ELE-4410

Multimedia Systems & Networks

Unit-I: Part-1
Introduction and Basics of Multimedia
To be covered…..
• Introduction to Multimedia
• Characteristics of Multimedia Signals and Systems
• Multimedia System and Components
• Multimedia Display Devices
 What is Multimedia?
• Multimedia has become an inevitable part of any presentation.
• It has found a variety of applications right from entertainment to
education.
• The evolution of internet has also increased the demand for multimedia
content.
 Multi
What is Multimedia? Multimedia
• Multi: more than one; many; multiple Media
• Medium (singular): middle, intermediary, mean
• A substance regarded as means of transmission of a force or effect; a channel or system of
communication, information or entertainment. (ref: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
• An intervening substance through which something is transmitted or carried on (American
Heritage Electronic Dictionary)
• 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, CG – interaction media
• So Multimedia is medium having multiple content forms.
• Multimedia: refers to various information forms text, image, audio, video, graphics,
and animation in a variety of application environments.
 What is Multimedia?
• Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of information content and
information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video,
interactivity) to inform or entertain the user.
• Multimedia also refers to the use of electronic media to store and experience
multimedia content.
• Multimedia … :
• product, application, technology, platform, board, device, network
• computer, system, classroom, school, …
• Word “multimedia” is widely used to mean many different things;
• Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader
scope.
• The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia.
 Multimedia
• Systems operating on multiple modalities: text, audio, images,
drawings/graphics, animation, video etc.
• Some would like to restrict it to systems that simultaneously operate
on more than one modalities. Others are more forgiving.
• Audio/video vs video
• Synchronizing multiple modalities is important and hard
 Hypermedia and Multimedia
• A hypertext system: meant to be read
nonlinearly, by following links that point to
other parts of the document, or to other
documents.
• Hypermedia: not constrained to be text-based,
can include other media, e.g., graphics,
images, and especially the continuous media
— sound and video.
• The World Wide Web (WWW) — the best example
of a hypermedia application.
• Multimedia means that computer information
can be represented through audio, graphics,
images, video, and animation in addition to
traditional media.
Benefits of Multimedia
• Psychologist claim that humans get their information in the following
way:
• more than 80 % by sight - of which 20 % is remembered
• 11 % by hearing - of which 30 % is remembered
• 3.5 % by smell
• 1.5 % by touch and taste.
• ... where 50 % of what is both seen and heard is remembered
• ... further 80 % of what is seen, heard and done, is remembered
• That is, multiple, media, and interactive should be a good thing
 Multimedia in terms of Computing
• Computing: Computer-based technologies and applications
• In terms of computing, four fundamental multimedia attributes:
• Digitized: All media including audio/video are represented in digital format
• Distributed: The information conveyed is remote, either pre-produced and stored or produced in real-time,
distributed over networks
• Interactive: It is possible to affect the information received, and send own information, in a non-trivial way
beyond start, stop, fast forward
• Integrated: The media are treated in a uniform way, presented in an orchestrated way, but are possible to
manipulate independently

