Chapter One 1. Introduction To Multimedia: 1.1. Definition of Multimedia, History of Multimedia
Chapter One 1. Introduction To Multimedia: 1.1. Definition of Multimedia, History of Multimedia
Chapter One 1. Introduction To Multimedia: 1.1. Definition of Multimedia, History of Multimedia
1. Introduction to Multimedia
Multimedia is any combination of text, art, sound, animation, and video delivered to you by
computer or other electronic or digitally manipulated means.
Multi: more than one
Medium (singular): middle, intermediary, mean
Media (plural): means for conveying information
Media in the press, newspaper, radio and TV context - mass media
Media in communications: cables, satellite, network – transmission media
Media in computer storage: floppy, CD, DVD, HD, USB – storage media
Media in HCI context: text, image, audio, video, – interaction media
Multimedia is, as described previously, a woven combination of digitally manipulated text,
photographs, graphic art, sound, animation, and video elements. When you allow an end user—
also known as the viewer of a multimedia project—to control what and when the elements are
delivered, it is called interactive multimedia. When you provide a structure of linked elements
through which the user can navigate, interactive multimedia becomes hypermedia.
The people who weave multimedia into meaningful tapestries are called multimedia developers.
The software vehicle, the messages, and the content presented on a computer, television screen,
PDA (personal digital assistant), or mobile phone together constitute a multimedia project. If
the project is to be shipped or sold to consumers or end users, typically delivered as a download
on the Internet but also on a CD-ROM or DVD in a box or sleeve, with or without instructions, it
GRAPHIC
Video
Animation
1. Text: Text and symbols are very important for communication in any medium. With the
recent explosion of the Internet and World Wide Web, text has become more the important
than ever. Web is HTML (Hypertext Markup language) originally designed to display simple
text documents on computer screens, with occasional graphic images thrown in as
illustrations.
Text Used in contents, menus, navigational buttons. ASCII/Unicode, HTML, Postscript, PDF are
an example of text file. Example of text file format:
.TXT
.DOCX and so on
Words and symbols in any form, spoken or written, are the most common system of
communication. They deliver the most widely understood meaning to the greatest number of
people. Most academic related text such as journals, e-magazines are available in the Web
Browser readable form.
2. Images: Images whether represented analog or digital plays a vital role in multimedia. It is
expressed in the form of still picture, painting or a photograph taken through a digital
camera.
Images are the important element of a multimedia project or a web site. In order to make a
multimedia presentation look elegant and complete, it is necessary to spend ample amount of time
to design the graphics and the layouts. Competent, computer literate skills in graphic art and design
are vital to the success of a multimedia project.
Common image file format
.png
.jpeg
.bmp
Activity 1.1:
What is file extension and discuss the different type of file extension?
Which multimedia element requires high storage space? What could we do to overcome storage
space problem?
Define big data
How to acquire, and produce text, image, audio, animation and video in multimedia projects?
1.3. Types of Multimedia and Multimedia System
Types of Multimedia
Media are divided into two types in respect to time in their representation space:
Prepare a business plan to create multimedia production company and design logo with help of
multimedia production tools.
Public domain means either that the work was never copyrighted in the first place or its
copyright protection has expired over time and not been renewed; you can use public domain
material without a license.
Warning! If you negotiate ownership or rights to someone else’s content, be sure to get the
advice of a skilled copyright and contracts attorney
Activity 1.5:
Why a multimedia production company and website development company require
intellectual property lower or attorney?
What is expected if individuals and company breaks the copyright law in Ethiopian
context?
Reading Materials
[1] TUFAIL A. SHAIKH, "USE OF MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY IN LIBRARIES," , 2011, pp. 1-9.
