Introduction to multimedia

The word multimedia comes from the latin words “Multus” which means middle or centre. Multimedia
therefore means “multiple intermediaries” or “multiple means”. Multimedia can be defined as transmission
media using more than one type of transmission to deliver a message.
Multimedia is said to be the development, integration, and delivery of any combination of text, graphics,
animation, sound or video through a computer.
The key term in this definition is “computer”. The digital computer displaced traditional techniques for
creating and editing all forms of media. Word-processing displaced the typewriter, the CD transformed sound
and music production, and digital cameras and editing software are replacing film.
The reason for this transformation is simple; computers can now create media that rival the quality of
traditional products and they can do so more efficiently and more economically. Most media professionals
are building their careers with digital technology.
Multimedia is the use of a computer to present and combine text, graphics, audio, and video with links and
tools that let the user navigate, interact, create, and communicate. This definition contains four components
essential to multimedia. First, there must be a computer to coordinate what you see and hear, and interact
with you. Second, there must be links that connect the information. Third, there must be navigational tools
that let you traverse the web of connected information. Finally, because multimedia is not a spectator sport,
there must be ways for you to gather, process, and communicate your own information and ideas.
If one of these components is missing, you do not have multimedia. For example, if you have no computer to
provide interactivity, you have mixed media, not multimedia. If there are no links to provide a sense of
structure and dimension, you have a bookshelf, not multimedia. If there are no navigational tools to let you
decide the course of action, you have a movie, not multimedia. If you cannot create and contribute your own
ideas, you have a television, not multimedia.

ELEMENTS OF MULTIMEDIA
1. Text: Text is one major element or nature of multimedia. Text refers to letters (a,b,c,d,etc.) letters are
used to form words and words in return are used to form sentences that convey information in hand or
type written form. In multimedia, letters can be manipulated to achieve varying effects. It can also be
used to emphasize, clarify or beautify news or information presentation by:
Varying the type face
Using a particular or combination of type sizes
Using different colors
Achieve different effects like making the text to bounce, shadow, fade, depending on the desired
effects.
2. Graphics: Multimedia also allows for the use of graphics in multimedia presentation. In this case,
graphics like charts, photographs and drawing are used to digitally present news and information in a
manner that enhances comprehension and appreciation of the news and information presented.
Graphics representation often helps to reduce the number of text used in a message because it often
allows for instanenous and vivid relay of information more than text. In essence, graphics also tell
stories on their own with or without textual elements.
3. AUDIO: The audio aspect of multimedia environment refers to the use of sound and speeches in
communication, communication that appeal to sense of hearing. It could be music, spoken words and
other tracks. According to “Adum and Ekwugha (2011;p3)” audio for multimedia could be obtained
by capturing the sound using a microphone, CD-Rom, radio, musical device or any other audio input
device that is plugged into a port on a sound card. In multimedia environment, sound could be used to

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 achieve a number of effects to include:
 Audio effects like applause, shouting, clapping, singing, etc.
 Ambient or background sound like the roaring of sea, closing and opening of door, dashing
object on the floor, groaning, screeching of car tire, etc.
 Music which is rhythmic organized sound embellished with words arranged with song.
4. VIDEO: Video in this context is “photographic images that are played back at speed of 15-30 frames
per second and provide the appearance of full motion. It differs from graphics in that here, real
photographs of the objects are taking while in motion. The photographs which are captured while in
motion are first digitalized if taken by analogue device. But where camera was used in capturing the
scene (or image) they do not need further digitalization that follows where after. Next is editing the
captured images. Editing is facilitated by the use of special video production devices (hardware and
software). These devices allow for screen blending of different multimedia contents in a single
presentation. In other words, it allows for the incorporation of text, sound and image in a harmonious
manner that provides eye and ear comfort during news production.

