Multimedia
Information about Multimedia
Multimedia (Lat. Multum + Medium) is 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) audience. Multimedia also refers to the use of (but not limited to) electronic media to store and experience multimedia content. 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 means that computer info can be represented through audio, graphics, image, video and animation in addition to traditional media(text and graphics). Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.
Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. 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. Non-linear content is also known as hypermedia content.
Multimedia presentations can be live 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 presentations may be viewed in person on stage, projected, transmitted, or played locally with a media player. A broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be either analog or digital electronic media technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed. Streaming multimedia may be live or on-demand.
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, or simulator.
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, to transcend everyday experience.
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 title (text) user-updated, to simulations whose co-efficients, 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.
In the intervening forty years the word has taken on different meanings. In the late 1970s the term was used to describe presentations consisting of multi-projector slide shows timed to an audio track. In the 1990s it took on its current meaning. In common usage the term multimedia refers to an electronically delivered combination of media including video, still images, audio, text in such a way that can be accessed interactively.[1] Much of the content on the web today falls within this definition as understood by millions.
Some computers which were marketed in the 1990s were called "multimedia" computers because they incorporated a CD-ROM drive, which allowed for the delivery of several hundred megabytes of video, picture, and audio data.
The term "multimedia" is also ambiguous. Static content (such as a paper book) may be considered multimedia if it contains both pictures and text or may be considered interactive if the user interacts by turning pages at will. Books may also be considered non-linear if the pages are accessed non-sequentially. 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 the form of information content such as moving illustrations or still pictures. Multiple forms of information content are often not considered multimedia if they don't contain 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 media from media.
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. Below are the several examples as follows:
Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia.
In the Arts there are multimedia artists, whose minds are able to blend techniques using different media that in some way incorporates interaction with the viewer. One of the most relevant could be Peter Greenaway who is melding Cinema with Opera and all sorts of digital media. Another approach entails the creation of multimedia that can be displayed in a traditional fine arts arena, such as an art gallery. For the most part these artists are using materials that will not hold up over time.
An observatory for jobs in the multimedia industry provides surveys and analysis about multimedia and ITC jobs.[1]
Multimedia and the Internet require a completely new approach to writing. ‘The style of writing that is appropriate for the on-line world is highly optimized and designed to be able to be quickly scanned by readers’. [2]
A good site must be made with a specific purpose in mind and a site with good interactivity and new technology can also be useful for attracting visitors. Jennifer Story, from Next Online, states that ‘the site must be attractive and innovative in its design, function in terms of its purpose, easy to navigate, frequently updated and fast to download’.
When users view a page, they can only view one page at a time. As a result, multimedia users must create a ‘mental model of information structure’.[3]
Patrick Lynch, author of the Yale University Web Style Manual, states that users need predictability and structure, with clear functional and graphical continuity between the various components and subsections of the multimedia production.
| Multimedia is a combination of content forms: | ||
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Categorization
) | |
Presentation | Interactive |
Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. 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. Non-linear content is also known as hypermedia content.
Multimedia presentations can be live 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.
Features
) | ) |
Recorded | Streaming |
Multimedia presentations may be viewed in person on stage, projected, transmitted, or played locally with a media player. A broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be either analog or digital electronic media technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed. Streaming multimedia may be live or on-demand.
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, or simulator.
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, to transcend everyday experience.
)
A lasershow is a live multimedia performance.
Terminology
History of the term
In 1965 the term Multi-media was used to describe the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a performance that combined live rock music, cinema, experimental lighting and performance art.In the intervening forty years the word has taken on different meanings. In the late 1970s the term was used to describe presentations consisting of multi-projector slide shows timed to an audio track. In the 1990s it took on its current meaning. In common usage the term multimedia refers to an electronically delivered combination of media including video, still images, audio, text in such a way that can be accessed interactively.[1] Much of the content on the web today falls within this definition as understood by millions.
Some computers which were marketed in the 1990s were called "multimedia" computers because they incorporated a CD-ROM drive, which allowed for the delivery of several hundred megabytes of video, picture, and audio data.
Word usage and context
Since media is the plural of medium, the term "multimedia" is a pleonasm if "multi" is used to describe multiple occurrences of only one form of media such as a collection of audio CDs. This is why it's important that the word "multimedia" is used exclusively to describe multiple forms of media.The term "multimedia" is also ambiguous. Static content (such as a paper book) may be considered multimedia if it contains both pictures and text or may be considered interactive if the user interacts by turning pages at will. Books may also be considered non-linear if the pages are accessed non-sequentially. 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 the form of information content such as moving illustrations or still pictures. Multiple forms of information content are often not considered multimedia if they don't contain 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 media from media.
Usage
)
VVO Multimedia-Terminal in Dresden WTC (Germany)
)
A presentation using Powerpoint. Corporate presentations may combine all forms of media
)
Virtual reality uses multimedia content. Applications and delivery platforms of multimedia are virtually limitless.
Professional
Creative industries
Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from fine arts, to entertainment, to commercial art, to 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. Request for their skills range from technical, to analytical, to creative.Commercial
Much of the electronic old and new media utilized by commercial artists is multimedia. Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Industrial, 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.Entertainment and fine arts
In addition, 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. Some video games also use multimedia features.Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia.
