MSD 002L1

Multimedia - is the field concerned with the computer-controlled integration of text, graphics, drawings,
still and moving images, animation, audio, and any other media where every type of information can be
represented, stored, transmitted and processed digitally.

- also refers to computer data storage devices, especially those used to store multimedia content.

Examples:

-Text

-Animation

-Still Images

-Audio

-Video Footage

-Interactivity

Common Image Format

- JPG (JPEG)- Joint Photographic Experts Group

- GIF -Graphical Interchange Format

- BMP- Bitmap image file

- PNG- Portable Network Graphics

- PSD -Adobe Photoshop Document

- TIF (TIFF) -Tagged Image File Format

- THM- Thumbnail Image File

- PS- Postscript File (vector)

- DRW - Drawing File (Vector)

Common Audio File Formats

- WMA- Windows Media Audio

- WAV- Wave Audio File
- AIF- Audio Interchange File Format
- AAC -Advanced Audio Coding
- IFF -Interchange File Format
- MID- MIDI File (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
- MP3- MPEG-3

Common Video File Formats

• MOV- Apple Quicktime Movie

• MPEG -Moving Pictures Experts Group

• FLV -Flash Video File

• RM- Real Media File

• WMV- Windows Media Video

• SWF -Flash Movie (Shockwave Flash)

• AVI -Audio Video Interleave

• MP4 -MPEG-4 Video File

• 3GP - 3GPP(3rd Generation Partnership Project ) file format

Various Fields that uses Multimedia

• Business

• Education

• Scientific research

• Engineering

• Entertainment

• Medicine

Multimedia Application - is an Application which uses a collection of multiple media sources.

Hypermedia - can be considered as one of the multimedia applications.

Multimedia Applications

• World Wide Web

• Hypermedia Courseware

• Video Conferencing

• Interactive TV

• Home shopping

• Games

• Virtual Reality

• Digital Video Editing and Production Systems

• Multimedia Database Systems

Hypertext

- A special type of database system, invented by Ted Nelson in the 1960s, in which objects
(text, pictures, music, programs, and so on) can be creatively linked to each other.

- When you select an object, you can see all the other objects that are linked to it. You can
move from one object to another even though they might have very different forms. The
texts or icons that you select to view associated objects are called Hypertext links or
buttons.

- Hypertext systems are particularly useful for organizing and browsing through large
databases that consist of different types of information.

- Hypertext is therefore usually non-linear.

HyperMedia

- Is not constrained to be text-based. It can include other media, e.g., graphics, images, and
especially the continuous media - sound and video. Apparently, Ted Nelson was also the first
to use this term.

Characteristics of a Multimedia System

• A Multimedia system has four basic characteristics:

– Multimedia systems must be computer controlled.

– Multimedia systems are integrated.

– The information they handle must be represented digitally.

– The interface to the final presentation of media is usually interactive.

Challenges for Multimedia System

• Sequencing within the media

• Synchronization

• Digitalization

• Storage
Desirable Features for a Multimedia System

Very High Processing Power.

– needed to deal with large data processing and real time delivery of media. Special
hardwares are required.

Multimedia Capable File System

– needed to deliver real-time media -- e.g. Video/Audio Streaming.

Special Hardware/Software needed - e.g RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology.

Data Representations/File Formats that support multimedia

– Data representations/file formats should be easy to handle yet allow for

compression/decompression in real-time.

Efficient and High I/O

– input and output to the file subsystem needs to be efficient and fast. Needs to allow for
real-time recording as well as playback of data. e.g. Direct to Disk recording systems.

Special Operating System

– to allow access to file system and process data efficiently and quickly. Needs to support
direct transfers to disk, real-time scheduling, fast interrupt processing, I/O streaming
etc.

Storage and Memory

– large storage units (of the order of 50 -100 Gb or more) and large memory (50 -100 Mb
or more). Large Caches also required and frequently of Level 2 and 3 hierarchy for
efficient management.