• Multimedia: Computer-based techniques of text, images, audio, video, graphics, animation, and any other medium
where every type of information can be represented, processed, stored, transmitted, produced and presented digitally.
• Enabling force behind multimedia is digital technology. Multimedia today represents the convergence of
digital control system and digital media being today’s most advanced forms of audio and video storage and
transmission.
• This course focus: Text, Image, Audio and Video
History of Multimedia
• Newspaper were perhaps the first mass communication medium to employ Multimedia
they used mostly text, graphics, and images.
• In 1895, Gugliemo Marconi sent his first wireless radio transmission at Pontecchio, Italy. A
few years later (in 1901) he detected radio waves beamed across the Atlantic. Initially
invented for telegraph, radio is now a major medium for audio broadcasting.
• Television was the new media for the 20th century. It brings the video and has since
changed the world of mass communications.
• Some of the important events in relation to Multimedia in Computing include:
• 1945 - Bush wrote about Memex
• 1967 - Negroponte formed the Architecture Machine Group at MIT
• 1969 - Nelson & Van Dam hypertext editor at Brown
• Birth of The Internet
• 1971 - Email
• 1976 - Architecture Machine Group proposal to DARPA: Multiple Media
• 1980 - Lippman & Mohl: Aspen Movie Map
History of Multimedia (Contd)
• 1983 - Backer: Electronic Book
• 1985 - Negroponte, Wiesner: opened MIT Media Lab
• 1989 - Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web to CERN (European Council for Nuclear
Research)
• 1990 - K. Hooper Woolsey, Apple Multimedia Lab, 100 people, educ.
• 1991 - Apple Multimedia Lab: Visual Almanac, Classroom MM Kiosk
• 1992 - the first M-bone audio multicast on the Net
• 1993 - U. Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications: NCSA Mosaic
• 1994 - Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen: Netscape
• 1995 - JAVA for platform-independent application development. Duke is the first applet.
• 1996 - Microsoft, Internet Explorer.
Classification of Multimedia
• Text - ASCII/Unicode, HTML, Postscript, PDF
• Audio – Sound, music, speech, structured audio (e.g. MIDI)
• Still Image - Facsimile, photo, scanned image
• Video (Moving Images) – Movie, a sequence of pictures
• Graphics – Computer produced image
• Animation – A sequence of graphics images

• Discrete Media (DM) or Static Media: text, image, graphics

• Continuous Media (CM) or Dynamic Media: audio, video, animation

• Captured vs Synthesized media

• Standalone vs Networked media
 System Implications of Multimedia
Multimedia imposes new requirements on all parts of the system architecture:

• Representation • Presentation
• digitization and coding (compressing) • user perception, user friendly in HCI (Human
Computer Interface)
• Storage
• database, larger volumes and new access • Protection
patterns • – media encryption, copyright, privacy
• Processing • Distribution
• OS, scheduling, indexing, searching • media delivery and broadcast
• Understanding • Communication
• speech/object recognition, content analysis
• media transmission over network/internet,
• Production session control
• more complex authoring and user interface
software
Why Multimedia is important?
• Digital audio/video is revolutionizing music, film, game, and
video & audio industries
• Convergence of computers, telecommunication, radio, and TV
• Caused by technology and competition
• Dramatic changes in products and infrastructure
• New application potential
• Huge potential markets
• Improving our lives (learning, entertainment, and work)
• Interesting technical issues
Driving forces for Multimedia revolution
• Evolution of communication and data networks: Increasing availability of bandwidth on demand in
the office, home, road.... Thanks to high-speed data modems, cable modems, hybrid fiber-coax
systems, xDSL, wireless.
• Ubiquitous access to network. Via local-area networks (LAN), wireline and wireless networks,
Internet, world wide web, service availability “anywhere, anytime”.
• Development in VLSI: Fast processor and large capacity storage devices, including 3-D hardware.
Moore’s law: computation and memory capacity of chips doubles every 18 months or so.
• New algorithms and data structures. Compression techniques, graphics, computer vision, speech
understanding...
• Smart terminals such as digital phones, screen phones, multimedia PC’s, web-TV, personal digital
assistants, etc., accessing and interacting the network with wired and wireless connections.
• Digitization of virtually any device : cameras, video capture and playback devices, handwriting
terminals, sound capture, etc., together with plug-and-play standards; and the digitization of
text/audio/video documents and libraries that allows better communications, storage, and fast
access and browsing.
Technological aspects of Multimedia
• Techniques for compressing and coding the various media: models,
algorithms, forms, standards, etc.
• Communications aspects: downloading and streaming techniques,
synchronization, layering of signals, issues involved in the definition of QoS
(quality of service.)
• Techniques for accessing multimedia signals by providing tools that match
user to the machine: “natural” spoken language queries, media conversion
tools and multimodal user interface (speech recognition, lip reading, face
tracking, OCR,..), agents that monitor the multimedia sessions and provide
assistance in all phases of access and utilization.
• Techniques for organizing, storing and retrieving multimedia, for
searching and browsing individual multimedia documents and libraries.
Characteristics of a Multimedia Systems
• A Multimedia System is a system capable of processing multimedia data
and applications.
• A Multimedia System is characterized by the processing, storage,
generation, manipulation and rendition of Multimedia information.
• A Multimedia system has four basic characteristics:
• Multimedia systems must be computer controlled.
• Multimedia systems are integrated.
• The information they handle must be represented digitally.
• The interface to the final presentation of media is usually interactive.
Challenges for a Multimedia Systems
• Multimedia systems may have to render a variety of media at the same instant — a distinction
from normal applications. There is a temporal relationship between many forms of media
(e.g. Video and Audio).
• There are two major challenges:
• Sequencing within the media—playing frames in correct order/time frame in video
• Synchronization — inter-media scheduling (e.g. Video and Audio). Lip synchronization is clearly important for
humans to watch playback of video and audio and even animation and audio. Ever tried watching an out of (lip) sync
film for a long time?
• The key issues multimedia systems need to deal with here are:
• How to represent and store temporal information?
• How to strictly maintain the temporal relationships on play back/retrieval?
• What process are involved in the above?
• Data has to represented digitally so many initial source of data needs to be digitize —
translated from analog source to digital representation. The 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 easily for audio and video — therefore storage, transfer
(bandwidth) and processing overheads are high. Data compression techniques very common.
Issues in Multimedia
• Large size of multimedia objects
• Speech: 8000 samples/s – 8 Kbytes/s
• CD audio: 44,100 samples/sec, 2 bytes/sample,
• stereo audio – 176 Kbytes/s
• NTSC video: 30 frames/s, 640x480 pixels, 3 bytes/pixel – 30 Mbytes/s (too big, 2-8 Mbits/s if compressed)
• More storage required
• More main memory, 10-30 GB secondary storage, TB’s of tertiary storage
• Real-time performance requirements
• Higher data rates
• Fast I/O subsystem (SCSI, fiber channel, HIPPI)
e.g., Ultra SCSI2 – 80 Mbytes/s
• High speed backplane (PCI or faster)
• Faster network (1-25Mbs per video stream)
• 1-4 Gbits/s network
• Hardware CODEC, modified CPU, and modified frame buffer/graphics subsystem
• Essentially, new hardware and software
• Further, audio/image/video “content” processing
Data Compression
• What is Compression?
• Reduction of the amount of data required to represent a digital signal  removal
of redundant data.
• Transforming a 2-D pixel array into a statistically uncorrelated data set
• Why Compression?
• Important in data storage and data transmission
• Why Need Compression?
• Savings in storage and transmission bandwidth
• multimedia data (esp. image and video) have large data volume.
• difficult to send real-time uncompressed video over current network.
• Accommodate relatively slow storage devices
• they do not allow playing back uncompressed multimedia data in real time
• 1x CD-ROM transfer rate ~ 150 kB/s
• 320 x 240 x 24 fps color video bit rate ~ 5.5MB/s
=> 36 seconds needed to transfer 1-sec uncompressed video from CD
 Example: Storing An Encyclopedia
• 500,000 pages of text (2kB/page) ~ 1GB => 2:1 compress
• 3,000 color pictures (64048024bits) ~ 3GB => 15:1
• 500 maps (64048016bits=0.6MB/map) ~ 0.3GB => 10:1
• 60 minutes of stereo sound (176kB/s) ~ 0.6GB => 6:1
• 30 animations with average 2 minutes long
(64032016bits16frames/s=6.5MB/s) ~ 23.4GB => 50:1
• 50 digitized movies with average 1 minute long
(64048024bits30frames/s = 27.6MB/s) ~ 82.8GB => 50:1
• Require a total of 111.1GB storage capacity if without compression
➔ Reduce to 2.96GB if with compression
 Desirable Features 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.
• 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.
Example Multimedia Applications
• Video teleconferencing, distributed lectures, telemedicine, tele symphony
• White board, collaborative document editing
• Augmented reality
• DVDs, digital movies, VOIP telephony (Vonage, Skype) …
• Networked games
• Video on demand (from cable TV, satellite etc.), IPTV (AT&T U-verse)
• Can you think of more applications?