MULTIMEDIA AND ADVERTISING

Advertising is a professional practice that involves the production of advertisement that is commercial
message. Most advertisements are usually packaged with combination of textual and graphic contents. By
implication, a piece of advertisement meant for broadcast medium requires speech, sound and
demonstration and these are at the root of multimedia communications. Multimedia therefore helps to
facilitate the work of advertising professionals particularly those in creative department of advertising
agencies.
Multimedia therefore helps to combine spoken and written words; graphics and any form of
demonstration (no matter how dangerous) into a single simulated advertisement that can appeal to the
audience member’s sense of reality. Multimedia technology has enhanced advertising practice by
enabling the stimulation of demonstration that are impossible in real life most possible.
IMPORTANCE OF MULTIMEDIA IN ADVERTISING
1. For the graphics of print media adverts. Attractive graphics keep the content interesting which keeps
your customers engaged. 22% of people visited the advertiser’s website after having seen the graphic.
2. Creating animations and engineering sounds of the ads to give it an appropriate aesthetically
appealing look and feel.
3. Editing for television commercials using tools like Apple cut pro and Adobe Photoshop.
4. Creating 3D animations using software tools like 3DS Max.

MULTIMEDIA AND ENTERAINMENT

One of the boring aspects of the global economy in modern time is entertainment. Citizens of the world
are fast realizing the importance of getting entertained, escape from the ordinary and avoid much stress.
The entertainment industries are not oblivious of this development. In Nigeria for instance, today, the
industry is booming to the extent different genre of entertainment are booming. Multimedia has helped
and is still helping to add glamour to entertainment production. With multimedia, the entertainers can
now achieve different kinds of effects including making object appear larger, fly or give impression of a
ghost depending on the kind of effect desired.

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 MULTIMEDIA AND EDUCATION
Students learning is greatly enhanced when each student’s prior knowledge is made visible (that is cued
from long term memory into working memory). Through multimedia communications, students tend to
deepen their knowledge of a subject. The communication therefore offers a window of opportunity to
organize relevant facts, theories and applications that ended a topic or course in a graphic presentation
that enhance learning.
Education is therefore made easy by organizing ideas into a graphic framework. Students learn from
words and pictures than from words alone. Many computer games focused on education are now
available. Consider an example of an educational game that plays various rhymes for kids; the child can
point the pictures of various objects.

MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM
The need for news and information cannot be over emphasized. From the history of journalism to modern
times, information gathering and dissemination have continued to evolve to the extent we can talk of
interactive communication. It is this interactivity which is lacking in traditional journalism practice that
has given multimedia journalism significant edge over the former.
Dauze (2003) defines multimedia journalism as presentation of news story package on a website using
two or more media format such as written words, music, moving and still-images, graphics, including
interactive and hyper textual elements. Multimedia journalism emerged as a variety of phenomena that
are related to the three dimensions of production, presentation and consumption of news and long-form
stories that include multiple media platforms of media formats. Concerning the presentation, articles
cannot be equipped with photos anymore, but also with videos, interactive graphics, photo slide shows,
audio commentaries, and many more interactive features.
The online medium provides journalists with a vast range of options to gather information in an
interesting and entertaining way. The internet provides opportunity for instant publishing, archiving,
linking, use of audio and video with greater interactivity and also provides instantaneous feedback. All
these features give online journalism an upper hand over other media. These key features of online news
medium have a great impact on conventional media eg newspaper, radio, and television. Online medium
is not only posing a challenge to the conventional media but it is also forcing them to adopt changes in
their newsroom operations and news delivery platforms.
The impact of multimedia journalism has been so huge that even reporter’s of conventional media have
begun to use online tools for reporting. Journalists take news lead from social media pages and uncover
the story. For this purpose, they keep following various personality profiles on the social networking and
micro-blogging sites. Some blogs carry people’s comments on an issue which is popular in mainstream
media but some are really important from the reporting point of view. Journalists keep following their
blogs in order to get lead from there. There are also examples when journalists are referring to blogs for
news coverage.