Network Support

– Client-server systems common as distributed systems common.

Software Tools

– user friendly tools needed to handle media, design and develop applications, deliver
media.
Components of a Multimedia System

Capture devices

• Video Camera, Video Recorder, Audio Microphone, Keyboards, mice, graphics tablets, 3D input
devices, tactile sensors, VR devices. Digitizing/Sampling Hardware

Storage Devices

• Hard disks, CD-ROMs, Jaz/Zip drives, DVD, etc

Communication Networks

• Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, Intranets, Internets.

Computer Systems

• Multimedia Desktop machines, Workstations, MPEG/VIDEO/DSP Hardware

Display Devices

• CD-quality speakers, HDTV,SVGA, Hi-Res monitors, Color printers etc.

Multimedia Tools

• Multimedia application enabling software

• Hypermedia

• Multimedia Authoring Tools

• Multimedia databases and retrieval

• System software support for multimedia

• System hardware support for multimedia

• Performance measurement tools for multimedia

History of Multimedia System

• Newspaper was perhaps the first mass communication medium to employ Multimedia -- they
used mostly text, graphics, and images.

• In 1895, Gugliemo Marconi sent his first wireless radio transmission at Pontecchio, Italy. A few
years later (in 1901) he detected radio waves beamed across the Atlantic. Initially invented for
telegraph, radio is now a major medium for audio broadcasting.

• Television was the new media for the 20th century. It brings the video and has since changed
the world of mass communications.

• Some of the important events in relation to Multimedia in Computing include:

• 1945 - Bush wrote about Memex

• The memex ("memory extender"is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-
hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May
Think.

• The memex has influenced the development of sub sequential hypertext and intellect
augmenting computer systems.

• 1967 - Negroponte formed the Architecture Machine Group at MIT

• Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek-American architect and computer

scientist

• Ted Nelson coined the words "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1965 and worked with Andries
Van Dam to develop the Hypertext Editing System in 1968 at Brown University.

Birth of the Internet

• 1971 - Email

• 1976 - Architecture Machine Group proposal to DARPA: Multiple Media

• The Aspen Movie Map was a revolutionary hypermedia system developed at MIT by a team
working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 with funding from ARPA

• The Aspen Movie Map allowed the user to take a virtual tour—travel surrogately—through the
city of Aspen, Colorado. It is an early example of a hypermedia system.

• 1983 - Backer: Electronic Book

• 1985 - Negroponte, Wiesner: opened MIT Media Lab

 • 1989 - Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web to CERN (European Council for Nuclear
Research)

• 1991 - Apple Multimedia Lab: Visual Almanac, Classroom MM Kiosk

• The Visual Almanac is an interactive multimedia demonstration kit that combines

videodisc and the Macintosh personal computer with HyperCard.

• 1992 - the first M-bone audio multicast on the Net

• 1993 - U. Illinois National Center for Supercomputing

Applications: NCSA Mosaic

– Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web.

– Mosaic was also the first browser to display images inline with text instead of displaying
images in a separate window

 1994 - Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen: Netscape

 1995 - JAVA for platform-independent application development. Duke is the first applet.

 1996 - Microsoft, Internet Explorer.

Intro to Graphics

 Digitization

 Binary System

 Pixels

 Color Coding & Models

 Break

 Intro to Text

 Bitmap vs. Vector Graphics

 Image Resolution

 Image Bit Depth

 File Formats
  Graphics Software

 Using FTP – Secure Shell

We rely on images for

 Information
 Explanations
 Entertainment

Non-digital medium (paper copy of a photo)

- Scanner saves the image in a file on your computer

Outside world – PHOTOGRAPHY

- Digital images uploaded to a file on your computer

Create image – CLIP ART IMAGES/SCENES

- Saves image to a file

*Represented by a grid (column/rows) of squares called pixels (Picture elements)