• [Link], founded in Feb 2005

• Every minute, 10 hours of video is uploaded
Characteristics of Multimedia
• Depends on the usage model. Streaming movies different than
downloading movies
• Watching videos in Blu-ray different than IPTV
• Objects are large
• High timing constraints – inter and intra media
• TV frames refreshed every 30 frames. Audio synched with video with tight
tolerances
• MMORG games – if you shoot your opponent first, the opponent should die
• Media for human consumption can exploit aspects of human
cognition to achieve good performance (vs media for processing –
face recognition)
• We can see changes in brightness better than changes in color
 Components of a Multimedia System
• Components (Hardware and Software) required
for a multimedia system:
• Capture devices
-- Video Camera, Video Recorder, Audio Microphone,
Keyboards, mice, graphics tablets, 3D input devices, tactile
sensors, VR devices. Digitizing/Sampling Hardware
• Storage Devices
-- Hard disks, CD-ROMs, Jaz/Zip drives, DVD, etc
• Communication Networks
-- Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, Intranets, Internets.
• Computer Systems
-- Multimedia Desktop machines, Workstations,
MPEG/VIDEO/DSP Hardware
• Display Devices
-- CD-quality speakers, HDTV,SVGA, Hi-Res monitors, Colour
printers etc.
 Elements of Multimedia Communication System: Transmitter

Acquisition & Storage Compression Synchronization Integration

Text Text Text Text

Image Image Image
Image
Multimedia
Acquisition Graphics Compressi Graphics Graphics Integr Stream
Graphics &
Synchroniz
on ation ation To Channel
Storage (wired/wir
Audio Audio Audio eless)
Audio
Video/ Video/ Video/
Video / Animation Animation Animation
Animation
Clock
Reference
 Elements of Multimedia Communication System: Receiver

Media Extractor Decompression Synchronization

Text Text Text Printer/

Display
Image Image Image
Display
Graphics Graphics Graphics Devices
Multimedia Media Decompres Synchroniz
Stream Extractor sion ation
Audio Audio Audio Speaker

Video Video Video

Display
Animation Animation Devices
Animation
Reference
Clock
Challenges in Multimedia Communication
The challenges involved with multimedia communication
are:
• Bandwidth limitations of communication channels.
• Real-time processing requirements.
• Inter-media synchronization.
• Intra-media continuity.
• End-to-end delays and delay jitters.
• Multimedia indexing and retrieval.
Display Devices
Introduction
• Display devices are used for the visual presentation of information.
• A display device is a device for visual or tactile presentation of images (including text)/video
acquired, stored, or transmitted in various forms. Ex : Computer monitor, TV screen.
• It may be classified as analog vs. Digital displays; tube vs. flat panel display etc.
1. Analog display devices (cathode-ray tubes)
• Oscilloscope tubes
• TV CRTs
2. Digital display devices (Flat panels)
• LED (including OLED) displays
• LCD (liquid crystal) displays
• Thin Film Transistor-LCD (TFT-LCD)
• PDPs (Plasma display panels)
3. Others
• Electronic paper (e-paper)
• Using principles of nanoelectronics (carbon nanotubes, nanocrystals)
Objectives: overview structures, principles of operation and general properties
of display devices.
Display Devices
• Electronic display devices based on various principles were developed.
• Active display devices are based on luminescence.
• Luminescence is the general term used to describe the emission of
electromagnetic radiation from a substance due to a non-thermal process.
Luminescence occurs from a solid when it is supplied with some form of energy.
• Photoluminescence arises as a result of absorption of photons. In the case of
cathodoluminescence material is excited by bombardment with a beam of electrons.
• Electroluminescence is a result of excitation from the application of an electric field.
• Fluorescence persists for a short lifetime of the transition between the two
energy levels.
• Phosphorescence persists for much longer time (more than 10-8 s).
• Passive display devices reflect or modulate light…
Attributes of a good display device
• Pixel Resolution
• No. of pixels per unit video display.
• Ex: Video Graphics Array (VGA)
• 720 pixels across by 400 pixels down in text mode
• 640 pixels across by 480 pixels down in graphics mode.

