Multimedia – An Introduction msccomputerscience.com msccomputerscience.com

Text Books:  1. Ze-Nian Li and Mark S. Drew, “Fundamentals of Multimedia”, Pearson Prentice Hall, October 2003. 2. Fred Halsall, “Multimedia Communications: Applications, Networks, Protocols and Standards”, Addison-Wesley, 2001. 3.Khalid Sayood, “Introduction to data compression “,3rd edition, Morgan Kaufman 4.David Solomon, "The Data compression; The Complete Reference”, 3rd edition, Springer, 2006 msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia- Definitions Multi - many; much; multiple Medium - means of transmission of information/data. Multimedia thus indicates that information /data being transmitted over network may be composed of the following: Text Image Audio Video msccomputerscience.com

Scope Of Multimedia The technology of MM design utilizes various features like animation ,video, graphics, audio..; MM technology is used for 3D cinema Animation is also used in creating special effects/ web programs. Thus scope of animation is huge in market In the field of education , MM is being used extensively , especially for online course and training MM is also used for advertising purpose. msccomputerscience.com

Range of Multimedia In telephone networks Data networks Broadcast television network Integrated services digital network Broadband multi service network msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Authoring Tools Multimedia elements are composed into a project using authoring tools. Multimedia Authoring tools are those programs that provide the capability for creating a complete multimedia presentations by linking together objects such as a paragraph of text (song), an illustration, an audio, with appropriate interactive user control msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Authoring Tools (Contd.) By defining the objects' relationships to each other, and by sequencing them in an appropriate order, authors (who use authoring tools) can produce attractive and useful graphical applications. To name a few authoring tools Macromedia Flash Macromedia Director Authorware The hardware and the software that govern the limits of what can happen are multimedia platform or environment msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia and Interactivity Interactive Multimedia is Hypermedia, when the end- user is provided with the structure of linked elements through which he/she can navigate. Multimedia is linear, when it is not interactive and the users just sit and watch as if it is a movie, e.g., cinema presentation Multimedia is nonlinear, when the users are given the navigational control and can browse the contents at will, e.g., computer game, computer-based training. msccomputerscience.com

Challenges for Multimedia System There is a temporal relationship between many forms of media (e.g. Video and Audio). In this case problems are: Sequencing within the media - playing frames in correct order/time frame in video Synchronisation - inter-media scheduling (e.g. Video and Audio). Lip synchronisation is clearly important for humans to watch playback of video and audio and even animation and audio. msccomputerscience.com

Challenges for Multimedia Systems The key issues that multimedia systems need to deal with are: How to represent and store temporal information. How to strictly maintain the temporal relationships on play back/retrieval Data has to be represented digitally so many initial source of data needs to be digitised - translated from analog source to digital representation. This will involve scanning (graphics, still images), sampling (audio/video) although digital cameras now exist for direct scene to digital capture of images and video. The data is large (several Mb) for audio and video - therefore storage, transfer (bandwidth) and processing overheads are high. Data compression techniques very common. msccomputerscience.com

Desirable Features Given the (mentioned) challenges the following features are desirable (if not a prerequisite) for a Multimedia System: Very High Processing Power needed to deal with large data processing and real time delivery of media. Special hardware commonplace. Multimedia Capable File System needed to deliver real-time media e.g. Video/Audio Streaming. Special Hardware/Software needed e.g RAID 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. msccomputerscience.com

Desirable Features 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. msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Applications Multimedia finds its application in various areas, a few are: Education Computer-based trainings, reference e-books, documents imaging, distant learning. Entertainment Interactive games Medicine Training to doctors through virtual surgery Business Employee training, advertisements, customer support, selling products. Arts Art exhibitions, literature presentations Scientific Research Modeling and simulations msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Applications (Contd.) In Medicine Source: Cardiac Imaging, YALE centre for advanced cardiac imaging msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Applications (Contd.) In training msccomputerscience.com

Multimedia Applications (Contd.) Other Applications include: World Wide Web Video conferencing Video-on-demand Interactive TV Home shopping Games Virtual reality Digital video editing and production systems Multimedia Database systems msccomputerscience.com

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