Brief History of Multimedia

A brief history of the use of multimedia to communicate ideas might begin with newspapers, which were
perhaps the first mass communication medium, using text, graphics, and images.
Motion pictures were originally conceived of in the 1830s to observe motion too rapid for perception by the
human eye. Thomas Alva Edison 'commissioned the invention of a motion picture camera in 1887. Silent
feature films appeared from 1910 to 1927; the silent era effectively ended with the release of The Jazz Singer
in 1927.
In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent his first wireless radio transmission at Pontecchio, Italy. A few years later

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(1901), he detected radio waves beamed across the Atlantic. Initially invented for telegraph, radio is now a
major medium for audio broadcasting. In 1909, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize for physics.
The term multimedia ranks among the most essential offerings of information and communication
technologies (ICTs). Multimedia are therefore an aspect of ICTs that combines sound and visuals to deliver a
message. It is a product of “processing and presentation” of information in a more structured and
understandable manner using more than one medium.
Ilicheva (2009) perceives multimedia environments as consisting of verbal and visual representations that if
appropriately processed allow for the construction of an integrated mental model of the content. Multimedia
environments therefore involve the integration of verbal and visual representations which when properly
processed allow for effective mental depiction of the content.
The Web made a dramatic contribution to the development of multimedia computing. In the 1980s, the
arrival of CD-ROMs had offered the first practical solution to the problem of storing and delivering large
multimedia files. CD-ROMs could hold the information of hundreds of floppy disks. They could be
reproduced inexpensively and shipped easily. They were limited, however in two critical respects. They were
expensive to master and they needed to be formatted differently for different computer platforms. The web
immediately addressed the issue of cross-platform compatibility; all computers connected to the network
could read the same information. It also dealt with expense, as multimedia websites could be inexpensively
created and distributed nearly instantaneously. Multimedia computing soon became a worldwide
phenomenon with endless possibilities.

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INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Interactive media allows learners to provide input to an online course and receive feedback as a mouse
click or drag, gestures, voice commands, touching an input screen, text entry with connected
participants.
Interactive multimedia can also be interpreted as large subset of educational technology in particular
CBT. Interactive media allows people to connect with others whether that’s people or organizations,
making them active participants in the media they consume. Examples; Video Games, Social Media,
Interactive Advertising
Print Interactive Media;
Board Games
Flip books
Game books
Interactive media is a method of communication in which the output from the media comes from the input
of the users. Interactive media works with the user's participation. The media still has the same purpose but
the user's input adds interaction and brings interesting features to the system for better enjoyment.
Interactive media are an instance of a computational method influenced by the sciences of cybernetics,
auto poises and system theories, and challenging notions of reason and cognition, perception and memory,
emotions and affection.

TYPES OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Virtual Reality: This has to do with Immersive digital experiences that make users feel as if they are
exploring a word make users feel as if they are exploring a world that is a digital construct or is a digital
twin of physical reality.
Video Games: Players use controllers to respond to visual and sound cues on the screen that are
generated by a computer program.
Social Media: Digital communities that allow media to be navigated shared and created.
Advertising: Digital outdoor and in-store advertising that features interactive elements such as digital
poster that reacts to people who are in its proximity.

ELEMENTS OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA

 Moving Images (GIF)
 Animation
 Video and Audio

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IMPORTANCE OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Interactive media has a very big important role in today’s world. Not only does it make people more
active, but also it gives them the power to communicate with others (people, companies, organizations)
with whom they would normally have no contact. Here are some importance of interactive media;
1. Interactive media allows the free flow and exchange of ideas and information.
2. Interactive media also has an educational component, making it a very powerful learning tool.
3. It allows (and encourages) people-especially students to become more active in their learning
experience, and to be more in control of what they’re learning.