• Display size
• Measured as distance from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner.
• Usually measured in INCHES.

• Viewing angle
• It is angle from which the screen can be seen from side.
• It is larger for CRT as compared to LCD
• Response time
• The minimum time necessary to change a pixel's color or brightness.
• Persistence
• How long a phosphor continue to emit light.
• Lower persistence phosphors require higher refresh rate to maintain a picture on the screen without flicker.
• Aspect ratio
• This number gives the ratio of vertical points to horizontal points to produce equal-length lines in both directions on the screen.
• Brightness
• The amount of light emitted from the display (more specifically known as luminance).
CRT Display
• A CRT is a glass tube that is narrow at one end and opens to a flat
screen at the other end.
• CRT Structure:
• Narrow end of CRT contains
• a single electron gun for single-color monitor
• Three electron guns for a color monitor—one each
for three primary colors: red, green, and blue.
• The display screen is covered with tiny
phosphor dots.
CRT Working Principle
• CRT display works using :
• Electron emission
Electrons are emitted from
the Cathode tube.

• Phosphorescence
It is the emission of visible
light, when electron beam
strikes Phosphor material.
 Components of CRT
E GUN Produces constant stream of electrons.

Control Grid Sets intensity of spot on screen (the more negative the control
grid voltage the fewer electrons pass through).
Focusing
System Forces e-beam into narrow stream (otherwise repel).

Deflection
Coils Indicates target phosphor spot.

High
positive 15,000 - 20,000 V accelerates e-beam to screen.
V coating
CRT Display: Advantages and Disadvantages
• Advantages:
• Offers greater resolution .
• Widest viewing angle when compared to any other technology.
• It is cheap as compared to LCD,PLASMA displays.

• Disadvantages:
• Thickness is much larger as compared to LCD, PLASMA display.
• Cannot be used for smaller displays like watches, calculators, portable
devices.
• View area is less than the offered monitor size.
• It is more fragile and bulky.
Flat Panel Displays
• Flat-Panel Display refers to a class of display devices that have
reduced volume, weight and power requirements compared to CRT.
• There are two categories of flat panel displays:
• Emissive Displays
• Non-Emissive Displays
• Emissive Displays (or emitters) are devices that convert electrical
energy into light. Plasma Panel (PDP) and light emitting diodes (LED)
are examples of emissive displays.
• Non-emissive displays ( or non-emitters) use optical effects to convert
sunlight or light from some other source into graphics pattern e.g
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
• A liquid crystal display is a thin, flat display device made up of any number of pixels
arrayed in front of a light source or reflector.
• It uses very small amounts of electric power, and is suitable for use in battery-powered
electronic devices.
• Colour displays are possible by incorporating colour filters.
• The heart of all liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is a liquid crystal itself. A liquid crystal is a
substance that flows like a liquid, but its molecules orient themselves in the manner of a
crystal.
• That is, it is an organic compounds, whose macroscopic behavior resemble that of liquid
but shows physical properties of crystals.
• A plane has nematic-like structure, but with each plane molecules change their direction.
As a result the molecules display a helical twist through the material.
• They have characteristics like: rod-like molecular structure, or easily polarizable
constituents.
LCD Construction
• Each pixel of an LCD consists of a layer of molecules aligned between
two transparent electrodes, and two polarizing filters, whose axes are
perpendicular.
• Orientation of the liquid crystal molecules is determined by the
alignment at the surfaces.
• Six Layers:

