Multimedia Systems
Lecture – 1
By
Dr. Priyambada Subudhi
Assistant Professor
IIIT Sri City
What is Multimedia?
The term multimedia is composed of two words
Multi : numerous or multiple
media : agent for something
Multimedia could be defined as the usage of multiple media or
agents for communication of information.
These media or agents could be in the form of text, images, audio,
video, graphics, animation etc.
A good general working definition is
Multimedia is the field concerned with the computer controlled
integration of text, graphics, drawings, still and moving images
(Video), animation, audio, and any other media where every type of
information can be represented, stored, transmitted and processed
digitally.
Example: A music video and sound should be used together as one
without another would lose its significance.
The term media can be categorized based on few criteria
Perception media
Representation media
Presentation media
Storage media
Transmission media
Perception media
“How do human perceive information”
We perceive information from what we see and what we hear.
Visual media
Text, graphics, images and video
Auditory media
Music, sound, voice
Representation media
“How information is encoded in the computer”
Referring to how the information is represented internally in
computer.
Several options:
Text is encoded in ASCII
An audio data stream in PCM
Image in JPEG format
Video in MPEG format
Presentation media
“Which medium is used to output information from the computer or
input in the computer”
Refers to physical means used by systems to reproduce information
for humans, e.g: audio and visual devices.
Input
Keyboards, cameras, microphone, Head mounted device
Output
Paper, monitors, loud speakers
Storage media
“Where information is stored”
Refers to various physical means for storing computer data such
as magnetic tapes, magnetic disks or digital optical disks (CD-
ROM, CD, DVD)
Transmission media
“Which medium is used to transmit data”
Refers to physical means – cable of various type (coaxial cable,
twisted pair, fibre optics), radio tower, satellite – that allow the
transmission of telecommunication signals.
Characteristics of multimedia
It can increase the impact of the message or impact on the user.
Interactivity:
When the end‐user is able to control the elements of media that are
required, and subsequently obtains the required information in a non‐linear
way.
Hypertext and Hypermedia support:
Hypertext is a text which contains links to other texts.
Traversal through pages of hypertext is therefore usually non-linear (as
indicated below)
HyperMedia is not constrained to be text-based. It can include other media, e.g.,
graphics, images, and especially continuous media – sound and video.
The World Wide Web is the largest and most commonly used hypermedia application.
It can involve more than one input device.
It can repeated (over and over).
It is generally dynamic, not static.
Categories of Multimedia
Multimedia may be divided into following three categories based on their functions and how they are
organized.
Linear and non-linear: Linear active content progresses without any navigation control for the viewer
such as a cinema presentation. Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as
used with a computer game or used in self-paced computer-based training.
Interactive and non-interactive: Interactive multimedia is the means to interface with different
media through input (e.g., a computer keyboard, mouse, touch screen, on screen buttons, and text
entry, etc.) and output devices allowing a user to make decisions as to what takes place next with
multimedia
Real-time and recorded: Multimedia presentations can be live (real-time) or recorded. A recorded
presentation may allow interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation may allow
interactivity via interaction with the presenter or performer.
Multimedia Applications
Definition: A Multimedia Application is an application which uses a
collection of multiple media sources e.g. text, graphics, images,
sound/audio, animation and/or video.
Examples:
Video Teleconferencing: Transmission of synchronized video and audio
in real‐time through computer networks in between two or more
multipoints (or participants) separated by locations.
Multimedia Store and Forward Mail: Allow users to generate, modify and
receive documents that contain multimedia. Eg. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc.
Advertising and Purchasing: Most of the web sites visited have many
advertisements with multimedia features with the objective of marketing
merchandise or offering services online.
For entertainment:
Multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop
special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime
and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online
For Education:
Multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called
CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs.
For Healthcare:
Multimedia best use in healthcare is for real time monitoring of conditions of
patients in critical illness or accident.
Multimedia makes it possible to consult a surgeon or an expert who can watch an
ongoing surgery line on his PC monitor and give online advice at any crucial
juncture.
Other multimedia applications available to us at home are
Basic Television Services, Digital Audio, Video on demand, Home shopping,
Digital multimedia libraries, E-Newspapers, e-magazines
History of Multimedia
• Multimedia to communicate ideas might begin with newspapers,
which were perhaps the first mass communication medium, using
text, graphics, and images.
• Thomas Alva Edison 'commissioned the invention of a motion
picture camera in 1887.
• In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent his first wireless radio
transmission at POlltecchio, Italy. Initially invented for
telegraph, radio is now a major medium for audio broadcasting.
• Television was the new medium for the twentieth century. It
established video as a commonly available medium and has since
changed the world of mass communication.
The connection between computers and digital media represented using the
discrete binary format, emerged only over a short period:
1945 : As part of MIT's postwar deliberations on what to do with all those
scientists employed on the war effort, Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) wrote a
landmark article describing what amounts to a hypermedia system, called "Memex.“
1960s Ted Nelson started the Xanadu project and coined the term "hypertext.“
1967 Nicholas Negroponte formed the Architecture Machine Group at MIT.
1969 Nelson and van Dam at Brown University created an early hypertext editor
called FRESS.
1976 The MIT Architecture Machine Group proposed a project entitled “Multiple
Media.” This resulted in the Aspen Movie Map, the first videodisk, in 1978.
1982 The Compact Disc (CD) was made commercially available by Philips and Sony,
which was soon becoming the standard and popular medium for digital audio data.
1985 Negroponte and Wiesner co-founded the MIT Media Lab, a leading research
institution investigating digital video and multimedia.
1990 Kristina Hooper Woolsey headed the Apple Multimedia Lab, with a staff of 100.
1991 MPEG1 was approved as an international standard for digital video. Its further
development led to newer standards, MPEG-2, MPEG- 4, and further MPEGs, in the
1990s.
1991 The introduction of PDAs in 1991 began a new period in the use of computers in
general and multimedia in particular.
1992 JPEG was accepted as the international standard for digital image compression,
which remains widely used today.
1992 The first audio multicast on the multicast backbone (MBone) was made.
1995 The JAVA language was created for platform-independent application
development, which was widely used for developing multimedia applications.
1996 DVD video was introduced; high-quality, full-length movies were distributed on a
single disk.
1998 Handheld MP3 audio players were introduced to the consumer market, initially
with 32 MB of flash memory.
2000 World Wide Web (WWW) size was estimated at over 1 billion pages.
2001 The first peer-to-peer file sharing (mostly MP3 music) system.
2003 Skype was released for free peer-to-peer voice over the Internet.
2004 Web 2.0 was recognized as a new way to utilize software developers and end-users use
the Web.
2005 YouTube was created, providing an easy portal for video sharing, which was purchased
by Google in late 2006.
2006 Twitter was created, and rapidly gained world wide popularity, with 500 million
registered users in 2012.
2007 Apple launched the first generation of iPhone, running the iOS mobile operating
system.
2008 The first Android-powered phone was sold and Google Play the Android’s primary app
store, was soon launched.
2009 The first LTE (Long Term Evolution) network was setup making an important step
toward 4G wireless networking.
2010 Netflix, which used to be a DVD rental service provider, migrated its infrastructure to
the Amazon AWS cloud computing platform, and became a major online streaming video
provider.