Multimedia Systems | Unit 2: Text, Audio, Image, Video LONG ANSWER Q
Unit 2: Text, Audio, Image and Video
Long Answer Questions (5–10 Marks) with Answers
Q1. Explain the different types of text and important aspects of text design in multimedia.
Types of text: (1) Unformatted/plain text — fixed font/size character sequences, e.g., ASCII text files,
simplest to store and process. (2) Formatted text — supports variable fonts, sizes, colors and styles
(bold, italic, underline), typically created with word processors; carries layout information along with
content. (3) Hypertext — text enriched with links (anchors) to other documents or sections, enabling
non-linear reading; forms the foundation of the World Wide Web via HTML.
Aspects of text design: Good text design considers typeface selection (serif for print body text,
sans-serif for screens/headings), appropriate font size and style for hierarchy (headings vs body), line and
letter spacing for readability, alignment/justification, sufficient color contrast against the background for
accessibility, use of white space/margins to avoid clutter, and consistency of style throughout a document
or presentation so it looks professional and is easy to scan and read.
Q2. What are character sets and character codes? Explain ASCII, Extended ASCII, and Unicode.
A character set is a defined collection of characters (letters, digits, symbols) recognized by a computer
system. A character code assigns each character in the set a unique numeric value, enabling digital
storage and processing of text.
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a 7-bit code providing 128 unique values,
covering uppercase/lowercase English letters, digits 0–9, punctuation and control characters. It became
the foundation for text representation in early computing.
Extended ASCII uses the full 8 bits (256 values), adding the extra 128 codes for accented letters,
line-drawing characters, and other symbols — though different vendors defined different extended sets,
causing incompatibility.
Unicode was developed to solve this incompatibility by assigning a unique code point to every character
in virtually every writing system in the world (Latin, Devanagari, Chinese, Arabic, emoji, etc.), supporting
over a million code points. It is implemented through encoding forms such as UTF-8 (variable-length,
backward compatible with ASCII, most common on the web), UTF-16, and UTF-32, making it the standard
for modern multilingual text processing.
Q3. Describe the process of digitizing sound. Explain sampling rate, sampling size, and
quantization with an example.
Digitizing sound converts a continuous analog audio signal into discrete digital form using an
Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), through two key steps:
Sampling: the amplitude of the analog waveform is measured at regular time intervals. The number of
measurements taken per second is the sampling rate (measured in Hz). By the Nyquist theorem, the
sampling rate must be at least twice the highest frequency component present in the signal to avoid
aliasing (distortion). For example, since human hearing extends to about 20 kHz, CD-quality audio uses a
sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.
Quantization: each sampled amplitude value (which is continuous) is rounded to the nearest of a finite
number of discrete levels. The number of bits used to represent each sample is the sampling size or bit
depth — e.g., 8-bit gives 256 levels, 16-bit gives 65,536 levels. Higher bit depth reduces quantization error
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Multimedia Systems | Unit 2: Text, Audio, Image, Video LONG ANSWER Q
(noise) and increases dynamic range.
Example: CD audio uses 44.1 kHz sampling rate, 16-bit depth, and 2 channels (stereo). Its
uncompressed bit rate = 44,100 × 16 × 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second (~1.4 Mbps), illustrating why
compressed formats like MP3 are preferred for storage/streaming.
Q4. What is MIDI? How does it differ from digital audio formats like WAV/MP3? Discuss its
applications.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard communication protocol that allows electronic
musical instruments, synthesizers, and computers to exchange performance data. Rather than storing
actual sound waveforms, a MIDI file contains a sequence of event messages — note-on, note-off, pitch,
velocity (how hard a note is struck), instrument/patch selection, and timing information.
Difference from digital audio (WAV/MP3): WAV and MP3 store actual sampled sound waveforms (raw
or compressed audio data), so their playback sounds the same everywhere. MIDI stores only instructions;
the actual sound is generated at playback time by a synthesizer or sound bank, so the same MIDI file can
sound different on different playback devices. Because it stores instructions rather than waveforms, MIDI
files are extremely small (often kilobytes vs. megabytes for digital audio) and are easily editable — tempo,
pitch, or instrument can be changed without re-recording.