A project always begins with an idea or a need that you then refine by outlining its messages and
objectives. Identify how you will make each message and objective work within your authoring
system. Before you begin developing, plan out the writing skills, graphic art, music, video, and
other multimedia expertise that you will require. Develop a creative ―look and feel‖ (what a
user sees on a screen and how he or she interacts with it), as well as a structure and a
navigational system that will allow the viewer to visit the messages and content. Estimate the
time you’ll need to do all the elements, and then prepare a budget. Work up a short prototype
or proof-of-concept, a simple, working example to demonstrate whether or not your idea is
feasible. The ease with which you can create materials with today’s production and authoring
tools tempts new developers to immediately move into production—jumping in before planning.
This often results in false starts and wasted time and, in the long run, higher development cost.
The more time you spend getting a handle on your project by defining its content and structure in
the beginning, the faster you can later build it, and the less reworking and rearranging will be
required midstream. Think it through before you start! Your creative ideas and trials will grow
into screens and buttons (or the look and feel), and your proof-of-concept will help you test
whether your ideas will work. You may discover that by breaking the rules, you can invent
something terrific!
In planning and costing stage:
Determine the scope of a multimedia project
Determine the messages and objectives of the project
Target Audience identification based on age, gender, income range, language, nationality,
disability, and computer literacy
Schedule the phases, tasks, and work items required to complete a project
Estimate the cost, timeline, and tasks required to complete a project
Prepare a budget
Write and structure the elements of a multimedia project proposal
Develop a creative ―look and feel‖ (what a user sees on a screen and how he or she
interacts with it), as well as a structure and a navigational system that will allow the
viewer to visit the messages and content.
Perform each of the planned tasks to create a finished product. During this stage, there may be
many feedback cycles with a client until the client is happy. The best products are often the result
of continuing feedback and modifications implemented throughout the production process.
3. Testing:
Test your programs to make sure that they meet the objectives of your project, work properly on
the intended delivery platforms, and meet the needs of your client or end user. It is important to
test and review a project to ensure that: – the product is bug-free, accurate, and operationally and
visually on target.
Alpha and beta testing process
Alpha Testing:
Alpha testing usually conducted in-house and restricted to the development team. Alpha testing
is the first phase of project testing. The alpha testing group usually consists of colleagues’ friends
and those who are known to the organization.
An alpha release is the first working draft of a project and is only for internal circulation. Alpha
testing is usually done in-house by team members.
Beta Testing:
Beta testing is the final functional test before release to get feedback from as wide as variety of
potential users as possible. The beta testing group should be representative of real users and
should not include persons who have been involved in the project’s production. Beta testers must
have no preconceived ideas. Beta testing is done with a wider array of testers. Beta testers should
be representative of real users and who were not involved with the actual production.
After the "bugs" are fixed, the final version of the program is released to the general public. Once
the application is tested and revised, it enters the packaging stage. It could be burned into a CD-
ROM or published on the internet as a website.
Publishing to Gold
Terms that are used to indicate the version status of the project: –
Bronze: close to being finished
Release candidate: approach a gold master
Gold master: nothing is left to change or correct; ready for mass production
4. Delivering: Package and deliver the project to the end user.
If you completed multimedia project will be delivered to consumers or to a client who will install
the project on many computers you will need to prepare your files so they can be easily
transferred from your media to the user’s platform.
It is important to provide well-written documentation about the installation process so that users
have a clear step-by-step procedure to follow. The documentation must include a discussion of
potential problems and constraints related to the full range of your target platforms.
Delivering the project on an optical disc (e.g.: CD-ROM, DVD-ROM) is the most popular
method among multimedia developers. Multimedia can also be delivered on the Web by hosting
the pages on a web server.
Activity
Briefly discuss the need of documentation in multimedia.
Activity
What you need for good multimedia production?
Hint: For good multimedia production we need
intangibles such as creativity, organization and communication
Hardware
Software
Multimedia authoring tools
What You Need: The Intangibles
You need hardware, software, and good ideas to make multimedia. To make good multimedia,
you need talent and skill. You also need to stay organized, because as the construction work gets
under way, all the little bits and pieces of multimedia content. You will need time and money
(for consumable resources such as CD-R blanks and other memory or digital storage, for
telephoning and postage, and possibly for paying for special services and time, yours included),
and you will need to budget these precious commodities.
