IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 1 Chapter 6 Multimedia Capabilities

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 2 Multimedia Multimedia is a term typically used to mean the combination of text, sound, and/or motion video. Multimedia has been described as the addition of animated images, but typically it means one of the following: Text and sound Text, sound, and still or animated graphic images Text, sound, and video images Video and sound Multiple display areas, images, or presentations presented concurrently In live situations, the use of a speaker or actors and "props" together with sound, images, and motion video

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 3 PC Requirements to Run Multimedia The types of computer hardware and software necessary to develop multimedia on the PC vary. The minimum hardware requirements include: computer monitor video accelerator card sound adapter card with attached speakers.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 4 Key Multimedia Components A microphone connected to a sound card to input sound. CD-ROMs and DVD players are used for input and output of multimedia. A connection to the Internet via a network interface card or a modem. Streaming of audio and video is very popular. Digital still pictures and video cameras connected to standard computer ports or special card adapters. A video capture card MPEG hardware and Web based movie players are used to play movies. Computer games via DVD or CD require specialized hardware.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 5 The Video Card A video adapter (also called a display adapter or video board) is an integrated circuit card in a computer that provides digital-to- analog conversion, video RAM, and a video controller so that data can be sent to a computer's display. In a few cases, the video adapter is built in to the monitor. Today, almost all displays and video adapters adhere to the standard Video Graphics Array (VGA). In addition to VGA, most displays adhere to one or more standards set by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). VESA defines how software can determine the capability of a display. It also identifies resolutions setting beyond those of VGA. These resolutions include 800 by 600, 1024 by 768, 1280 by 1024, and 1600 by 1200 pixels.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 6 Display Characteristics Displays use bits to describe color and how many colors can be displayed The number of bits used to describe a pixel is called bit-depth VGA video is 256 colors or 8-bit bit-depth 24-bit bit-depth is known as true color Dot pitch is the size of an individual beam that gets through to light up a point of phosphor on the screen measured in millimeters with a typical display having a.28 mm dot-pitch The actual sharpness of a display image is measured in dots- per-inch (dpi). The dots-per-inch is determined by a combination of the screen resolution and the physical screen size.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 7 Display Characteristics