ADVANTAGES OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA

1. Social and emotional, language development, cognitive and general knowledge, and approaches
toward learning.
2. Using computers and educational computer software in a learning environment helps children
increase communication skills and their attitudes about learning. Children who use educational
computer software are often found using more complex speech patterns and higher levels of verbal
communication.
3. Interactive media makes technology more intuitive to use (understandable). Interactive products
such as smart phones, Ipad’s, IPods, interactive whiteboards and websites are all easy to use. The
easy usage of these products encourages consumers to experiment with their products rather than
reading instruction manuals.
4. Interactive media promotes dialogic communication. This form of communication allows senders
and receivers to build long term trust and cooperation. This plays a critical role in building
relationships. Organizations also use interactive media to go further than basic marketing and
develop more positive behavioral relationships.
DISADVANTAGES OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA
1. Intrusive: One potential disadvantage of interactive media is that it can be intrusive. In some
countries and cities, stores use computer-generated voices projected out in to the street to try to
lure customers into the store, which some people classify as noise pollution and nuisance.
2. Delicate Interfaces: One possible criticism of many forms of interactive media is that they are delicate and
prone to breaking. For example, many touch screen products break down or become scratched and scuffed
from users constantly touching the screens. Interactivity is desirable, but the act of constantly touching and
manipulating an interaction interface can quickly wear those interfaces down.

Multimedia Learning
Remote representation: It is a system which represents a user at a remote location. The
representation can be either passive or active---that is, the user can either just receive information
about the remote location and the actions taking place there or she can take part in the action and
even influence the process at the remote location. Notable example applications include
Conferencing applications: The user takes part in a conference; he/she can see and hear the other
participants; usually some kind of tool for showing text and graphics to the other participants is
available.
Distance learning: Distance learning is essentially the same as conferencing; instead of transmitting
a conference session or a group meeting, a seminar, a lecture, or a class is transmitted to students
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 somewhere on the network.
Remote auctions:A growing area which is extension of online shopping
Remote robotic agents: The remote location might be situated inside a hazardous environment,
which is too dangerous for the user as such s/he could not be there in person, yet, the task which
the user wants to carry out requires human intervention.
Virtual reality: Whereas the conferencing and remote robotic agent applications represent the user
at another, existing, location, to which she could travel to instead, virtual reality applications
represent users inside a physically-non existing environment; for example, rather than accessing the
records of a database through an arcane retrieval language, the database user might enter a virtual
reality representation of the database, which would present individual records as old-fashioned
folders.

ADVANTAGES OF MULTIMEDIA
Creativity: It brings more life to discussions.
Variety: It caters all types of learners.
Cost-effective: Multimedia mostly requires only a one-time purchase of devices and software, which can
be used unlimited times thereafter.
Evaluation: It offers ideal learning assessment tools which are also entertaining for the students.
Realistic Approach: It provides approaches which make learning more realistic.
Wide Variety of Support: Multiple media formats are available for use, with different models being able to
create multimedia.
Trendy: The current trend of culture leans toward technology, and a
great number of resources are being made available for different media formats.

DISADVANTAGES OF MULTIMEDIA Accessibility:

Distracting: Multimedia may take away the focusing from the lesson due to its attention-
grabbing formats.
Costly: Production of multimedia is more costly than others because it is made up of more
than one medium.. Production of multimedia requires an electronic device, which may be
relatively expensive. Multimedia requires electricity to run, which adds to the cost of its use.
Time Consuming: Creating multimedia requires more time.
Requires Mastery: Multimedia requires consistent and long practice to master, which may take a lot of
time and energy from the user.
Limited Support/Compatibility: There is a wide variety of gadget models which arouses incompatibilities of
media formats.
Fragile: The device used for multimedia must be used with attention; vulnerability to moisture or other
elements could cause costly, reparable damage which would require another purchase of a device.

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MULTIMEDIA NEWS PRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION
Multimedia helps people and other office users to present information usually in an interactive and easy
way. By using of some instruction they can use different media elements in their presentations to make an
impact on audience.
Microsoft PowerPoint is software that helps a user create attractive multimedia presentation using
different media elements. Multimedia presentation is used to present information to a group of people. It
is the most comprehensive way to present information. Adobe flash is also multimedia software in the
market.

