GOVERNMENT OF TAMILNADU

DIRECTORATE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION

CHENNAI – 600 025

STATE PROJECT COORDINATION UNIT

Diploma in Computer Engineering

Course Code: 1052

M – Scheme

e-TEXTBOOK
on
MULTIMEDIA
for
VI Semester COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Convener for COMPUTER ENGG Discipline:
Mrs. A.GHOUSIA JABEEN , M.E.,
PRINCIPAL,
THANTHAI PERIYAR E.V. RAMASAMI GOVT POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE,
VELLORE.
Team Members for MULTIMEDIA:
1. Mr.S.MANISEKAR ,M.E. (Ph.D)
PRINCIPAL –IN CHARGE
VALIVALAM DESIKAR POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE,
NAGAPATTINAM
2. Mrs.S.SANTHI, M.E.,(Ph.D)
LECTURER (SEL.GRD)
VALIVALAM DESIKAR POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE,
NAGAPATTINAM
3. Mrs.P.S.NEELAYATHAKSHI, M.E.,M.B.A
LECTURER (SEL.GRD)
VALIVALAM DESIKAR POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE,
NAGAPATTINAM

Validated by
Dr .S.SHARMILA, M.E .,Ph.D.,
HOD/ IT
PSG POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE
COIMBATORE
 UNIT I. INTRODUCTION TO MULTIMEDIA
1.1.INTRODUCTION
Multimedia is a combination of text, graphics art and sound ,animation and video elements.
1.1.1.Definiton of Multimedia
comprehensive material presented in a combination of text, graphics, video, animation and
sound. Any system that is capable of presenting multimedia is called multimedia system
1.1.2.Where to Use Multimedia
The technology used for business, education and entertainment.
• Business: multimedia exists in the form of advertisements, presentations,
videoconferencing ,voice mail etc
 • Educations: multimedia tools for learning are widely used to learn easily and quickly
when they are presented information with the virtual effect.
• Entertainment: Home PCs equipped with CD-ROMs and game machine hooked up with
TV screens have brought home entertainment to new levels. Interactive maps at public
places like libraries museums airports and the standalone terminal. Virtual reality helps
us feel a real life like experience. Games using virtual reality effect are very popular.
1.1.3.Multimedia Elements
Multimedia applications require dynamic handling of data consisting of a mix of text, voice,
audio components, video components and image animation. Integrated multimedia applications
allow the user to cut sections of all or any of these components and paste them in a new
document or in another application such as animated sequence of events or a desktop publishing
system or a spread sheet
• Fascimile: FAX was the first practical means of transmitting document images over
telephone lines. This basic technology having lower dpi of 100 to 200.
• Document Images: Document images are used for storing business documents that must
be retained for long periods of time or may need to be accessed by a large number of
people. Providing multimedia access to such documents remove the need for making
several copies of the original for storage or distribution.
• Photographic images: Photographic images are used for a wide range of applications-
such as employee records for instant identification at a security desk, real estate systems
with photograph of houses in the database containing the description of houses and
medical case histories.
• Geographic information systems map: Map created in a GIS systems are being used
widely for natural resources and wild life management as well as urban planning. The
map containing database items containing wildlife statistics or details of the floors and
rooms and workers in an office building.
• Voice commands and voice synthesis: Voice synthesis is used for presenting the results
of an action to the user in a synthesized voice. Application such as a patient monitoring
system in a surgical theatre will be prime beneficiaries of these capabilities. Voice
commands allow the user to direct computer operation by spoken commands.
• Audio message: annotated voice mail already uses audio or voice messages as
attachments to memos and documents such as maintenance manuals.
• Video messages: they are being used in a manner similar to annotated voice mail.
• Holographic images: All the technologies so far essentially present a fault view of
information. Holographic images extend the concept of virtual reality by allowing the
user to get “inside” a part .
1.1.4. Multimedia Applications
Multimedia is used in many applications. The image management is the basic application. It is
for scanning documents and retaining their images. Image processing is an application it is also
known as image recognition. It is intended for recognizing objects by analyzing their raster
images.
Document Imaging: The fundamental concepts of storage, compression and decompression and
display technologies used for multimedia systems were developed for document image
management. Organizations such as insurance agencies, law offices country and state
governments and the federal government manage large volumes of documents.
It is adopted by Department of Defense for applications ranging from military personal records
to maintenance manuals and high speed printing systems. Almost document image system use
workflows i.e sequence for scanning images, performing data entry based on the contents of the
images, indexing them and storing them on optical media.
Image processing and image recognition: An image processing system may actually alter the
contents of the image itself. Image processing systems employ the compression and
decompression technique, a wide range of algorithm for object recognition, comparing images of
objects with predefined objects, extrapolating finer details to view edges more clearly, gray scale
balancing and gray scale and color adjustments.
Image enhancement: Most image display systems feature some level of image adjustment .
Increasing the sensitivity and contrast makes the picture darker by making border line pixels
black or increasing the gray scale level of pixels
Image calibration: The overall image density is calibrated and the image pixels are adjusted to
a predefined level.
Real-time alignment: The image is aligned in real time for skewing caused by improper feeding
of paper.
Gray scale normalization: The overall gray level of an image or picture is evaluated to
determine if it is skewed in one direction and if it needs.
RGB hue intensity adjustment: Too much color makes picture garish and fuzzy. Automatic hue
intensity adjustments bring the hue intensity within predefined ranges.
Color separation: A picture with very little color contrast can be dull and may not bring out the
details. The hardware used can detect and adjust the range of color separation.
Frame averaging: the intensity level of the frame is averaged to overcome the effects of very
dark or very light areas b adjusting the middle tones
Image animation: Computer created or scanned images can be displayed sequentially at
controlled display speeds to provide image animation that simulates real processes. The basic
concept of displaying successive images at short intervals to give the perception of motion is
being used successfully in designing moving parts such as automobile engines.
Image Annotation: It can be performed in one of two ways. As a text file stored along with the
image or as a small image stored with the original image the annotation is over layered over the
original image for display purposes. It requires tracking multiple image components associated
with a single page, decompressing all of them and ensuring correct spatial alignments they are
over layered.
OCR: (optical character recognition) :Data entry is the most expensive component of data
processing because it requires extensive clerical staff work to enter data. OCR technology is used
for data entry by scanning typed or printed words in a form. OCR technology is available in
software.
Handwritten recognition: Research for handwritten recognition was performed for CAD/CAM
systems for command recognition. Pen based systems are designed to allow the user to write
commands on an electronic tablet. Two important factors in it are the strokes or shapes being
entered and the velocity of input or vectoring that is taking place. The strokes are parsed and
processed by shape recognizer, which determine the geometry and topology of the strokes by
compared with predefined characters.
Full motion digital video applications. Full motion video has applications in the games
industry and training as well as the business world. It is most complex and most demanding
component of multimedia applications.
Full motion video messages: Electronic mail capability allows embedding of voice messages
and video messages. Video messages may consists of video snapshots or live video with full
motion picture and sound. The important concepts in it are the storage and transmitted of a very
large volume of data at a high rate and decompression of that data to present a continuous play
back.
Audio and Video indexing: Making a position is called indexing. Audio and video indexing are
used in full motion video in a manner similar to any video sequence. Key points for indexing of
stored video clips. Indexing is useful only if the video are stored is lost. When sound and video
are decompressed and managed separately synchronization is very important. Depending on the
application indexing information must be maintained separately for sound and video components
of a video clip.
1.1.5.Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality requires terrific computing horse power to be realistic. In virtual reality, the
cyberspace is made up of many thousands of geometric objects implanted in three dimensional
space. The more objects and the more points that describe the objects, the higher the resolution
and the more realistic view. Each motion or action requires the computer to recalculate the
position, angle, size and shape of all the objects that make up the view and many thousands of
computations must occur as fast as 30 times per second.
On the world wide web standards for transmitting virtual reality worlds or scenes in
VRML(Virtual Reality Modeling Language)documents (with the file name extension .wrl) have
been developed. Intel and software makers such as Adobe support for new 3D technologies.
1.1.6.Delivering Multimedia
Multimedia requires large amounts of digital memory when stored in an end user’s library or
large amounts of bandwidth when distributed over wires, glass fiber or airwaves on a network.
the greater the bandwidth, the bigger the pipeline so more content can be delivered to end users
quickly.
CD-ROM discs can be mass produced, contain up to 80 minutes of full screen video, mages or
sound. The disc can also contain unique mixes of images, sounds, text, video and animations
controlled by an authoring system to provide unlimited user interaction.
Many systems also come with a DVD player combination that can read and burn CD_ROMs as
well. Multi layered Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) technology increases the capacity ad
multimedia capability of CDs to4.7 GB o a single sided single layered disc to as much as
17.08GB of storage on a double sided double layered disc. CD and DVD burners are used for
reading discs and for making them , too, in audio, video and data formats. DVD authoring and
integration software allows the creation of interactive frontend menus for both films and games.
Now flash drives and thumb drives are replacing CD_ROMs and DVDs.
 The multimedia products are reach the maximum people by having easy installation, with
simple operational features, attractive package and along with detailed documentation.