In the Arts there are multimedia artists, whose minds are able to blend techniques using different media that in some way incorporates interaction with the viewer. One of the most relevant could be Peter Greenaway who is melding Cinema with Opera and all sorts of digital media. Another approach entails the creation of multimedia that can be displayed in a traditional fine arts arena, such as an art gallery. For the most part these artists are using materials that will not hold up over time.
Education
In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopaedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment.Engineering
Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as a collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers.Industry
In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technologies.Mathematical and Scientific Research
In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia are mainly used for modelling and simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance. Representative research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Multimedia.Medicine
In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.Miscellaneous
In Europe, the reference organization for Multimedia industry is the European Multimedia Associations Convention (EMMAC).An observatory for jobs in the multimedia industry provides surveys and analysis about multimedia and ITC jobs.[1]
Structuring information in a multimedia form
Multimedia represents the convergence of text, pictures, video and sound into a single form. The power of multimedia and the Internet lies in the way in which information is linked.Multimedia and the Internet require a completely new approach to writing. ‘The style of writing that is appropriate for the on-line world is highly optimized and designed to be able to be quickly scanned by readers’. [2]
A good site must be made with a specific purpose in mind and a site with good interactivity and new technology can also be useful for attracting visitors. Jennifer Story, from Next Online, states that ‘the site must be attractive and innovative in its design, function in terms of its purpose, easy to navigate, frequently updated and fast to download’.
When users view a page, they can only view one page at a time. As a result, multimedia users must create a ‘mental model of information structure’.[3]
Patrick Lynch, author of the Yale University Web Style Manual, states that users need predictability and structure, with clear functional and graphical continuity between the various components and subsections of the multimedia production.
Conferences
There are a large number of multimedia conferences, the two main scholarly scientific conferences being:- ACM Multimedia;
- IEEE ICME, International Conference on Multimedia & Expo.
References, Sources, and Notes
- Multimedia Making it Work, by Tay Vaughan. Osborne McGraw Hill, 1993. ISBN 0-07-881869.
See also
External links
Information is the result of processing, gathering, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the receiver. In other words, it is the context in which data is taken.
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Information processing is the change (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe, from the falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a
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Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques.
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Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave (through fluids as a compression wave, and through solids as both compression and shear waves).
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IMAGE (from Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration), or Explorer 78, was a NASA MIDEX mission that studied the global response of the Earth's magnetosphere to changes in the solar wind.
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Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways.
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Video (Latin for "I see", first person singular present, indicative of videre, "to see") is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.
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Interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels: Noninteractive, when a message is not related to previous messages; Reactive, when a message is related only to one immediately previous message; and Interactive, when a message is related to a
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Electronic media are that utilize electronics or electromechanical energy for the end user (audience) to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which are most often created electronically, but don't require electronics to be accessed by the
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Jane Frank (Jane Schenthal Frank, 1918-1986), 45"X18.5". Mixed media (oil, spackle, charred driftwood, glass, crushed graphite, and canvas collage on canvas); private collection; image used with permission.
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Fine art refers to arts that are concerned with a limited number of visual and performing art forms, including painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, architecture and printmaking.
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Interactive media refers to of communication that allow for active participation by the recipient, hence interactivity. Traditional information theory would describe interactive media as those media that establish two-way communication.
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Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson, and used in his 1965 article Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate .
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Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques.
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Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, usually used for the voice or for music.
The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
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The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
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IMAGE (from Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration), or Explorer 78, was a NASA MIDEX mission that studied the global response of the Earth's magnetosphere to changes in the solar wind.
..... Click the link for more information.
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Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways.
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Video (Latin for "I see", first person singular present, indicative of videre, "to see") is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.
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Interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels: Noninteractive, when a message is not related to previous messages; Reactive, when a message is related only to one immediately previous message; and Interactive, when a message is related to a
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movie theater (North America), also known as a cinema (Australia, United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as North America), a movie house, or the pictures, is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ("movies" or "films").
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Interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels: Noninteractive, when a message is not related to previous messages; Reactive, when a message is related only to one immediately previous message; and Interactive, when a message is related to a
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personal computer game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine.
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Electronic learning or E-learning is a general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. It is used interchangeably in so many contexts that it is critical to be clear what one means when one speaks of 'eLearning'.
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Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson, and used in his 1965 article Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate .
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Presentation is the process of presenting the content of a topic to an audience. A presentation program, such as OpenOffice.org Impress, Apple Keynote, i-Ware CD Technologies' PMOS or Microsoft PowerPoint, is often used to generate the presentation content.
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In computing, spatial navigation is the ability to navigate between focusable elements, such as hyperlinks and form controls, within a structured document or user interface according to the spatial location.
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stage (sometimes referred to as the deck in stagecraft) is a designated space for the performance of theatrical productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience.
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Projectors are used for displaying an image on a projection screen or similar surface for the view of an audience.
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- Video projectors
- LCD projector
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transmitter (sometimes abbreviated XMTR) is an electronic device which with the aid of an antenna propagates an electromagnetic signal such as radio, television, or other telecommunications.
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Media Player was a media player originally included in Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions and a slightly updated version was included with Windows 3.1x. Media Player received a facelift with Video for Windows, with an OLE2 version provided with the runtime software.
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