IMPORTANCE OF USING MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION

A multimedia presentation is a message that uses multimedia. A multimedia instructional message is a
presentation consisting of words and picture that is designed to foster meaningful learning. Thus there are
two parts to the definition;
 The presentation contains words and pictures.
 The presentation is designed to foster meaningful learning.
Although still images are a different medium than text, multimedia is typically used to mean the
combination of text, sound, or motion video. Some people might say that the addition of animated images
produces multimedia (GIF). Multimedia tends to imply sophistication in both production and presentation
than simple text-and-images. Multimedia presentations are possible in many contexts, including Web, CD-
ROMS, and live theater. Since any Web site can be viewed as a multimedia presentation, however, any
tool that helps develop a site in multimedia form can be classed as multimedia software and the cost can
be less than for standard video productions.

TYPES OF MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION

INTERACTIVE
These presentations have a navigation structure and the viewer can choose the topics he/she wants to go
through by clicking and choosing. They require active information from the user. All the elements of
multimedia like sound or animation are effectively utilized to make the transfer of message clearer. This
type of presentation is suited to be handed over to a prospective customer or to be distributed at a
seminar.
SELF-RUNNING
A self-running multimedia presentation is like a sales demo that can be shown to a group of people. It does
not require any navigation techniques and runs continuously. Web pages become multimedia resources
and presentations when they are designed with media other than static images and text such as video,
audio, animation, and virtual reality.
SLIDE PRESENTATIONS
Teacher or student slide presentations can be done using a variety of software such as PowerPoint, Apple
Works Presentation, Kid Pix Slide Show, etc. Although the capabilities of the programs vary, the purpose of
the slide show format is to display work such as teacher or student research, ideas, information outlines,
etc. text, audio, chats, graphics, text animation, and video clips can be added to many of the presentation
software programs to create multimedia presentations.

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VIDEO
Video presentations can provide background information in a unit of study for all learners as well as
provide a resource for independent learning. Documentary videos help students gain insight to historical
events, other cultures and human identities.

Tools for the Multimedia and Online Journalist

From the dawn of journalism as a profession, the basic tools for the journalist are a pencil or pen/biro
and a reporter’s notebook. While these simple tools still remain relevant today, the equipment needs of
today’s journalist have grown more complex because of the nature of multi-task job he has to perform.
In times past, the job of the journalist is neatly compartmentalized. The job of the reporter is separate
and distinct from that of the photographer or photojournalist, while these two duties are separate from those
of the copy editor or make-up artist. Today, the distinctions have been blurred as we find the reporter
performing all these tasks at once.
Similarly, the specializations have been blurred between the print and the broadcast journalist. Even
that between the two categories of broadcast journalist, the radio and television reporter have been blurred as
today’s journalist is expected to be able to transit from effortlessly from writing text to producing audio,
video formats and taking photographs.
While there is still space for the traditional journalist who reports exclusively for print, or radio or
television, the space for such narrow task is increasingly shrinking as all media now have web presence on
the internet which necessitates that their journalists become multi talented in order to be able to report for
the online version of the publication or broadcast.
Invariably, you find that these days, a newspaper not only reports texts, pictures and graphics on its
website, it also may have the audio and video version of some stories there and the person navigating such a
website may decide which version he wants to subscribe to. Likewise, radio and television stations have, on
their websites, still picture versions of some of the stories broadcast.
It is this multimedia nature of journalism and reporting that has made the tools required by today’s
journalist more complex in line with the complexity of the computer and online journalism.
Today’s journalist is, therefore, not content clutching his pencil/pen/biro and notebook. In addition to these,
according to Stevens (2008), he needs the following:-
1. Laptop Computer loaded with the necessary software such as Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, Adobe
Page Maker, Photoshop, Dreamweaver MX, iMovie or Pinnacle Studio 8,DVD 500 or Final Cut Pro or
Adobe Premiere for advanced video editing, and Flash to mention a few.
2. Video Camera and accessories – lenses, filters, microphones, headphones, batteries, cables and tripod.
You may take a digital still camera with you with facility to record video where necessary. Sometimes,
even your phone camera may suffice if it sophisticated enough to do quality job. But usually, it is better
to take with a more professional camera that can give you quality pictures. Professional Microphone
3. Video Digital Camera
4. Camcorder Battery
5. Digital still camera
6. Video/Audio editing kit
7. Digital video tapes – take many tapes with you so that you will never run short.
8. Lens cleaners – brush, tissues, solution. It is necessary to clean your lens before going on every
assignment.
9. Extra batteries – for your laptop, video camera and microphones.