Applications: music composition and sequencing software, electronic keyboards/synthesizers, computer
game background scores (historically), and karaoke systems.
Q5. Compare popular image formats (BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF) and discuss common image
color schemes.
Image formats: BMP is an uncompressed (or minimally compressed) raster format producing large files
but exact pixel fidelity. JPEG uses lossy DCT-based compression, ideal for photographs with smooth color
gradients, achieving high compression ratios with some quality loss. GIF uses lossless LZW compression
but is limited to a 256-color palette, and supports simple frame-based animation and transparency —
suited to simple graphics/icons, not photographs. PNG offers lossless compression with full alpha-channel
transparency and no licensing restrictions, making it popular for web graphics needing exact reproduction.
TIFF is a flexible, often lossless format supporting multiple layers/pages, widely used in scanning,
publishing and archival applications.
Image color schemes: RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is an additive model used for self-luminous displays.
CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) is a subtractive model used in color printing. HSV/HSB (Hue,
Saturation, Value) models color more intuitively for human perception and is commonly used in
image-editing color pickers. Grayscale represents only brightness with no color information, and
bitmap/binary images use just 1 bit per pixel (black or white).
Q6. Explain analog and digital video. Discuss JPEG, MPEG and H.261 standards used in video
coding.
Analog video represents a moving scene as a continuously varying electrical signal, transmitted as a
series of horizontal scan lines per frame (as in traditional NTSC/PAL television broadcast). It cannot be
copied or transmitted without gradual quality degradation.
Digital video represents video as a sequence of digitally sampled frames, each a bitmap of pixels with
defined resolution, frame rate, and color depth. Because it is just digital data, it can be compressed,
edited, copied and transmitted without additional quality loss (beyond the initial compression).
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Multimedia Systems | Unit 2: Text, Audio, Image, Video LONG ANSWER Q
JPEG: though a still-image compression standard, its DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform)-based
block-compression technique forms the basis of intra-frame (I-frame) coding used inside many video
codecs.
MPEG family: MPEG-1 targeted VCD-quality video/audio at roughly 1.5 Mbps; MPEG-2 improved quality
for DVD and digital television broadcast; MPEG-4 (including H.264/AVC) provides much higher
compression efficiency for streaming, mobile and HD video, using motion-compensated inter-frame
prediction along with intra-frame DCT coding.
H.261: an early ITU-T video coding standard designed specifically for videoconferencing over ISDN lines
at multiples of 64 kbps ("p × 64"), using block-based motion compensation combined with DCT — it was a
precursor to later H.26x standards and MPEG.
Q7. What is computer-based animation? Explain different animation techniques used in
multimedia.
Computer-based animation is the process of creating the illusion of movement by rapidly displaying a
sequence of slightly different still images (frames), exploiting the persistence of human vision. Common
techniques include:
• Frame-by-frame (cel) animation: each frame is drawn or rendered individually, offering complete
control but requiring significant effort — traditional cartoon animation technique.
• Keyframe animation with tweening/interpolation: the animator specifies key poses (keyframes) at
important moments; the software automatically computes the in-between frames, greatly reducing manual
effort.
• 2D vector animation: objects are defined mathematically (paths, shapes) and animated by transforming
their properties over time (position, scale, rotation) — used in web/vector animation tools.
• 3D animation: objects are modeled in 3D space with materials and lighting; motion is applied to a 3D
rig/skeleton, and frames are rendered from a virtual camera — used in films, games, and simulations.
• Motion capture (MoCap): sensors record the real movement of an actor, which is then mapped onto a
digital character model for highly realistic animation, commonly used in modern films and video games.
Together, these techniques allow multimedia developers to add dynamic visual content ranging from
simple button animations to full cinematic sequences.
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