1.2 MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE:

1.2.1 Multimedia Workstation Architecture

Fig 1.1. Multimedia System Architecture

Applications: The multimedia are applied in the areas of business ,education and
entertainment. To run these applications application programming interface(API) are required to
isolate the application from the hardware. The application is designed to operate with any
hardware or operating environment that supports the API..
Graphical user interface: The add on devices and peripherals include scanners , video cameras ,
VCRs and sound equipment along with their associated device controllers and encoding
hardware( such as DVI-JPEG or MPEG enabled boards.)For each of these special devices a
software device driver is needed to provide the interface from an application to the device. The
graphical user interface designed primarily for windows
Multimedia extensions: mmx is a Pentium microprocessor from INTEL that is designed to run
faster when playing multimedia applications. It is 60% faster than one with a microprocessor
having the same clock speed without mmx. They are managed by applications at fixed
resolutions require control extensions to support applications such as full motion video or remote
desktop. Multimedia encompassed a large variety of technologies and integration of multiple
architectures interacting in real time, all of these multimedia capabilities must integrate with the
standard user interfaces such as Microsoft windows.
1.2.2 High resolution graphics displays:
The various graphics standards such as MCA, GGA and XGA have demonstrated the increasing
demands for higher resolution for GUIs.
Combined graphics and imaging applications require functionality at three levels.
VGA mixing: the image acquisition memory serves as the display source memory, thereby
fixing its position and size on screen.
VGA mixing with scaling: Use of scalar ICs allows sizing and positioning of images in pre-
defined windows.Resizing the window causes the things to be retrieved again.
Dual-buffered VGA/Mixing/Scaling: double buffer schemes maintain the original images in a
decompression buffer and resized image in a display buffer.
1.2.3.The IMA architectural Framework
The interactive multimedia association has a task group to define the architecture for multimedia
to provide, interoperability. The task group has concentrated on the desktops and the servers.
Desktop focus is to define the interchange formats. This format allows multimedia objects to be
displayed on any workstation. The architecture is based on defining interfaces to a multimedia
interface bus. This bus would be the interface between systems and multimedia sources. It
provides streaming I/O services including filters and translators.

Fig 1.2. IMA Architecture

1.2.4. Network architecture for multimedia systems:

• As large volumes of images and video messages are being transmitted a special network
is needed.
 • Asynchronous transfer mode technology(ATM) simplifies transfers across LANs and
WANs. Task based multilevel networking is utlised.
• Higher classes of service require more expensive components in the workstation as well
as in the servers supporting the workstation applications.
• Rather than impose this cost on workstations, an alternate approach is to adjust the class
of service to the specific requirement for the user. This approach is to adjust the class of
services according to the type of data being handled at a time also. This approach is
known as task based multi- level networking.
• High speed server to server links
• Duplication: It is the process of duplicating an object that the user can manipulate. There
is no requirement for the duplicate object to remain synchronized with the source object.
• Replication: It is defined as the process of maintaining two or more copies of the same
object in a network that periodically re-synchronize t provide the user faster and more
reliable access to the data replication is a complex process.
• Networking standards: The two well known network standards are Ethernet and token
ring
• ATM: This topology was originally designed for broad band applications in public
networks. It is a method of multiplexing and relaying(cell-switching) 53 byte cells(48
bytes of user interface and 5 bytes for header information.
• Cell switching: It is a form of fast packet switching based on the use of cells.( Short fixed
length packets are called cells).
• FDDI: Fiber Distributed Data interface network is an excellent candidate to act as the hub
in a network configuration or as a backbone that interconnects different types of LANs.
It presents apotential for standardization for high speed networks,allows large distance
networking. It can be used as high performance backbone networks to complement and
extent current LANs.
1.3 EVOLVING TECHNOLOGIES FOR MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS:
Multimedia applications use a number if technologies generated for both commercial business
application as well as the video game industry.
1.3.1.Hypermedia documents
Hypermedia documents are documents which have text, embedded or linked multimedia objects
such as image, audio ,hologram or full motion video.
1.3.2.Hyper text: hypertext systems allow authors to link information together create
information paths through a large volume of related text in documents. It also allows to annotate
existing text and append notes. It allows fast andeasy searching and reading of selected experts.
Hypermedia:It is an extension of hypertext which include texts, any kind of information that can
be stored in electronic storage such as audio, animated video, graphics and full motion video.
Hypermedia documents used for electronic mail and work flow applications provide a rich
functionality for exchanging a variety of information types. The hypermedia document is a
definition of a document and a set of pointers to help locate the various elements of the
document on the network.
1.3.3.Hyper speech: Multimedia simulated the development of general purpose speech
interfaces. Speech synthesis and speech recognition are fundamental requirement for hyper
speech systems. Speech recognition is nothing but converting analog speech into computer
action and into ASCII text. Speech recognition systems cannot segment a stream of sounds
without breaks into meaningful units. The user must speak in a stilted fashion. He should make
sure to interpose silence between each word.
1.3.4.HDTV and UDTV:High definition television is HDTV. The broadcasting standards such
as NTSC,PAL ,SECAM ,NHK have an idea of bringing the world together on a singlehigh
definition television broadcasting standard.the japanse broadcasting services developed a 1125
lines along MUSE system. A competing standard in the US direction from analog to digital
technology :NHK of japan trying to leapfrog the digital technology to develop ultra definition
television (digital UDTV) featuring approximately 3000 lines.

1.3.5. 3D technology and Holography:

Three dimensional technologies are concerned with two areas. Pointing devices and displays. 3D
pointing devices are essential to manipulate object in a 3D display system. 3D displays are
achieved using holography techniques. The technique developed for holography have been
adapted for direct computer use.