Viewing
Direction

Crystal Layer
Grid Wires
Horizontal

Horizontal

Polarizer
Grid Wires
Polarizer
Reflective

Vertical
Vertical
Liquid
Layer
Source: [Link]
Basic Principle
• Most of the LCDs use twisted nematic cells.
• When a nematic liquid crystal material comes into contact with a solid surface
molecules become aligned either perpendicular to the surface (homeotropic
ordering) or parallel to the surface (homogeneous ordering).
• These two forms can be produced by suitable treatment of the surface.
• The most important electrical characteristic of liquid crystal materials is that the
direction of the molecules can be controlled by the electric field. Usually the
molecules tend to be orientated along the electric field.
Basic Principle (2)
• When a beam of polarised light is incident on the cell the liquid
causes rotation of polarisation plane.
• A strong enough electric field changes orientation of molecules and in
this state the molecules have no effect on an incident light beam.
Characteristics

ON State

Solid Liquid Crystal Liquid

Off State
Working Principle of LCD
• Before applying Electric field, the molecules arrange themselves in a
helical structure, or twist.
• When a voltage is applied across the electrodes, a torque acts to align
the liquid crystal molecules parallel to the electric field, distorting the
helical structure .
• This reduces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light.
Classification of LCD:
• Transmissive displays:
• Transmission LCD displays do not have the reflector and must be provided with rear illumination.
They operate in a very similar fashion to the reflective displays.
• It is illuminated from the back by a backlight and viewed from the opposite side (front). Ex:
Computer display.
• Reflective displays:
• It is illuminated by external light reflected by diffusing reflector behind the display. Ex: Calculator.
Applications, Advantages & Limitations of LCD
Applications:
• LCDs with a small number of segments, are used in digital watches and pocket
calculators, Small monochrome displays in personal organizers, or older laptop screens
• High-resolution color displays such as modern LCD computer monitors and televisions;

Advantages:
• An LCD cell consumes only microwatts of power over a thousand times less than LED
displays.
• LCDs can operate on voltages as low as 2 to 3 V and are easily driven by MOS IC drivers.

Limitations:
• They cannot be seen in the dark,
• They have a limited viewing angle;
• They can be operated in limited temperature range.
 Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Technology
• Normal LCDs like those found in calculators have direct driven image elements – a voltage can be
applied across one segment without interfering with other segments of the display.
• This is impractical for a large display with a large number of picture elements (pixels), since it
would require millions of connections - top and bottom connections for each one of the three
colors (red, green and blue) of every pixel.
• To avoid this issue, the pixels are addressed in rows and columns which reduce the connection
count from millions to thousands.
• The solution to the problem is to supply each pixel with its own transistor switch which allows
each pixel to be individually controlled.
• A thin film transistor (TFT) is a special kind of field effect transistor made by depositing thin films
for the metallic contacts, semiconductor active layer, and dielectric layer.
• TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) is a variant of liquid crystal display (LCD)
which uses thin film transistor (TFT) technology to improve image quality.
• TFT LCD is one type of active matrix LCD. It is usually synonymous with LCD.
• It is used in both flat panel displays and projectors.
TFT-LCD
Construction of TFT Displays
• Material:
• TFTs are Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MISFET), which are used
more often as bottom-gate.
• Indium tin oxide (ITO) is usually employed for the electrodes.
• Most TFTs are not transparent themselves, since many of them are based on
hydrogenated amorphous silicon (A-Si:H) (A-Si, used as Gate-dielectric) have Low mask
count; Small number of mask alignments and requires less processing steps).
• The bandgap of A-Si is assumed to be less than that of crystalline silicon (1.12eV).
• Construction:
• A transistor switch which allows each pixel be individually controlled.
• Each pixel is a small capacitor with a transparent ITO [indium tin oxide ] layer at the front,
a transparent layer at the back, and a layer of insulating liquid crystal between (refer to
figure in previous slide).
• All the pixels in one row are driven with a positive voltage and all the pixels in one column
are driven with a negative voltage.
Advantages and Disadvantages of TFT
• Advantages:
• Fast response time has been a great feature of TN (twisted
nematics) displays.
• Lower cost of production
• Less noise or glitter seen on the panel surface