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 10. Backpack vest with many pockets – the type worn by television or film camera men and directors. This
will help you in keeping many things handy so that you do not have to back to fumble in your bag all
the time to look for basic necessities or materials for the job at hand.
11. 3G Phones: These are phones that are capable of recording audio and visuals and aside from telephone
conversation. Though these tools are many and look complex, they should all be able to fit into the
different compartments of your laptop bag.
12. A webcam Laptop: As a matter of fact, these days you may not need to carry a video and/or still
camera with you as some laptop computers have been fitted with cameras that can take video, still
pictures and at the same time do audio recordings. They are called webcam Laptops.
13. A Laptop Notebook: Moreover, a laptop with internet wireless connectivity will enable the journalist to
send his story straight from the scene of the incident to his news editor or the online editor in the
newsroom who will upload the story onto the organization’s website.

STEPS FOR CREATING A MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION:

Writing a Script
Writing a Story
Choosing a Topic
Preparing a Storyboard
Final Delivery
Testing and Feedback
1. Choosing a Topic: The first topic/task is to choose a topic on which to create the presentation. In
principle, one can select any topic/topics which can be explained or demonstrated using various
media types are more conductive to multimedia presentation. Use of text should be kept at a
minimum. For example, not more than a few lines per page of the presentation when choosing a
topic one should make a mental note of how the subject matter should be divided and what entry
points should give access to which module. The author shall also decide who should be the target
audience further deciding the objectives of the presentation [i.e.] what the audience is expected to
learn after going through presentation.
2. Writing a story: A story describes the overall content of the presentation. The writing style should
be textual and should resemble an essay. Within the story, the author can divide the matter into
logical divisions like chapters, sections, topics, etc. for better readability and modularization.
3. Writing a script: Once the overall subject matter has been finalized, the next step is to create a
script. A script emphasizes how the subject matter unfolds. While writing a script, the author
visualizes the content in terms of frames. For example, what is to be displayed on the first screen?
This requires the subject matter of the story be divided into small modules one for each screen. The
script may also include other accessory information like how the elements are displayed on the
screen.
4. Preparing a Storyboard: Once the script has been prepared, the author needs to prepare the
storyboard. The storyboard depicts what should be the layer of each screen within the presentation.
The screen should have an aesthetic feel about them and should be pleasant to look. These are like
"key frames" in a video - the story hangs from these "stopping places".

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 5. Testing and feedback: After the implementation phase is completed, an important step of testing
and feedback should be done for improving the quality of the presentation. This step involves
distributing whole [or] part of the presentation to sections of the target audience and heading the
feedback from them about the possible areas which need improvement. Developers always work
under various constraints and do not have indefinite time on their hands. Some multimedia
designers use an authoring tool at this stage already, even if the intermediate prototype will not be
used in the final product or continued in another tool. User testing is, of course, extremely
important before the final development phase.
6. Final delivery: The final phase in the production schedule is the delivery of the application to be
intended client. Usually the runtime version of the application files are copied into a CD-ROM / flash
drive and physically handed over to the customer. It is also important for the author to state clearly
the hardware and software requirements which should be present on the client machine to run the
application smoothly.
TEXT
In multimedia presentations, text can be combined with other media in a powerful way to present
information and express moods. Text can be of various types:
Plaintext, consisting of fixed sized 45 characters having essentially the same type of appearance. Formatted
text, where appearance can be changed using font parameters. Hypertext, which can serve to link different
electronic documents and enable the user to jump from one to the other in a non-linear way.
Internally, text is represented via binary codes as per the ASCII table. The ASCII table is however quite
limited in its scope and a new standard has been developed to eventually replace the ASCII standard. This
standard is called the Unicode standard and is capable of representing international characters from
various languages throughout the world. We also generate text automatically from a scanned version of a
paper document or image using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