1.4 DEFINING OBJECTS FOR MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS:

The basic data types of object using in multimedia include text,image audio holograms and full
motion video.
1.4.1 Text: it is the simplest of data types and requires the least amount of storage.text is the base
element of a relational database and basic building of a document. The major attribute of text
include paragraph styling font families and sizes and relative location in a document.
Hypertext: it is an applicaito of indexing text to provide a rapid search of specific text strings in
one or more documents. It is an integral component of hypermedia documents. A hypermedia
document is the basic complex object of which text is a sub object include images, sound and full
motion video.
1.4.2. Images: image object is an object that is represented in graphics or encoded form. It is a
sub object of the hypermedia document object. There is no direct relationship between
successive representations in time. The image object includes all data types that are not coded
text. Document images, facsimile systems,fractals , bitmaps, metafiles and still pictures or still
video frames are grouped together.
NON-VISIBLE: the data types are not stored as images but displayed as images. Eg: pressure
gauges and temperature gauges.
Abstract: Abstract images are computer generated images based on some arithmetic calculations.
They are not really images that ever existed as real world objects. Eg. Fractals
1.4.3. Audio and voice: Stored audio and video objects contain compressed audio information.
This can consists of music speech telephone conversation and voice commands. An audio object
needs to store information about the sound clip. Information here means length of the sound clip,
its compression algorithm, playback characteristics and any annotation associated with the
original clip.
1.4.4 Full motion and live VIDEO: Full motion video refers to pre stored video clips. Live
video refers to live and it must be processed while it is captured by the camera. From a storage
perspective we should have the information about the coding algorithm used for compression. it
need decoding also.
From a processing perspective video should be presented to user with smooth and there should
not be any unexpected breaks.
Hence video object and its associated audio object must be transferred over the network to the
decompression unit. It should be then played ar the fixed rate specified for it.
For successful playback of compressed video there are number of technologies. They are databse
storage, network media and protocols, decompression engines and display engines.
1.4.5. MULTIMEDIA DATA INTERFACE STANDARDS:
• File formats for multimedia systems.
Device independent bitmap file format contains bit map, color and color palette information.
RIFF device independent bitmap for resource interchange .It is the standard file format for
Microsoft windows and OS/2. It allows a more complex set of bit maps that can be handled by
DIB
Musical Instrument digital interface is the interface standard for file transfer between a computer
and a musical instrument such as digital piano. It is also used for full motion video and voice
mail messaging systems. It has the advantage of ready availability of MIDI device controller
boards for personal computers.
RIFF Musical Instrument digital interface A MIDI format within a RIFF envelop provides a
more complex interface.
Palette File Format is an interface that allows defining a palette of 1 to 256 colors in a
representation as RGB values.
Rich text format allows embedding graphics and other file formats within a document. This
format is used by the products such as lotus notus. This format is also the basic for the use of
OLE.
Waveform Audio file Format is a digital file representation of digital audio.
Windows Metafile Format is the vector graphic format used by Microsoft windows as an
interchange format.
Multimedia Movie Format is a format used for digital video animation.
Apple’s Movie Format is defined as the standard for file exchange by quick time enabled
systems.
Digital Video command set is the set if digital video commands simulating VCR controls.
Digital Video Media control Interface is a Microsoft’s high level control interface for VCR
controls including play, rewind, record and so on.
Vendor Independent Messaging is developed by a consortium of venders providing a standard
format for cross product messages.
Apple’s Audio Interchange File Format is an apple’s standard file format for compressed audio
and voice data.
SDTS GIS standard isthe spatial data transfer standard is designed to provide a common storage
format for geographic and cartographic data.
1.4.6 VIDEO PROCESSING STANDARDS
INTELS DVI:
Dvi- Digital Video interface standard is to provide a processor independent specification for a
video interface. That video interface should accommodate most compression algorithms for fast
multimedia displays.
APPLE QUICK TIME
Quick time standard is developed by Apple Computer. It refers to both the extensions to the
MAC OS and to the compression/decompression functionality of the environment. It is designed
to be the graphics standard for time based graphic data types.
Microsoft AVI: Audio Video interleave standard . It offers low-cost,low-resolution video
processing for the average desktop user. It is a layered product. It allows users to set parameter
such as windows size,frame rate, quality and compression algorithm through a number of dialog
boxes. AVI compatible hardware allows enhancing performance through hardware accelerated
compression algorithm such as DVI and MPEG. AVI supports several compression algorithms.
1.5 MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE
1,5.1 Overview of Multimedia Software Tools
The basic tool set for building a multimedia project can be divided into following categories.
• Text editing and word processing tools
• Painting and Drawing tools
• 3-D modeling and Animation tools
• Image editing tools
• Sound editing tools
• Animation, Video, and Digital Movie Tools