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 8 Display Characteristics Dot pitch is a diagonal distance between the same color phosphor dots. The smaller the dot pitch, the greater the potential image sharpness.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 9 Display Characteristics On desktop computers, the display screen width relative to height, known as the aspect ratio, is generally standardized at 4 to 3 (usually indicated as "4:3"). Screen sizes are measured in either millimeters or inches diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner. Common desktop screen sizes are 15-, 17-and 19-inch. Notebook screen sizes are somewhat smaller. The projection technology used by most displays is Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) technology, which is similar to that used in most television sets. CRT technology requires a certain distance from the beam projection device to the screen in order to function. Using other technologies, displays can be much thinner and are known as flat-panel displays.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 10 Media Formats Two data-compression standards are commonly used with digitized video. These are the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) compression standards. Other Compression Standards Indeo compression standard, developed by Intel. Another compression/decompression (codec) standard supported by Video for Windows is Cinepak. This standard uses an AVI file format to produce 40:1 compression ratios and 30- frames per second capture, at 320-by-200 resolution.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 11 Media Compression JPEG provides enough compression to allow single-frame digitized images to fit on disk drives, but full-motion pictures were going to need much greater compression to be useful on current technology. Therefore, the MPEG format was developed. MPEG has compression ratios up to 200:1, with high-quality video and audio. The MPEG standard includes specifications for audio compression and decompression in both MPEG1 and 2. MPEG1 supports a very near CD-quality stereo output, at data rates between 128kbps and 256kbps. The MPEG 2 specification supports CD-quality surround-sound (four-channel) output.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 12 AGP Cards Newer Pentium systems were the first to include an advanced Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) interface for video graphics. The figure below shows an AGP interface and its position on the motherboard. The AGP interface is a variation of the PCI (see Chapter 2) bus design that has been modified to handle the intense data throughput associated with 3 dimensional graphics.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 13 Video Capture Cards Video capture software is used to capture frames of television video and convert them into digital formats that can be processed by the system. One of the popular file formats for video is the Microsoft Audio Visual Interface (AVI) format. Video capture cards are responsible for converting video signals from different sources into digital signals that can be manipulated by the computer. As in the audio conversion process, the video card samples the incoming video signal by feeding it through an A-to- D (analog-to-digital) converter. One of the jobs of the video capture card is to convert the YUV format into an RGB VGA-compatible signal. YUV is a video encoding format that is different than RGB.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 14 Video Card Installation After the video card has been installed and the monitor has been connected to the video card and plugged into the power outlet, it will be necessary to install the correct drivers for the video card. The Windows 9x operating systems should detect the video card, start the system with basic VGA video drivers, and ask you if you want to install the manufacturer's video drivers. The Windows 2000 operating system is even more proactive. It will detect the new video card, tell you that it has found the new card, and then automatically load its video drivers. The only time that you should need to be directly involved with the system's video drivers is when PnP fails or the video card is not recognized by the operating system.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 15 Video Memory and Resolution Monitors are analog, not digital devices. In order for the monitor to work, the digital information in the video memory must be translated into analog form for export to the monitor screen. This is the role of the Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter (RAMDAC) chip. The RAMDAC chip reads the video memory contents, converts it to analog, and sends it over a cable to the video monitor. The quality of this chip impacts the quality of the image, speed of the refresh rate, and maximum resolution capability. Refresh rate refers to the number of times per second that the video display screen can be redrawn.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 16 Video Memory and Resolution The video chip set relies on video memory to render the image requested. The basic element of every video image is a dot (or pixel). Many dots comprise what you see displayed on the monitor. Every dot has a location reserved in video memory. The maximum number of dots, which can be displayed, relates to the resolution. Resolution is expressed as a pair of numbers. Each pair of numbers represents the maximum possible number of dots on a horizontal and vertical axis. The basic VGA resolution is 640 by 480. The higher the resolution, the sharper and clearer the image.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 17 Sound Cards Audio is an integral component of the multimedia experience, but for a PC to have audio capabilities, it requires the use of a sound card. A sound card is a device (either in the form of an expansion card or a chipset) that allows the computer to handle audio information. Input – Sound cards can "capture" audio information from many different sources. These sources include microphones, CD players, DAT, and MIDI devices. Processing – The processing capability of a sound card allows it convert audio information in different formats as well as add effects to the sound data. Output – Simple sound card output devices include headphones and speakers while more complicated devices consist of surround-sound digital theatre systems, DAT and CD recorders, and other musical devices

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 18 Sound Cards Sound cards produce audio (synthesize) using three distinct methods: Frequency Modulation (FM), Wavetable, and Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). FM synthesis - creates waveforms that best match the instrument playing. Wavetable - sound cards use actual digitized samples of real instruments to reproduce audio. MIDI - is a combination of hardware and software that allows the sound card to control actual musical instruments and use these instruments to output the audio.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 19 Sound Production and Quality The quality of a sound card is determined by its bit depth, sampling rate, and feature set. Bit depth – Refers to the sample size and bus size of the sound card. Sampling rate – The rate at which the card can record audio information. Today's 16-bit sound cards are capable of sampling at 128kHz and beyond. Feature set – Includes additional features such as: 3-D audio co-processors, device controllers, and digital output options. Sound cards can also act as device controllers that have built-in SCSI, RAID, or FireWire (IEEE 1394) controllers. Many higher-end sound cards also offer digital output ports such as Toslink (a fiber optic connector) and coaxial to allow connection to home theatre systems.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 20 CD-ROMs CDs are 120mm in diameter, 1.2mm thick, and can store up to 800 MB of information. CD-ROM drives can be mounted internally in the computer or as an external drive. They connect either directly to an external port on the computer (such as USB, FireWire, or parallel) or to a controller installed in one of the computer's expansion slots (usually SCSI). Common internal connections include IDE and SCSI. IDE communication cables are 40-pin ribbon cables that connect to the drive and the motherboard.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 21 CD-R and CD-RW Currently there are two major types of CD recorders: CD-R and CD-RW. CD-R – CD-R stands for Compact Disc - Recordable and was the first of the two technologies conceived. CD-RW – CD-RW stands for Compact Disc - Rewritable. A CD drive that can write at 3000kb per second is shown as having a 20x (or 20 times 150kb) write speed. A drive listed as 24x/40x has a write speed of 24x and a read speed of 40x.

IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software 22 CD Recording Formats