• Disadvantages:
• The TFT display suffers from limited viewing angles, especially in
the vertical direction.
• They are unable to display the full 16.7 million colors (24-bit true
color) available from modern graphics cards.
Plasma Display
• A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display, suitable
and now commonly used for large TV displays (typically above 37-inch
or 940 mm.
• Construction:
• The xenon and neon gas in a plasma television is contained in hundreds of
thousands of tiny cells positioned between two plates of glass.
• Long electrodes are also sandwiched between the glass plates, in front of and
behind the cells.
• Cell are covered with a magnesium oxide protective layer.
Working of PDP
• Control circuitry charges the electrodes that cross paths at cell,
• This creates a voltage difference between front and back and causing the gas to ionize
and form a plasma.
• As the gas ions rush to the electrodes and collide, photons are emitted.
• In color panels, the back of each cell is coated with a phosphor. The ultraviolet photons
emitted by the plasma excite these phosphors to give off colored light.

• The display panel is only about 6 cm (2½ inches) thick, and total thickness less than 10
cm.
• They can be produce fairly large sizes, up to 262 cm (103 inches) diagonally.
• Bright scenes (say a football game) will draw significantly more power than darker
scenes.
• Limited life time: Their lifetime is estimated at 60,000 hours
Advantages and Disadvantages
• Advantages:
• Supports large displays ,up to 103 inches diagonally.
• Overall thickness of monitor is less than 10 cm. and can be installed on a wall.
• Faster response time, Greater color spectrum, Wider viewing angle

• Disadvantages:
• They are costly as compared to CRT,LCD displays.
• Burn-in problem:
• Static images can leave a permanent mark on screen. That is why they are
not used in computer monitors and video game displays.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) Display
• A light-emitting diode
(LED) is a two-lead
semiconductor light
source.
• It is a pn- junction diode,
which emits light when
activated.
• When a suitable voltage is
applied to the leads,
electrons are able to
recombine with electron
holes within the device,
releasing energy in the
form of photons.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) Display
• A LED display is a flat panel display that uses an array of light-emitting
diodes as pixels for a video display.
• Their brightness allows them to be used outdoors where they are visible in the sun
for store signs and billboards.
• In recent years, they have also become commonly used in destination signs on public
transport vehicles, as well as variable-message signs on highways.
• LED displays are capable of providing general illumination in addition to visual display,
as when used for stage lighting or other decorative (as opposed to informational)
purposes.
• LED displays can offer higher contrast ratios than a projector and are thus an
alternative to traditional projection screens.
• They can be used for large, uninterrupted (without a visible grid arising from the
bezels of individual displays) video walls.
• Micro LED displays are LED displays with smaller LEDs, which poses significant
development challenges.
LED Displays
Advantages and limitations of LED Displays
Advantages:
• Slim Design
• Brighter and sharper Images
• Better Color
• Flicker-Free Images
• Better Picture Quality (true black picture)
• No motion delay and lags
• Longer lifespan and less environmental impact
• Lower Power Consumption
• Wider Viewing angle(typically 175 degree)
Disadvantages:
• LEDs are more expensive than conventional lighting technologies
• LEDs can shift color due to age and temperature
• LED is a lot thinner than the LCD or Plasma.
 Variants of LEDs
• Organic LED (OLED)
• An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic
LED), is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which
the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic
compound that emits light in response to an electric
current.
• This organic layer is situated between two electrodes;
typically, at least one of these electrodes is transparent.
• OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices
such as television screens, computer monitors, and
portable systems such as smartphones and handheld
game consoles.
• Quantum Dot LED (QDLED)
• Polymer LED (PLED)