1.5.1.1.Text Editing and Word Processing Tools

A word processor is usually the first software tool computer users learn. Your word processor
may also be your most often used tool, as you design and build a multimedia project.
Keyboarding and typing skills, the easier and more efficient will be your multimedia day-to-day
life. Word processor comes bundled in an “office suite” that might include spreadsheet, database,
e-mail;, web browser, and presentation application. Word processor such as Word and Word
perfect are powerful applications that include spell checkers, table formatters, thesauruses, and
pre built templates for letters, resumes, purchase orders and other common documents.
1.5.1.2 OCR Software
With optical character recognition software, a flat-bed scanner, and your computer, you can save
many hours of rekeying printed words, and get the job done faster than a roomful of typists.
OCR software turns bitmapped characters into electrically recognized ASCII text. A scanner
typically used to create a bitmap. Then the software breaks the bitmap into chunks according to
whether it contains text or graphics.
1.5.1.3 Painting and Drawing Tools
Painting and drawing tools, as well as 3-D modelers, are perhaps the most important items in
your multimedia projects. To have greater impact to the end user the painting and drawing tools
are used in the project Painting software such as Photoshop, Picture Publisher, and Fractal
Design Painter is dedicated to producing crafted bitmap images. Drawing software such as
CorelDraw, Freehand, Illustrator, Designer, and Canvas, is dedicated to producing vector based
line art easily to paper using PostScript or another page markup system such as QuickDraw on
the Macintosh.
1.5.1.4 3-D Modeling and Animation Tools
With 3-D modeling software, objects rendered in perspective appear more Realistic. You can
create stunning scenes and wander through them, choosing just the right lighting and perspective
for your final rendering image.Powerful modeling packages such as Macromedia’s Extreme 3D,
AutoDesk’s 3D Studio Max, Strata Vision’s 3D are available for objects such as
people,furniture, buildings, airplanes, trees etc.,
1.5.1.5 Image-Editing Tools
Imaging editing tools are specialized and powerful tools for enhancing and retouching existing
bitmapped images. These applications also provide many of the features and tools of painting
and drawing programs and can be used to create images from scratch as well as digitized images
from scanners, video frame-grabbers and digital cameras.
1.5.1.6 Sound Editing Tools
Sound editing tools for both digitized and MIDI sound let you see music as well as hear it. You
can cut, copy, paste and otherwise edit segments of it with great precision. System sounds are
shipped with both Macintosh and Windows systems as soon as you install the OS. Echo effects,
mixing of sound etc., can be made by Sound editing Tools. Software like Creative Labs’ Wave
Studio is used for editing sounds to perform in greater experience.
1.5.1.7. Animation, Video, and Digital Movie Tools
Animation and digital video movies are sequences of bitmapped graphic scenes (frames) rapidly
played back.
Movie making tools take advantages of Quick Time (Macintosh and Windows) and Microsoft
Video for Windows (also known as AVI ,or Audio Video Interleaved, available for Windows
only) technology and let you create, edit, and present digitized motion video segments, usually in
a small window in your project.
Moving making tools such as Premiere, VideoShop, and MediaStudio Pro let you edit and
assemble video clips captured from camera, tape, other digitized movie segments , scanned
images, animations, and from digitized audio.
1.5.2.Open Source Replacements:
As the multimedia tools are costlier they are replaced by open source software. Open source
software are denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and
may be redistributed and modified. The following are the open source tools available for
multimedia operations.
1.5.2.1.3D graphics and Animation:
Art of illusion replaces Autodesk MAYA
Blender replaces Autodesk MAYA
1.5.2.2.Audio Players:
Songbird replaces iTunes
CoolPlayer replaces windows media Player
Zinf replaces Windows Media Player
1.5.2.3.Audio Recorders and Editors
Audacity replaces SonarX1,Sony ACID,Adobe Audition
Frinika replaces SonarX1,Sony ACID
1.5.2.4.Multimedia Players
VLC Media Player replacesWindows Media Player
MPlayer replaces Windows Media Player
XBMC Media Center replaces Windows Media Player
MediaPortal replaces Windows Media Player
1.5.2.5.Video Editing:
Cinelerra replaces Adobe Premiere
OpenShot Video Editor replaces Adobe premiereProCS5
Avidemux replaces Adobe Premiere
Kdenlive replaces Adobe Premiere ProCS5
CineFX replaces AdobePremiereProCS5
1.5.2.6.Video file conversion
DVDx replaces Movavi video converter,Zamzar
DVD Flick replaces Movavi video converter,Zamzar
1.5.2.7.Video Player:
Miro replaces Windows Media Player.
1.5.3.Multimedia OS
The operating system is the shield of the computer hardware against all software components.
In multimedia the inputs audio and video from microphone, cameras and files as data and send to
the destination like loudspeaker, video windows and files located at a same computer or at a
remote station. On the way from source to sink, data manipulation process occurs and need many
resources which are under the control of operating system. i.e. Resource management is the main
function of multimedia OS. The resource management conceived single components as resources
and are reserved prior to execution.
In multimedia real time processing of continuous media data is taken care by process
management which must take into account the timing requirements imposed by the handling of
multimedia data. Appropriate scheduling methods should be applied. The communication and
synchronization between single processes must meet the restrictions of real time requirements
and timing relations among different media. The main memory is available as a shared resource
to single processes.
In multimedia database management should rely on file management services provided by the
multimedia OS to access single file and file systems.
In multimedia systems the important issue is the integration of audio and video devices in a
similar way to any other input output device. Device management is used to take care of these
operations.
Multi media OS has resource management, process management, file management and device
management as main functions.
1.5.4.Multimedia Authoring :
The process of creating multimedia application is known as multimedia authoring. During
authoring you might need to organize or edit the elements of your multimedia project, create user
interface and designing interactivity. This can be achieved through the use of authoring
programs/tools.
Multimedia authoring tools provide the framework for organizing and editing the elements of a
multimedia project. Authoring software provides an integrated environment for combining the
content and functions of a project. It enables the developer to create, edit and import data.
In multimedia authoring system, multimedia elements and events are often regarded as objects.
Objects exists in a hierarchical order of parent and child relationships. Each object is assigned
properties and modifiers. On receiving messages object perform tasks depending on the
properties and modifiers.
1.5.5.Some Useful Editing and Authoring Tools
Tools are used to merge multimedia elements (text, audio, graphic, animation, video) into a
project. And to designed to manage individual multimedia elements and provide user interaction.
1.5.5.1.Tools for Editing text: To create and edit the text documents the tools are used.
• Microsoft Word: A word processor tool developed by Microsoft working in IA-
32,X64,ARM platforms.
• Notepad: Notepad is a simple text editor for Microsoft windows and a basic text editing
program which enables computer users to create documents
1.5.5.2.Tools for Editing image: To create new images and edit the images.
• Adobe Photoshop: a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe systems for
MAC OS and windows.
1.5.5.3. Tools for Editing and Recording Audio: To record audio and make modifications in
the audio files.
• Audacity: Open source software. Record live audio through the microphone line-in and
can also digitize recordings like cassette tapes and mini discs etc.
 • MP3 audio editor: Used to convert any music into CD quality and can also add effects
trim and process the sound track.
• Power Sound editor free: Using this software record audio using the microphone and any
other sound that the sound card supports. Editing is so simple, visually edit the sound
track and see the changes when edit on the screen.
• Wave Sufer: It is a sound visualization and editing tool and is open source software that
is available for free. Used for research and in the transcription industry to enhance the
quality of the sound file.
1.5.5.4. Tools for Video Editing: To do necessary changes in the video files.
• DVD cutter: To cut out advertisements and parts of the DVDs and video files. To save
the result as a new mpeg or avi file.
• Total video converter: Extremely powerful and full featured video converter which
converts any video and audio to mp4,avi,ipad,mobile,DVD and burns video to DVD,Blu-
Ray etc.
1.5.5.5.Authoring Tools
• Macromedia authorware: Interpreted flow chart based graphical programming language.
Authorware is used for creating interactive programs that can integrate a range of
multimedia content particularly electronic educational technology(e-learning)
applications. The target platforms are Microsoft windows and Mac OS.
• Macromedia Flash: multimedia software platform used for production of animations,
desktop applications, mobile applications, mobile games and embedded web browser
video players. Flash displays text, vector graphics and raster graphics to provide
animations, video games and applications. It allows streaming of audio and video and
capture mouse, keyboard, microphone and camera input. The target platforms for flash
are web browsers, iOS, Android, Windows, MAC OS. It is divided into editor software
and player software.
• Adobe animate, Flash builder, flash develop, power flasher FDT, flash catalyst, scale
form are some of the editor software. Flash player, Adobe AIR, scale form, Gnash, Light
spark are some of the player software. SWF, FLV and FLA are the file formats used and
Action Script is the programming language for this tool.
1.5.6.VRML
Virtual reality modeling language is a standard file format for representing 3 dimensional
interactive vector graphics designed particularly with the world wide web. (i.e.) used to illustrate
3D objects ,buildings ,landscapes or other items requiring 3d structure and is very similar to
HTML. Used to build a sequence of visual images into web settings with which the user can
interact by viewing, moving, rotating and otherwise interacting with an apparently 3D scene. To
view a VRML file VRML viewer or browser is needed.
1.5.7.OpenGL
Open graphics library is the computer industry’s standard application program interface for
defining 2 D and 3D graphic images. Using open GL an application can create the same effects
in any OS using any OpenGL adhering graphics adapter. It specifies a set of commands or
immediately executed functions. Each command executes a drawing action or causes special
effects. A list of these commands can be created for repetitive effects. Open GL comes with a
large number of built-in capabilities request able through the API. They are
• Hidden surface removal
• Transparency
• Anti aliasing
• Texture mapping
• Pixel operations
• Viewing and modeling transformations
• Atmospheric effects.
1.5.8. Windows and Open Source APIs
For 3D animation :Blender, Wings 3D
3D graphics: POV-Roy4
3D game development kit: Crystal Space,Ogre3d
For Audio composition: OpenSebJ
Audio Editing: Audocity
Audio Player : cool player,Zinf,Song bird
Drum Machine: Hydrogen
MP3 ripper: CDex
Volume Normalizer: MP3Gain
For Drawing Editor: Dia
image editor: Gimp, Pinta
vector drawing: Inkscape
digital painting: MyPaint
For internet TVplatform: Miro
Video capture: VitrualDub
videoEditing: Jashaka,Avidemux

