Chapter 11 Multimedia Devices and Mass Storage

You Will Learn…  About multimedia devices such as sound cards, digital cameras, and MP3 players  About optical storage technologies such as CD and DVD  About tape drives and removable drives  How certain hardware devices are used for backup and fault tolerance  How to troubleshoot multimedia and mass storage devices

Multimedia on a PC  Goal To create or reproduce lifelike representations of sight and sound  Challenge Data storage is digital Sights and sounds are analog

CPU Technologies for Multimedia  MMX, SSE, and 3DNow! Improve speed of processing graphics, video, and sound Use improved methods of handling high-volume repetition during I/O operations  Software must be written to use the specific capabilities

Multimedia Devices  Sound cards  Digital cameras  MP3 players  Video capture cards

Sound Cards  Record sound, save it to a file on hard drive, play it back  Have ports for external stereo speakers and microphone input  May be SoundBlaster compatible

Stages of Computerized Sound  Digitize or input the sound (analog to digital) Includes sampling Data is measured at a series of representative points Sampling rate = cycles per second, or hertz (Hz)  Store digital data in a compressed data file  Reproduce or synthesize the sound (digital to analog)

Sound Card Manufacturers

Installing a Sound Card  Physically install the card in an empty PCI slot on the motherboard  Install the sound card driver  Install the sound application software

Installing a Sound Card

Installing the Sound Card Driver

Digital Cameras  Use light sensors to detect light and convert it to a digital signal stored in an image file using JPEG format  Use TWAIN format for transferring images  Camera’s image-editing software (or another program) can be used to view, touch up, and print the picture

Digital Cameras

Digital Camera Manufacturers

MP3 Players  Store and play MP3 files downloaded from a PC, using internal memory and flash storage devices

Compression Methods Used with MP3 Players  MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) standard Tracks movement from one frame to the next and stores only what changes Cuts out or drastically reduces sound that is not normally heard by the human ear

MPEG Standards  MPEG-1 Used in business and home applications to compress images  MPEG-2 Used to compress video films on DVD-ROM  MPEG-3 Used for audio compression  MPEG-4 Used for video transmissions over the Internet

How MP3 Players Work  Play MP3 files downloaded from a PC, using internal memory and flash storage devices (eg, SmartMedia, CompactFlash, or Memory Stick)

MP3 Player Manufacturers

Video Capture Card  Allows you to capture input from a camcorder or directly from TV

Features to Look for on a Video Capture Card  IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port to interface with a digital camcorder  Data transfer rates, which affect price  Capture resolution and color-depth capabilities  Ability to transfer data back to digital camcorder or VCR  Stereo audio jacks  Video-editing software bundled with the card

Optical Storage Technology  Patterns of tiny pits on disc surface represent bits, which are read by a laser beam  Major optical storage technologies CD-ROM drives Use CDFS (Compact Disc File System) or UDF (Universal Disk Format) DVD drives Use only UDF

CD-ROM  Data physically embedded into disc surface  Surface laid out as one continuous spiral of sectors of equal length that hold equal amounts of data in pits and lands

CD-ROM  Read-only  Slower to access than hard drives  Used to distribute software and sound files  Combines constant linear velocity (CLV) and constant angular velocity (CAV)  Look for multisession feature

CD-ROM Drive Manufacturers

CD-ROMs  Caring for CD-ROM drives and discs Use precautions when handling  CD-ROM drive interface with motherboard IDE interface (most common) SCSI interface with SCSI host adapter Proprietary expansion card that works only with CD-ROMs from a particular manufacturer Proprietary connection on sound card Portable drive; plug into external port on PC

Installing a CD-ROM Drive

Accessing CD-ROM Drive When Booting from a Floppy Disk  Windows rescue disk needs to include tools to access CD-ROM drive in the event of hard drive failure There will be no access to 32-bit Windows CD-ROM drivers on the hard drive  Files required to access a CD-ROM drive while in real mode: 16-bit device driver provided by manufacturer of CD-ROM drive; loaded from Config.sys 16-bit real-mode OS interface to the driver, Mscdex.exe; loaded from Autoexec.bat

CD-R (CD-Recordable) Drives and Discs  Enables “burning” your own CDs  Used for distributing software or large amounts of data  Cannot edit or overwrite  Allow for a lot of data storage on a relatively inexpensive medium  Bottom of disk is tinted (eg, blue, black); CDs are silver  Can be read by all CD-ROM drives

CD-RW (CD-Rewritable) Drives and Discs  Allows overwriting old data with new data  Cannot always be read by older drives  More expensive than CD-R discs

DVD (Digital Video Disc)  Storage capacity 8.5 GB (one side) 17 GB (both sides)  Uses Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system  Uses shorter wavelength laser than CD; a second opaque layer also holds data  Uses MPEG-2 video compression; requires MPEG-2 controller to decode compressed data  Audio is stored in Dolby AC-3 compression

DVD Device

DVD Devices

DVD Drive Manufacturers

Installing a DVD Drive

11-15

Installing a DVD Drive

Tape Drives  Advantages Inexpensive and convenient Large capacity Several types and formats  Disadvantage Sequential access

Tape Drive Manufacturers

How a Tape Drive Interfaces with a Computer  External Parallel port with optional pass-through to the printer  Internal IDE ATAPI interface (most popular)  External or internal SCSI bus Proprietary controller card or floppy drive interface

External Drive Using Parallel Port

An ATAPI IDE Tape Drive

Tapes Used by a Tape Drive  Two kinds Full-sized data cartridges Minicartridges (more popular)  Standards Quarter-Inch Committee (QIC) or quarter-inch cartridge standards (not used much today) Travan by 3M (popular, improved group of standards)

Minicartridge for a Tape Drive

Removable Drives  Can be internal or external  Advantages Increase overall storage capacity of a system Make it easy to move large files from one computer to another Serve as a convenient medium for making backups of hard drive data Make it easy to secure important files

Considerations When Purchasing a Removable Drive  Drop height  Half-life of the disk  Plug and Play compliance

Types of Removable Drives  Iomega 3½-inch Zip drive Stores 100 MB or 250 MB of data Drop height of 8 feet  SuperDisk by Imation or Maxell Stores 120 MB or 240 MB, respectively Backward compatibility with regular floppy disks  Iomega Jaz drive Stores 1 GB or 2 GB of data Drop height of 3 feet

Zip Drive Kit

Installing a Removable Drive  Internal removable drive Similar to installing a hard drive  External removable drive Different process

Troubleshooting Guidelines  Do not touch chips on circuit boards or disk surfaces where data is stored  Do not stack components on top of one another  Do not subject them to magnetic fields or ESD

Problems with CD-ROM or DVD Installations  Computer does not recognize the drive (no drive D listed in Windows 9x Explorer) Check data cable and power cord connections For an IDE drive Is correct master/slave jumper set? Is IDE connection on motherboard disabled in CMOS setup? For SCSI, are proper IDs set? Most current drivers installed? Another device using same port settings? Suspect a boot virus

Troubleshooting Sound Problems  Problem with sound card itself  Result of system settings  Bad connections

Troubleshooting Tape Drives  A minicartridge does not work  Data transfer is slow  Drive does not work after installation  Drive fails intermittently or gives errors

Chapter Summary  What multimedia devices can do, how they work, and how to support them  Storage devices CD DVD Removable drives Tape drives