TYPES OF TEXT
There are three types of text that can be used to produce pages of a document:
 Unformatted text
 Formatted text
 Hypertext
A. Unformatted Text: Also known as plaintext, this comprise of fixed sized characters from a limited
character set. The character set is called ASCII table which is short for American Standard Code for
Information Interchange and is one of the most widely used character sets. It basically consists of a
table where each character is represented by a unique 7-bit binary code. The characters include, A to Z,
0 to 9, and other punctuation characters like parenthesis, ampersand, single and double quotes,
mathematical operators, etc. All the characters are of the same height. In addition, the ASCII character
set also includes a number of control characters. These include BS (backspace), LF (linefeed), CR
(carriage return), SP (space), DEL (delete), ESC (escape), FF (form feed) and others. Later on as
requirements increased an extended version of ASCII table was introduced known as extended ASCII
character set.

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B. Formatted Text: Formatted text are those where apart from the actual alphanumeric characters, other
control characters are used to change the appearance of the characters, e.g. bold, underline, italics,
varying shapes, sizes and colors etc., Most text processing software use such formatting options to
change text appearance. It is also extensively used in the publishing sector for the preparation of
papers, books, magazines, journals, and so on.
C. Hypertext: The term Hypertext is used to mean certain extra capabilities imparted to normal or
standard text. Like normal text, a hypertext document can be used to reconstruct knowledge through
sequential reading but additionally it can be used to link multiple documents in such a way that the
user can navigate inconsequentially from one document to the other for cross-references. These links
are called hyperlinks. The underlined text string on which the user clicks the mouse is called an anchor
and the document which opens as a result of clicking is called the target document. On the web target
documents are specified by a specific nomenclature called Web site address technically known as
Uniform Resource Locators or URL.

HOW TO DO A ROUGH STORYBOARD

A Multimedia story is some combination of video, text, still photos, audio, graphics and interactivity
presented in a nonlinear format in which the information in each medium is complementary, not
redundant. So your storyboard should be put together with all those elements in mind.
The first thing to tackle is the part about the story being nonlinear. That is to say, instead of thinking “first
paragraph”, second paragraph, third paragraph, fourth paragraph, think this part, that part, another part,
and yet another part. It helps to avoid linear thinking. Divide the contents of the story among the media-
video, still photos, audio, graphics and text.
Your storyboard should be done through the following steps;
1. Decide what pieces of the story work best in video. Video is the best medium to depict action, to take a
reader to a place central to the story, or to hear and see a person central to the story.
2. Decide what pieces of the story work best in still photos. Still photos are the best medium for emphazing
a strong emotion, for staying with an important point in a story, or to create a particular mood. They’re
often more dramatic and don’t go by as quickly as video. Still photos used in combination with audio also
highlight emotions. Panorama or 360-degree photos, especially combined with audio, also immerse a
reader in the location of the story.
3. Does the audio work best with video, or will it be combined with still photos? Good audio with video is
critical. Bad audio makes video seem worse than it is and detracts from the drama of still photos. Good
audio makes still photos and video seem more intense and real. Avoid using audio alone.
4. What part of the story works best in graphics? Animated graphics show how things work. Graphics go
where cameras can’t go, into human cells or millions of miles into space. Sometimes graphics can be a
story’s primary medium, with print, still photos and video in supporting roles.
5. What part of the story belongs in text? Text can be used to describe the history of a story (sometimes in
combination with photos); to describe a process (sometimes in combination with graphics), or to provide
first-person accounts of an event. Often, text is what’s left over when you can’t convey the information
with photos, video, audio or graphics.