REVIEW QUESTIONS
2 MARKS.
1.Define Multimedia
2.What are the basic objects of multimedia
3.Expand CBT
4. What are the places in which multimedia is used
5. Define facsimile
6 What is the use of GIS
7. What is the use of OCR
8. Expand GUI
9. Expand API
10. Expand ATM
11. Expand FDDI
12. Expand HTTP
13. Expand HDTV,UDTV
14. Expand MIDI
15. Expand DVI
16. Expand VRML
17. What is OpenGL
18. Which tool is used for editing image in a multimedia
3 MARKS
1. Mention the main areas of multimedia usage?
2. Define Virtual Reality
3. What is full motion video
4. Write about text editing and word processing tools
5. Write about painting and drawing tools
6. Write about 3D modeling and animation tools
7. Write about sound editing tools
8. Mention the tools used for video editing
5MARKS
1. Write about Multimedia elements
2. Explain any five applications of multimedia
3. Draw and explain Multimedia System architecture
4. Draw and explain IMA architecture
5. Explain Network architecture for multimedia systems.
6. Write about tools for editing and recording audio information
7. Write about open source APIs
 UNIT – II DEFINING OBJECTS FOR MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS

2.1 TEXT
It is a collection of characters that makes the user understand very easily and special meaning is
given. Text can be used for communication. The information what you are trying to say will be
given as a text. Mostly, a text in multimedia plays a vital role
Defintion: It is a printed or written version of speech, and also it gives the main facts about the
subjects.
2.1.1. About Fonts and Faces
Typeface: A typeface is a family of graphic characters that usually includes many type sizes and
styles.
Font: A font is a collection of characters of a single size and style belonging to a particular
typeface family. Typical font styles are boldface and italic. Type sizes are usually expressed in
points; one point is .0138 inches or about 1/ 72 of an inch. The font’s size is the distance from
the top of the capital letter to the bottom of the descenders in letters such as g and y. A font’s size
does not exactly describe the height and width of its characters. This is because the x-height (the
height of the lower case letter x) of two fonts may vary, while the height of the capital letters of
those fonts may be the same. Computer fonts automatically add space below the descender to
provide appropriate line spacing, or leading .Leading can be adjusted in most programs on both
Macintosh and in Windows. When you type lower case letters the ascenders and descenders will
be changed but, for upper case it won’t.
 Fig 2.1. Text and its measures
Character Metrics: it is a general measurement applied to individual characters.
Kerning: It is the spacing between character pairs.
Cases: The font always will be stored in two cases Capital letters (Upper Case) and small letters
(Lower Case).
Serif Vs Sans Serifs Type has been characterized as feminine, masculine, delicate, formal,
capricious, witty, comic, happy, technical and newsy.

Fig2.2. Serif Vs Sanserif

Note: Serif versus Sans Serif is the simplest way to categorize a typeface; the serif is the little
decoration at the end of a letter stroke.
Examples: Times, New Century School book, Bookman, and Palatino are examples of Serif
fonts. Helvetica, Arial, optima, and Avant Garde are Sans serif.
On the printed page, serifs fonts are traditionally used for body text because the serifs are said to
help guide the reader’s eye along the line of text..Sans serif fonts on the other hand are used for
headlines and bold statements.
2.1.2. Using Text in Multimedia
Text in multimedia helps the user to Navigate through the multimedia project. The text and the
screen used for creating a multimedia project should be a related one. Clear font should be used
of same sizes on the screens. Too much of text can make the screen overcrowded and unpleasant.
On the other hand, if provide public-speaking support, the text will be keyed to a live
presentation where the text accents the main message.
2.1.2.1.Choosing Text Fonts
Decorative fonts and legible fonts can be used in the multimedia project. Use italic and Bold
faces whenever needed. Using too many fonts on the same page is called ransom-note
typography. In text blocks, adjust the leading for the most pleasing line spacing. Lines too tightly
packed are difficult to read.
2.1.2.2.Importance of the messages should vary with the font size
In large-size headlines, adjust the spacing between letters (kerning), big gaps between large
letters can turn the title into a toothless waif. Necessary background colors are used to explore
the effect of text .Use meaningful words or phrases for links and menu items.
Bold or emphasize text to highlight ideas or concepts, but do not make text look like a link or a
button when it is not. At web sites, shadowed text and graphics on a plain white background add
depth to a page.
2.1.2.3.Menus for Navigation
An interactive multimedia project or web site typically consists of a body of information or
content through which a user navigates by pressing a key, clicking a mouse or pressing a touch
screen. The simplest menus consist of text lists of topics. Users choose a topic, click it and go
there. On the web designers typically place on every page at least a main menu of links that
offers the user a handheld and mechanism for returning to the beginning.
2.1.2.4.Buttons for Interaction
In multimedia, buttons are the objects, such as blocks of text, a pretty blue triangle or a
photograph, that make things happen when they are clicked. The automatic button-making tools
supplied with multimedia and HTML page authoring systems are useful, but in creating the text
for you, they offer little opportunity to fine tune the look of the text. Shaping sizing, bordering,
high lighting the buttons know what to do with them.
2.1.2.5.Symbols and Icons
Symbols are concentrated text in the form of standalone graphic constructs. Symbols convey
meaningful messages. For example the window hourglass cursor tells you to wait while
computer is processing. Certainly text is more efficient than imagery and pictures for delivering
a precise message to users. On the other hand pictures, icons, moving images and sounds are
most easily recalled and remembered by viewers.
2.1.2.6.HTML Documents
The standard document format used for pages on the World Wide Web is called HTML.
In a HTML document typefaces, sizes, color and other properties are specified by “ marking up “
the text in the documents with tags.HTML doesn’t provide with much flexibility to make pretty
text elements but may be able to layout pleasing using block quote indents, tables, frames and
horizontal rules.
2.1.3. Hypermedia and Hypertext
Interactive multimedia becomes hypermedia when its designer provides a structure of linked
elements through which a user can navigate and interact. When words are keyed or indexed to
other words, you have a hypertext system. The text in World Wide Web is Hypertext. Using
hypertext systems, you can electronically search through all the text of a computer-resident book,
locate references to a certain word, and then immediately view the page where the word was
found.
2.1.4. Using Hypertext
Hyper texts have been designed to present electronic text, images, and other elements in a
database fashion. Hypertext indexing tools are available for both Macintosh and
Windows..Hypertext-based projects typically require the large mass-storage capability of one or
many CD-ROMs and/or dedicated gigabyte hard disks.
2.1.5. Hypermedia Structures
Nodes and links are the two important words in hypermedia. Nodes are text, graphics, sounds or
the relational information in the knowledge base. Links are connection between the nodes. The art
of hypermedia design lies in the visualization of these nodes and their links .Anchor is used for
the reference from one document to another document, image, sound or file on the web. A link
anchor is where the data come from; a link end is the destination node linked to the anchor.
Buttons are used to navigate hypermedia structures that is contained at the nodes.

Fig 2.3. Pages of text with hot words linked to info bites only.