You may also need the help of other people. Multimedia development of any scale greater than
the most basic level is inherently a team effort: artwork is performed by graphic artists, video
shoots by video producers, sound editing by audio producers, and programming by
programmers.
Creativity
before beginning a multimedia project, you must first develop a sense of its scope and content.
The most precious asset you can bring to the multimedia workshop is your creativity. The
evolution of multimedia is evident when you look at some of the first multimedia projects done
on computers and compare them to today’s titles. Taking inspiration from earlier experiments,
developers modify and add their own creative touches for designing their own unique
multimedia projects. It is very difficult to learn creativity. Some people might say it’s
impossible—and that you have to be born with it. But, like traditional artists who work in paint,
marble, or bronze, the better you know your medium, the better able you are to express your
creativity. In the case of multimedia, this means you need to know your hardware and software
fist. Once you’re proficient with the hardware and software tools, you might ask yourself, ―What
can I build that will look great, sound great, and knock the socks of the viewer?‖
Each multimedia project you undertake will have its own underlying structure and purpose and
will require different features and functions. E-learning modules such as those seen on PDAs,
MP3 players, and intra-college networks may include web-based teaching materials, multimedia
CD-ROMs or web sites, discussion boards, collaborative software, wikis, simulations, games,
electric voting systems, blogs, computer-aided assessment, simulations, animation, blogs,
Card-based
In these authoring systems, elements are organized as pages of a book or a stack of cards. Card-
and page-based systems allow you to play audio, video and animations.
Time-based
Time based authoring tools are the most common of multimedia authoring tools. In these
authoring systems, elements are organized along a time line. Example: Animation Works
Interactive.
Time-based tools are authoring systems, wherein elements and events are organized along a
timeline with resolutions as high as or higher than 1/30 second. Time-based tools are best to use
when you have a message with a beginning and an end.
Time Based Authoring Programs use a movie metaphor. Like a movie on videotape, you start the
multimedia title and it until some action causes it to pause or stop. These programs also allow for
branching to different parts of the movie, and any amount of user control and interactivity may
be built in. Time Based Authoring Programs are good for creating animations.
Flash is a time-based development environment. Flash, however, is also particularly focused on
delivery of rich multimedia content to the Web. With the Flash Player plug-in installed in more
than 95 percent of the world’s browsers, Flash delivers far more than simple static HTML pages.
The user interface is the system which helps users communicates with the computer
system and/or the application system.
Types of User Interfaces
There are several types of user interfaces:
Natural-language interfaces, Question-and-answer interfaces
A menu interface
Attribute Description
Learnability How long does it take a new user to become productive with the system?
Speed of How well does the system response match the user’s work practice?
operation
Activity:
Differentiate between GUI and CLI.
Discuss the different types of user interface
Prepare a usability testing for one website using lieckert Scale. E.g. Mekelle University
Website
Discuss the main points in Ethiopian governmental website development guideline and
standard developed by Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT)
see in [2]
Reading Material
[1] Suzanne Martin. (https://www.cs.wpi.edu) Effective Visual Communication for Graphical
User Interfaces.
[2] "Web Site Standards and Guidelines," Ethiopian Information and Communication
Technology, Guideline 2007.
[3] TUFAIL A. SHAIKH, "USE OF MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY IN LIBRARIES," , 2011,
pp. 1-9.
[4] Tay Vaughan, Multimedia:Making It Work, 8th ed.: McGraw-Hill, 2011.
[5] Rajneesh Agrawal, MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS. New Delhi: EXCEL BOOKS PRIVATE
LIMITED, 2013.
[6] Ze-Nian Li and Mark S. Drew, Fundemetals of Multimedia.: Pearsoll Education, Inc., 2004.
[7] Ian Sommerville, "Software Engineering," in Software Engineering, 6th, Ed., 2000, ch. 15.