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6. Make sure the information in each medium is complementary, not redundant. A little overlap among the
different media is okay. It’s also useful to have some overlap among the story’s nonlinear parts, as a way to
invite readers to explore the other parts of the story. But try to match up element of a story with the
medium that best conveys it.
7. Interactivity means giving the reader both input and control in a story. By making the story nonlinear,
you’ve introduced an element of interactivity, because the user can choose which elements of a story to
read or view and in which order. By including online forums or chats, you give readers input to a story.
Some news sites have included interactive games so the reader can construct his own story.

When you’re done breaking a story down into its elements-both in terms of its content and the different
media you could use- you need to reassemble all that into a rough storyboard. A rough storyboard doesn’t
have to be high art-it’s just a sketch. And it is written in stone-it’s a guide. You may very well change things
after you go into the field to do your covering and other reporting.

DELIVERING METHODS OF MULTIMEDIA CONTENT

CD-ROM
A Compact Disc or CD is an optical disc used to store digital data initially established for storing digital
audio. The CD, accessible on the market since late 1982, remains the typical playback medium for
marketable audio recordings to the current day, however it has lost ground in recent years to MP3
players. An audio CD consists of one or more stereo tracks stored using 16-bit PCM coding at a selection
rate of 44.1 kHz. Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 mm and can taking hold about 80 minutes of audio.
There are also 80 mm discs, sometimes used for CD singles, which hold approximately 20 minutes of audio.
The technology was later adapted for use as a data storage device, known as a CD-ROM, and to include
record once and re-writable media (CD-R and CD-RW respectively). CD-ROMs and CD-Rs stay widely used
practical application in the computer industry as of 2007. The CD and its extensions have been extremely
successful: in 2004, the worldwide sales of CD audio, CD-ROM, and CD-R reached about 30 billion discs. By
2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold global.
Paper Title:-MULTIMEDIA AND ITS APPLICATIONS

ISSN:-2349-3585 |[Link]
DVD
DVD (also known as “Digital Versatile Disc” or “Digital
Video Disc”) is a best-selling optical disc storage media format. Its primary uses are video and data
storage. 2Most
DVDs are of the identical dimensions as compact discs (CDs) but store more than 6 times the data. Variant
of the term DVD often depict the way data is stored on the discs: DVD-ROM has data which can only be
read and not written, DVD-R can be written once and then functions as a D VD-ROM, and DVD-RAM or
DVD-RW holds data that can be re-written multiple times. DVD-Video and DVD-Audio discs
respectively mention to decently formatted and organized video and audio contented. Another types
of DVD discs, consider those with video content, may be referred to as DVD-1995, at the time of the
specification finalization.

13
letters officially stood for “digital versatile disc” (due to non-video applications), however, the text of
the press release
technology as “DVD”, making no mention of what (if anything) the letters stood for. Usage in the
present day varies,
with “DVD”, “Digital Video Disc”, and “Digital Versatile
Disc” all being common.
Flash Drives
A USB flash drive is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus
(USB) Interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and
Rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk.
Most weigh less than 30g. USB flash drives
Often used for the same purposes for which floppy disks or CD-ROMs were used. They are smaller, faster,
have thousands of times more capacity, and are more durable and reliable because they have no moving
parts. Until approximately 2005, most desktop and laptop computers were supplied with floppy disk drives,
but floppy disk drives have been abandoned in favor of USB ports. USB flash drives use the USB mass
storage standard, supported natively by modern operating such as Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and other
Unix-like systems, as well as many BIOS boot ROMs. USB drives with USB 2.0 support can store more data
and transfer faster than much larger optical disc drives like CD-RW or DVD-RW drives and can be read by
many other systems such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DVD players and in some upcoming mobile smart
phones.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet
protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of
millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are
linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an
extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the
World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support email.
Paper Title:-MULTIMEDIA AND ITS APPLICATIONS

ISSN:-2349-3585 |[Link]

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