.
Fig 2.4. Pages of text with hot words linked info bites linked to pages and to other info bites

2.1.6 Hypertext Tools:

Hyper text tools are used to form hypermedia structures. The following are some of
the hyper text tools available.
Tinderbox: a personal content assistant that helps to visualize, analyze, and share the
notes, plans and ideas.
Story Space – a tool for hyper writers to write complex ,interlinked narrative, both
fiction and non-fiction stories.
Web squirrel: a tool to help people visualize cyberspace. It helps to create spatial
maps of URLs, email addresses and other internet resources.
2.2. IMAGES
What see on a multimedia computer screen at any given time is a composite of elements: text,
symbols, photograph-like bitmaps, vector-drawn graphics, three dimensional renderings,
distinctive buttons to click, and windows of motion video.
2.2.1.Making Still Images
Still images may be small, or large, or even full screen. They may be colored, placed at random
on the screen, evenly geometric or oddly shaped. Still images are generated by the computer in
two ways: as bitmaps (or paint graphics) and as vector-drawn (or just plain drawn) graphics. It
maps are used for photo-realistic images. Vector drawn objects are used for lines, boxes, circles,
polygons, and other graphic shapes that can mathematically expressed in angles, coordinates, and
distances. The appearance of both types of images depends on the display resolution and
capabilities of the computer’s graphics hardware and monitors. Both types of images are stored
in various file formats and can be translated from one application to another or from one
computer platform to another. Image files are compressed to save memory and disk space; many
images formats already use compression within the file itself – e.g. GIF, JPEG, and PNG
2.2.2.Bitmaps
Bitmap is a simple information describing the individual dots that are the smallest elements of
resolution on a computer screen or other display or printing device. One-dimensional matrix is
required for monitoring (black and white); greater depth is required to describe the more than 16
million colors. These picture elements are called pels or pixels. Varying colors shades of 4-bit,
16 colors; 8-bit, 256 colors; 15-bit, 32, 768 colors; o 16-bit, 65, 536 colors; 24-bit, 16,772,216
colors are available. There are three different ways to make a bitmap:
• Make a bitmap from scratch with a paint or drawing program.
• Grab a bitmap from an active computer screen with a screen capture program, and
then paste it into a paint program or your application.
• Capture a bitmap from a photo, artwork, or a television image using a scanner or
video capture device that digitizes the image.
2.2.3.1Bit Images:
Binary images are encoded as a 2D array, using one bit per pixel where a 0 represents “black”
and 1 represents “white”. The main advantage of this representation usually suitable for images
containing simple graphics, text or line .

Fig 2.5. One bit image

2.2.4.Gray Level 8 Bit Images:

Gray level(monochrome ) images are also encoded as a 2D array of pixels, using 8 bit per pixel
where a pixel value of 0 usually means “black” and a pixel value of 255 means “white” with
intermediate values corresponding to varying shades of gray.
The total number of gray levels is larger than human visual requirements, making this format a
good compromise between subjective visual quality and relatively compact representation and
storage. It can also be thought ofas a collection of bit planes where each plane contains a 1 bit
representation of the image at different levels of detail.

Fig2.6. Gray level 8 bit

2.2.5.8bit Color Images:

One byte for each pixel. Supports 256 out of the millions possible, acceptable color quality .
The 8 bits directly describe red, green, and blue values typically with three bits for red, three
bits for green and two bits for blue. Normal human eye is less sensitive to the blue component
than to the red or green. So it is assigned one bit less than the others.It does not use a palette at
all. The 8 bits are separated into two parts as Color map and array of index. Color map contain
information about the colors in the image and array of index contain pixel value’s index value.

Fig 2.7. 8 bit color image

2.2.6.Dithering
Dithering is a process whereby the color value of each pixel is changed to the closest matching
color value in the target palette, using a mathematical algorithm. Depending upon the algorithm
used, dithering can render a very good approximation of the original. Dithering concepts are
important to understand when you are working with bitmaps that are derived from RGB
information or are based upon different palettes or color lookup tables. Dithering software is
usually built into image-editing programs and is also available in many multimedia authoring
systems as part of the application’s palette management suite of tools.

2.2.7.24bit Color Images:

Normally known as true color. It provides a method of representing and storing graphical image
information in an RGB color space such that a very large number of colors, shades and hues can
be displayed in an image, such as high quality photographic images or complex graphics.
Each pixel is represented in 24 bits (i.e.) 3 bytes. One byte for Red, one byte for Green and one
byte for Blue. Each byte represent 256 colors and totally 16 million colors are represented by this
type. The human eye can desriminate up to 10 million colors.
 Fig 2.8. 24bit color images

2.2.8.Vector Drawing
Vector-drawn objects are drawn are described and drawn to the computer screen using a fraction
of the memory space required to describe and store the same object in bitmap form. A Vector is a
line that is described by the location of its two endpoints. A simple rectangle, for example, might
be defined as follows:
RECT 0, 0, 200, 200
Using Cartesian coordinates, your software will draw this rectangle starting at the upper-left
corner of your screen, going 200 pixels horizontally to the right, and 200 pixels downward. This
rectangle would be a square, as all sides are identical lengths.
RECT 0, 0, 200, 200, RED, BLUE
The software will drawn the same square with a red boundary line and fill the square with the
color blue. The user can , add other parameters to describe a fill pattern or the width of the
boundary line.
2.2.9.3- D Drawing and Rendering
For a image if the pixel is represented in x,y,z axis then it is known as 3D representation.
Macromedia Extreme3D or Form-Z or Carrera are used as tools for extend vector drawn
graphics into 3 dimensions graphics.3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of
automatically converting 3D wireframe models into 2D images with 3D photorealistic effects or
non photorealistic rendering on a computer.
Rendering are of three types.
• Real time
• Non Real time
• Reflection and Shading models
Real time:
Rendering for interactive media such as games and simulations is calculated and displayed in
real time, at rates of approximately 20 to 120 frames per second. The primary goal is to achieve
an as high as possible degree of photorealism at an acceptable minimum rendering speed. The
final image presented is not necessarily that of the real world, but one close enough for the
human eye to tolerate.
Non Real time:
Non real time rendering enables the leveraging of limited processing power in order to obtain
higher image quality. Rendering frames are stored on a hard disk then can be transferred to
other media such as motion picture film or optical disk. The frames are then displayed
sequentially at high frame rates typically 24,25 or 30 frames per second to achieve the illusion
of movement. Many layers of material may be rendered separately and integrated into the final
shot using compositing software.
Reflection and Shading Models:
Refelection/scattering and shading are used to describe the appearance of a surface.Surface
shading use the technique of how light spreads across a surface. Flat shading,gouraud shading
and phong shading are the different algorithms used. Refelection use the technique of how light
interacts with a surface at a given point. (i.e) the relationship between the incoming and
outgoing illumination at a given point.

Fig 2.9. Reflection and shading

2.2.10.Color
Color is a vital component of multimedia. Picking a right color and combination of colors for
your project can involve many tries until you feel the result is right. There are several methods
and models to describe color space using mathematical values
2.2.11.Understanding Natural Light and Color
Light comes from an atom when an electron passes from a higher to a lower energy level; each
atom produces uniquely specific colors – known as Quantum theory. Color is the frequency of a
light wave within the narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum to which the human eye
responds. In a rainbow light spectrum – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Light
that is infrared, or below the frequency of red light and not perceivable by the human eye, can be
created and viewed by electronic diodes and sensors, and it is used for TV & VCR remote
controls. Infrared light is radiated heat. Green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, pink, brown, black,
gray, and white are the ten most common color-describing words used in all human languages
and cultures.
2.2.12.Computerized Color
Since the eye’s receptors are sensitive to red, green, and blue light, by adjusting
combinations of these three additive colors, the eye and brain will interpolate the
combinations of colors in between. The red, green, and blue dots light up when hit by
the electron beam, and the eye sees the combination of red, green, and blue (RGB) light
and interpolates it.
RGB Combination Perceived Color

Red only Red

Green only Green

Blue only Blue

Red and green (blue subtracted) Yellow

Red and blue (green subtracted) Magenta

Green and blue (red subtracted) Cyan

Red, green, and blue White

None Black
2.2.13. Color Palettes
Palettes are mathematical tables that define the color of a pixel displayed on the
screen. On the Macintosh, these tables are called color lookup tables or CLUTs. In
Windows the term palettes is used. The most common palettes are 1, 4, 8, 16, and 24
bits deep:
Color depth Colors Available

1-bit Black and white (or any two colors)

