Re: Multimedia Making It Work By Tay Vaughan.pdf
Lillia Iniguez
This document provides an introduction to making multimedia projects. It discusses the stages of a multimedia project including planning, designing, producing, testing and delivering. It emphasizes the importance of having the right hardware, software, ideas, skills and organization. Specific hardware discussed includes computers, networking equipment and connection methods like SCSI, IDE, USB and FireWire. The document also covers input devices, output devices, memory, storage and different types of software tools used for text, graphics, sound, video and authoring multimedia projects.Read less
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as writing, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to traditional mass media, such as printed material or audio recordings, which feature little to no interaction between users. Popular examples of multimedia include video podcasts, audio slideshows, and animated videos. Multimedia also contains the principles and application of effective interactive communication, such as the building blocks of software, hardware, and other technologies.
The five main building blocks of multimedia are text, image, audio, video, and animation. The first building block of multimedia is the image, which dates back 15,000 to 10,000 B.C. with concrete evidence found in the Lascaux caves in France. The second building block of multimedia is writing, which was first scribed in stone or on clay tablets and was mostly about three things. Property, conquest, and religion. Writing was soon abstracted from visual images into symbols that represented the sounds we make with our mouths. Thanks to the Egyptians, writing was evolved and transferred from stone to Papyrus. A cheaper but more fragile canvas derived from strips of the papyrus root grown on the Nile River.[1]
Multimedia can be recorded for playback on computers, laptops, smartphones, and other electronic devices. In the early years of multimedia, the term "rich media" was synonymous with interactive multimedia. Over time, hypermedia extensions brought multimedia to the World Wide Web, and streaming services became more common.
The term multimedia was coined by singer and artist Bob Goldstein (later 'Bobb Goldsteinn') to promote the July 1966 opening of his "Lightworks at L'Oursin" show in Southampton, New York, Long Island.[3] Goldstein was perhaps aware of an American artist named Dick Higgins, who had two years previously discussed a new approach to art-making he called "intermedia".[4]
In the intervening forty years, the word has taken on different meanings. In the late 1970s, the term referred to presentations consisting of multi-projector slide shows timed to an audio track. However, by the 1990s, 'multimedia' had taken on its current meaning.
The German language society Gesellschaft fr deutsche Sprache recognized the word's significance and ubiquitousness in the 1990s by awarding it the title of German 'Word of the Year' in 1995.[9] The institute summed up its rationale by stating, "[Multimedia] has become a central word in the wonderful new media world".[10]
In common usage, multimedia refers to the usage of multiple media of communication, including video, still images, animation, audio, and text, in such a way that they can be accessed interactively. Video, still images, animation, audio, and written text are the building blocks on which multimedia takes shape. In the 1990s, some computers were called "multimedia computers" because they represented advances in graphical and audio quality, such as the Amiga 1000, which could produce 4096 colors (12-bit color), outputs for TVs and VCRs, and four-voice stereo audio.[11] Changes in removable storage technology during this time were also important, as the standard CD-ROM can hold on average 700 megabytes of data, while the maximum size a 3.5-inch floppy disk can hold is 2.8 megabytes, with an average of 1.44 megabytes.[12] Greater storage allowed for larger digital media files and therefore more complex multimedia.
The term "video", if not used exclusively to describe motion photography, is ambiguous in multimedia terminology. Video is often used to describe the file format, delivery format, or presentation format instead of "footage" which is used to distinguish motion photography from "animation" of rendered motion imagery. Multiple forms of information content are often not considered modern forms of presentation, such as audio or video. Likewise, single forms of information content with single methods of information processing (e.g., non-interactive audio) are often called multimedia, perhaps to distinguish static media from active media. In the fine arts, for example, Leda Luss Luyken's ModulArt brings two key elements of musical composition and film into the world of painting: variation of a theme and movement of and within a picture, making ModulArt an interactive multimedia form of art. Performing arts may also be considered multimedia, considering that performers and props are multiple forms of both content and media.
In modern times, a multimedia device can be referred to as an electronic device, such as a smartphone, a video game system, or a computer. Each and every one of these devices has a main function but also has other uses beyond their intended purpose, such as reading, writing, recording video and audio, listening to music, and playing video games. This has led them to be called "multimedia devices." While previous media was always local, many are now handled through web-based solutions, particularly streaming.
Multimedia presentations are presentations featuring multiple types of media. The different types of media can include text, graphics, audio, video and animations. These different types of media convey information to their target audience and effectively communicate with them. Videos are a great visual example to use in multimedia presentations because they can create visual aids to the presenter's ideas. They are commonly used among education and many other industries to benefit students and workers, as they effectively retain chunks of information in a limited amount of time and can be stored easily. Another example is charts and graphs, as the presenters can show their audience the trends using data associated with their researches. This provides the audience a visual idea of a company's capabilities and performances.[13] Audio also helps people understand the message being presented, as most modern videos are combined with audio to increase its efficiency, while animations are made to simplify things from the presenter's perspective. These technological methods allow efficient communication and understanding across a wide range of audiences (with an even wider range of abilities) throughout different fields.
Multimedia games and simulations may be used in a physical environment with special effects, with multiple users in an online network, or locally with an offline computer, game system, simulator, virtual reality, or augmented reality.
The various formats of technological or digital multimedia may be intended to enhance the users' experience, for example, to make it easier and faster to convey information. Or in entertainment or art, combine an array of artistic insights that include elements from different art forms to engage, inspire, or captivate an audience.
Enhanced levels of interactivity are made possible by combining multiple forms of media content. Online multimedia is increasingly becoming object-oriented and data-driven, enabling applications with collaborative end-user innovation and personalization on multiple forms of content over time. Examples of these range from multiple forms of content on Web sites like photo galleries with both images (pictures) and titles (text) user-updated to simulations whose coefficients, events, illustrations, animations, or videos are modifiable, allowing the multimedia "experience" to be altered without reprogramming. In addition to seeing and hearing, haptic technology enables virtual objects to be felt. Emerging technology involving illusions of taste and smell may also enhance the multimedia experience.
Multimedia finds its application in various areas, including, but not limited to, advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, scientific research, and spatial temporal applications. Several examples are as follows:
Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes, ranging from fine arts, entertainment, commercial art, journalism, to media and software services provided for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Requests for their skills range from technical to analytical to creative.
Much of the electronic, old, and new media used by commercial artists in multimedia. Advertising companies rely heavily on social interfaces and television to promote products. Using these platforms, they are able to express their message or persuade a targeted audience. Business to business and interoffice communications are often developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven up training. Commercial multimedia developers may be hired to design for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as well. In addition, the prominence of data mining within multimedia platforms in order to adjust marketing techniques based on the data they mine is a crucial and notable practice of commercial advertisement to efficiently understand the demographic of a target audience.[14] In recent years, a new trend of multimedia has arrived: a new sort of digital billboard placed on the side of buildings and usually wrapped around the side of them. These clips are made at differing angles to trick the brain into seeing them as 3-dimensional, like they're leaving the billboard entirely. This makes them eye-catching and therefore more likely to draw people's attention, which is, of course, very good for commercial purposes.
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