured in terabytes standard on most PCs, RAM in gigabytes,
and up to a 200 MHz processor speed on the Pentium chip.

Software Requirement
Multimedia software are authoring tools, which provide an important framework for organizing
and editing the elements of multimedia including graphics, sound, animation and video. Tools
for authoring and programming in multimedia applications include Director, Aurhor ware
Professional, Course Builder, Flash, Supercard, Hypercard, and Film Maker etc. Brief
descriptions of some of the authoring software are as follows.

· Adobe Director
It is a software tool for multimedia authoring. The software is used to create interactive games,
interactive learning materials, applications, kiosks, DVDs, CDs and the web.
· CREATE Together
This is a multimedia environment that integrates creation, collaboration, communication,
problem solving, and publishing in one seamless tool. It can be used to create animated games,
randomly generated puzzles, interactive simulations, searchable multimedia databases,
hyperlinked presentations, training materials.
· Media Blender
It is a multimedia authoring package which allows users to create their multimedia projects,
helping them organize and communicate information and ideas using a wide variety of media.
Media Blender can be accessed from any computer with internet access. Also, the software can
be hosted on any server for better performance, and load a stand-alone application on
computer for use without an Internet connection in client-server mode.
· Media Works 6.2
Media Works combines simple-to-use video, sound, animation and paint editors with a powerful
multimedia authoring program. It can easily create amazing movie-type productions that are
difficult or not possible in other consumer-level movie and slide show editors, and precisely-
timed linear and interactive presentations without the learning curve and expense of high-end
media editing and authoring tools.
·
PlayMo
PlayMo is an authoring tool that allows the creation of highly interactive rich media content from
a wide range of source files such as still images, video clips, audio clips, 3D models, CAD
models and more. PlayMo's intuitive WYSIWYG editing functions make it easy to embed
complex interactivity into models to accurately recreate the functionality of real-world objects,
requiring no coding.

Multimedia Builder
It is a multimedia authoring system that allows creating autorun CD menus, multimedia
applications on CD-ROM, demos, kiosks, Computer based training, presentations, MP3 players
etc.

File Formats for Multimedia

The following is an outline of current file formats used for the production and delivery of
multimedia.

Text Formats
(a) RTF (Rich Text Format)
RTF is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft
Corporation in 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange.

(b) Plain text

Plain text files can be opened, read, and edited with most text editors. Examples include
Notepad (Windows), edit (DOS), ed, emacs, vi, vim, Geditor nano (Unix, Linux), SimpleText
(Mac OS), or Text Edit (Mac OS X). Other computer programs are also capable of reading and
importing plain text. Plain text is the original and ever popular method of conveying email.
HTML formatted e-mail messages often include an automatically-generated plain text copy as
well, for compatibility reasons.
· Image Formats
(a) TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
This format is common in desktop publishing world, and almost all software packages support it.
Recent versions of TIFF allow for image compression, and the format is handy for moving large
files between computers.

(b) BMP (Bitmap)

This format came into use with Windows 3.1. Itis uncompressed and can be quite large. For this
reason, BMP is seldom used for the large or high-resolution images.

(c) DIB (Device Independent Bitmap)

This format is similar to BMP, allows files to be displayed on a variety of devices.

(d) GIF (Graphics Interchange format)

GIF is a compressed image format developed by CompuServe, an online information service.
Most computer colour images and backgrounds are GIF files. This compact file format is ideal
for graphics that use only few colours, and it was once the most popular format for online colour
photos. The GIF format uses an 8-bit Colour Look Up Table to identify its colour values. This
format is widely supported by several shareware viewers and converters.

(e) JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

This format was designed for maximum image compression. JPEG uses loosy compression,
which refers to a compression scheme that actually loses some of the data needed to
reconstruct the image. It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork, and similar material
but does not work well on lettering, simple cartoons, or live drawings. The rationale behind
loosy compression is that the human eye does not miss the lost information.
(f) TGA (Targa)
This was the first popular format for high-resolution images. The name comes from the original
Targa board, the first true-color video board. Most video-capture boards support TGA, as do
most high-end paint programs.
(g) PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
An extensible file format for the loss less, portable, well compressed storage of raster images.
PNG provides a patent free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of
TIFF. PNG is designed to work well in online viewing applications, such as the worldwide web,
so it is fully streamable with a progressive display option.
· Digital Audio File Formats
(a) WAV (Waveform Audio File Format)
The most popular audio file format used mainly in windows for storing uncompressed sound
files. It can be converted to other file formats like MP3to reduce the file size.
(b) MP3(MPEG Layer-3 Format)
MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format downloading and storing music. The MP3 files
are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent WAV file.
(c) OGGA free, open source container format that can be compared to MP3 files in terms of
quality.
(d) AU
It is a standard audio file format used by Sun, Unix and Java. The audio in AU file format can be
compressed.
(e) AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
A standard audio file format used by Apple which is like a WAV file for the Mac.
(f) WMA (Windows Media Audio)
It is a popular windows media audio format owned by Microsoft and designed with Digital Right
Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.
(g) RA (Real Audio Format)
Real Audio format is designed for streaming audio over the Internet. The digital audio resources
are usually stored as a computer file in computer’s hard drive or CD-ROM or DVD. There are
multitudes of audio file formats, but the most common formats are wave files (.WAV) and MPEG
Layer-3 files (.MP3), WMA and RA. Following are the commonly used digital audio file formats
(Rajashekharan & Nafala, 2009).

· Digital Video File Formats

(a) AVI (Audio/Video Interleave)
AVI is the file format used by Video for Windows, one of three video technologies used on
personal computers. In AVI, picture and sound elements are stored in alternate interleaved
chunks in the file.
(b) MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group)
MPEG is a group of people that meet under the International Standards Organization (ISO) to
generate standards for digital video and audio compression. Established in 1988, the group has
produced MPEG-1, the standard on which Video CD and MP3 are based, MPEG-2, the
standard on which such products as Digital Television set top boxes and DVD are based,
MPEG-4, the standard for multimedia for the fixed and mobile web and MPEG-7, the standard
for description and search of audio and visual content. Work on the new standard MPEG-21
"Multimedia Framework" has started in June2000. Technically speaking MPEG is not a storage
format but standards for digital video and audio compression.
A video file format is a standard for encoding digital video, audio and some auxiliary information
into a file. In contrast to audio and image formats, most video file formats allow a variety of
codecs, both audio and video to be used (Pathak, 2006).