4-bit 16colors

8-bit 256 colors (good enough for color images)

16-bit Thousands of colors (excellent for color images)

24-bit More than 16 million colors (totally photo-realistic)

2.2.14. Color lookup table

A mechanism used to transform a range of input colors into another range of colors. It can be a
hardware device built into an imaging system or a software function built into an image
processing application. The hardware color look up table will convert the logical colour
numbers stored in each pixel of video memory into physical colors, normally represented as
RGB triplets. The palette is simply a block of fast RAM which is addressed by the logical color
and whose output is split into the red, green and blue levels which drive the actual display.
2.2.15. Image Processing
Image processing is a method to convert an image into digital form and perform some operations
on it in order to get an enhanced image or to extract some useful information from it. (i.e)
treating images as two dimensional signals while applying already set signal processing methods
to them. It include the following three steps.
• Importing the image with optical scanner or by digital photography.
• Analyzing and manipulating the image which includes data compression and image
enhancement and spotting patterns that are not ot human eyes like satellite photographs.
• Output is the last stage in which result can be altered image or report that is based on image
analysis.
The purpose of image processing is visualization, image sharpening and restoration, image
retrieval, measurement of pattern and image recognition. There are two types of image
processing analog and digital. Analog techniques can be used for the hard copies like printouts
and photographs. Digital processing techniques help in manipulation of the digital images by
using computers.
2.2.16.Image Acquisition
Image acquisition is defined as the action of retrieving an image from some source so it can be
pass through whatever processes need to occur afterwards. The ultimate goal of this process is to
have a source of input that operates within such controlled and measured guidelines that the
same image can if necessary be nearly perfectly reproduced under the same conditions. The
actual hardware device can be anything from a desktop scanner to a massive optical telescope.if
the hardware is not properly configured and aligned then visual artifacts can be produced that
can complicate the image processing. Real time image acquisition is one form of image
acquisition. This usually involves retrieving images from a source that is automatically capturing
images. Real time image acquisition create a stream of files that can be automatically processed
queued for later work or stitched into a single media format.
2.2.17.Image Enhancement:
Image enhancement refers to accentuation or sharpening of image features such as edges,
boundaries or contrast to make a graphic display more useful for display and analysis. The
enhancement process does not increase the inherent information content in the data. But it does
increase the dynamic range of the chosen features. Image enhancement includes gray level and
contrast manipulation, noise reduction, edge crispening and sharpening, filtering, interpolation ad
magnification, pseudo coloring and so on. The above functions are grouped as Point operations,
Spatial operations transform operations and pseudo coloring. The greatest difficulty in image
enhancement is quantifying the criterion for enhancement.
2.2.18. Color Image Processing:
There are two types of image processing. Pseudo color image processing and full color image
processing.
2.2.18.1.Pseudo color image processing:
It consists of assigning colors to grey values based on a specific criterion. Intensity slicing and
color coding is one of the simplest kinds of pseudo color image processing.
• Intensity slicing: Separate independent transformation of gray level inputs to three colors.
• Color Coding: Composite the image with color content modulated by nature of
transformation function.
2.2.18.2.Full Color image processing
Full color image processing approaches divided into two major categories. Approaches that
process each component image individually and then form a composite processes color image
from the individually processed components.
Approaches that work with color pixels directly. Pixels are views as vectors and scalar methods
are extended to operate on vector fields. Color complements, color slicing color balancing are the
different techniques used in the processing. Color complements are used to enhance details
buried in dark regions of an image. Color slicing used to highlight a specific range of colors in an
image to separate objects from surroundings. Color balancing is a process to compensate for
incandescent lighting.
Histogram processing provides an automated way to perform enhancement. Histogram
equalization adapting the grayscale technique to multiple components, applying gray scale
techniques to different colors independently yields erroneous colors. Spread the intensities
uniformly leaving the hues unchanged.
2.2.18.3.File formats
Tiff: Tagged Image File Format; supports grayscale, indexed and true color images. A single file
contains a number of images with different properties. It provides a range of different
compression methods and color spaces.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format: does not support true color imaes. Allows pixels to be
encoded using fewer bits.
• Use lossless color quantization
• PNG Portable Network Graphics
• Supports three different types of images
• True color with upto 3x16 bpp
• Grayscale with upto 16bpp
• Indexed with upto 256 colors
• Supports only one image per file .
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group: supports images with up to 256 color components.
Goal to achieve average data reduction of 1:16.Loseless compression.
2.3.SOUND
Sound is perhaps the most sensuous element of multimedia. It is meaningful “speech” in any
language. It can provide the listening pleasure of music, the startling accent of special effects, or
the ambience of a mood-setting background.
2.3.1.The power of Sound
When something vibrates in the air by moving back and forth it creates waves of pressure. These
waves spread like the ripples from a pebble tossed in a still pool. And when they reach your
eardrums, you experience the changes of pressure, or vibrations, as sound. Acoustics is the
branch of physics that studies sound. Sound pressure levels are measured in decibels (db).
2.3.2.Digital Audio
You can digitize sound from a microphone, a synthesizer, existing tape recording, live audio and
television broadcasts, popular CDs etc. Digital audio data is the actual representation of sound,
stored in the form of samples. Samples represent the amplitude (or loudness) of sound at a
discrete point in time. Quality of digital recording depends on the sampling rate(or frequency)
that is the number of samples taken per second. The three sampling frequencies most often used
in multimedia are CD-quality 14.0kHz, 22.05 kHz and 11.025 kHz. The number of bits used to
describe the amplitude of sound wave when sampled, determines the sample size (either 8-bits or
16-bits). 8-bit sampling size provides 256 bits to describe dynamic range of amplitude. 16-bit
sampling size provides over 65 thousand bits for dynamic range, but significantly increases space
requirements The figure shows, slices of analog waveforms are sampled at various frequencies,
and each discrete sample is then stored either as 8 or 16 bits of data.
Sampling frequency/rate: how often the sound sample is taken
Sampling size: how much information is stored per sample
2.3.4.Making Digital Audio Files:
Crucial aspects of preparing digital audio files are:
• Balancing the need for sound quality against available RAM and hard disk resource.
• Setting appropriate recording levels to get a high-quality and clean recording.
2.3.4.1.File Size Versus Quality
Two types of recording 1) Mono 2) Stereo.
o Mono recordings are fine, but tend to sound a bit “flat” and uninteresting when
compared with stereo recordings.
o Stereo sound files require twice as much storage space as mono files for the
same length of time.Here are the formulas for determining the size (in bytes) of
a digital recording.

For Monophonic recording:

Sampling rates * duration of recording in seconds * (bit resolution / 8) * 1
For Stereo recording:
Sampling rates * duration of recording in seconds * (bit resolution / 8) * 2
E.g., for a 10 second recording at 20.05 kHz, 8-bit resolution, monophonic (good for
speech):
22050 kilohertz * 10 seconds * 8/8 * 1 = 220,500 bytes
Or, for 10 seconds of good music quality at 44.1 kHz, 16-bit resolution, stereo:
44100 kHz * 10 * 16/8 * 2 = 1,764,000
2.3.4.2.Editing Digital Recordings
Once recording has been made, it will almost certainly need to be edited. WaveStudio sound
editing software is useful in editing sound.
2.3.4.3.Basic Sound editing operations
• Multipletracks
Being able to edit and combine multiple tracks ( for sound effects, voice overs, music etc)and
then merge the tracks and export them in a final mix to a single audio file is important.
• Trimming
Removing “dead air” or blank space from the front of a recording and any unnecessary extra
time off the end is your first sound editing task. Trimming even a few seconds here and there
might make a big difference in your file size. Trimming is typically accomplished by dragging
the mouse cursor over a graphic representation of your recording and choosing a menu command
such as cut, paste, clear, erase, silence etc.
• Splicing and Assembly
Using the same tools mentioned for trimming you will probably want to remove the extraneous
noises that inevitably creep into a recording. Even the most controlled studio voice -overs require
touchup. Also, you may need to assemble longer recordings by cutting and pasting together
many shorter ones.
• Volume Adjustment
When trying to assemeble ten different recordings into a single sound track there is a little
chance that all the segments will have the same volume.
• Format Conversion
In some cases the digital audio editing software might read a format different from that by the
presentation or authoring program. Most machintosh sound editing software will save files in
SND and AIF formats. In windows most editing software writes .WAV files.
• Resampling and Desampling
If the sounds are recorded and edited at 16-bit sampling rates but are using lower rates and
resolutions in the project it must be resample or downsample the file. This process will save
considerable disk space.
• Fade-ins and Fade-outs
Most programs offers enveloping capability, this enveloping is important to smooth out the very
beginning and the very end of a sound file.
• Equalization
Some programs offer digital equalization (EQ) capabilities that allow you to modify a
recording’s frequency content to sound brighter or darker.
• Time Stretching
More advanced programs let you alter the length of a sound file without changing its pitch. Most
time stretching algorithms will severely degrade the audio quality of the file if the length is
altered more than a few percent in either direction.
• Digital Signal Processing(DSP)
some programs allow the user to process the signal effects such as reverberation, multitap delay,
chorus, flange, and other special effects.Once sound effects is processed and mixed onto a track,
it cannot be further edited, so always save the original so you can tweak it again if you are not
happy with the results.
• Reversing Sounds
Another simple manipulation is to reverse all or portion of a digital audio recording. Sounds,
particularly spoken dialog, can produce a surreal, otherworldly effect then played backward.

2.3.5.Making MIDI Audio

To make MIDI scores you will need sequencer software such as Microsoft Studio for windows
and a sound synthesizer (typically built into the sound board on PCs but an add-on board or
peripheral for the Macintosh. MIDI keyboard is also useful to simplify the creation of musical
scores. The MIDI keyboard is not, however necessary for playback unless the keyboard has its
own built-in synthesizer that you wish to specify for playback. Sequencer software lets you
record and edit MIDI data and quantizes your score to adjust for timing inconsistencies. The
sequencer software records your actions on the MIDI keyboard in real -time, and will play back
exactly the notes you played on the keyboard. The software may also print a neatly penned of
your score to paper. Sequencing software such as MidiSoft Studio4 for windows lets you to
record, edit, and save music generated from a MIDI keyboard or instrument.
2.3.6.MIDI Versus Digital Audio
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is communication standard developed in early
1980s for electronic musical instruments and computers.It allows music and sound synthesizers
from different manufactures to communicate with each other by sending messages along cables
connected to the devices. MIDI provides a protocol for passing detailed descriptions of musical
scores, such as the notes, sequences of notes, and what the instrument will play these notes.
MIDI data are not digitized sounds; they are shorthand representations of music stored in
numeric form. A sequencer software and sound synthesizer is required in order to create MIDI
scores. Working with MIDI requires knowledge of music theory. MIDI is analogous to structure
or vector graphics, while digitized audio is analogous to bit mapped images. MIDI is device
dependent while digitized audio is device independent.
2.3.7.Multimedia System Sounds
System sounds are assigned to various system events such as startup and warnings among others.
MAC provides several system sound options such as glass, Indigo and laugh.
In windows available system sounds include start, wav, chimes.wav and chord.wav
Multimedia sounds are either digitally recorded audio or MIDI music.
2.3.8. Adding Sound to Your Multimedia Project
Whether working on a Macintosh or in Windows, follow certain steps to bring an audio
recording in to a multimedia project. Here is a brief overview of the process:
 1. The type of sound, whether background music, special sound effects, or spoken
dialog, must be decided. Decide where these audio events will occur in the flow of
the project.
2. Decide where and when the user want to use either digital audio or MIDI data
3. Acquire source material by creating it from scratch or purchasing it.
4. Edit the sounds to fit to the project.
Test the sounds to be sure that are timed properly with the project’s images. This may involve
repeating steps 1 thru 4 until everything is sync.
2.3.8.1.Audio Recording
Record the sound material to cassette tape is the first step in the digitized process. Noise
reduction circuits and metal tapes are used to remove hiss at a sampling rate of 22.05kHz.Digital
audio tapes are based on 44.1 kHz, 16 bit record and playback capacity.
2.3.10.Keeping Tracks of Your Sound
It is important to maintain a good database, keeping track of the original material just in case the
user need to revert to it when the disk drive crashes. Give the name of the file such that it should
have some clues about the content since when searching for it will be easy to find out.
2.3.11.Audio CDs
CD ROM s are used for storing audio files. There are many standards , new technology, high
capacity CD ROMs are available in the market.
The following are the different standards in Audio CD’s
2.3.11.1. Red Book Standard
It is known as CD-DA(digital Audio) .Contains number of tracks with each song in one
track.Each track is divided into number of sectors. Each sector is 1/75 second length and 2352
bytes storage capacity.
2.3.11.2.Yellow book Mode 2
It is used for compressed audio. It contain information about song heading,name of the singer,
track number and created date etc.
2.3.11.3.CD-XA( CD-Extended Architecture)
It is a modification of CD-ROM that defines two new types of sectors that enable it to read and
display data, graphics ,video, audio at the same time.
2.3.12.Sound for Your Mobile
Mobile phones are used to take photos, record videos, listen music and play games. They are part
of multimedia. The following are the some audio standards used in the mobile phone.
AAC: Advance Audio Coding having very small files with compressed data are in this fromat.
Ring tones are belong to this format.
MP3: To store and playmusic files. Media player software is required to play this file format.
OGG: It is a free open container format maintained by the xiph. Org foundation.
AMR: ( Adaptive Multirate): It is an audio compression format optimized for speech coding.
WAV: Waveform Audio File format is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for
storing an audio bit stream on PCs
WMA: Windows Media Audio is the name of a series of audio codecs and their corresponding
audio coding formats developed by Microsoft.
2.3.13.Sound for the Internet:
Depending on the browser different sound formats are available in the internet. The following
are the some sound formats used in the internet.
WAV: waveform audio file format is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing
an audio bitstream on PCs and on web browsers.
MP3 format: it is a format from MPEG to store music files. As this is having best compression
and best quality used in all browsers.
Windows Media Format: Windows Media Audio is the name of a series of audio codecs and
their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft for windows operating
system.Additional hardwares are required when this format files are used in other than
Microsoft.
MIDI format: It is a protocol designed for recording and playing back music on digital
synthesizers that is supported by many makes of personal computer sound cards.
2.4. ANIMATION
A way of making a movie by using a series of drawings, computer graphics or photograph of
objects( such as puppets or models) that are slightly different from one another and that when
views quickly one after another create the appearance of movement.
Animation makes static presentations come alive and adds visual impact to the multimedia
project. Many multimedia applications for both Macintosh and Windows provide animation
tools, but the programmer should first understand the principles of how the eye interprets the
changes it sees as motion.
2.4.1.The Power of the Motion
Visual effects such as Wipes, Fades, Zooms and Dissolves can be used for primitive animation.
Animation is more than wipes, fades and zooms. Animation is an object actually moving across
into or out of the screen, spinning globe of our earth, a car driving along a line-art highway; a
bug crawling out from under a stack of papers, with a screaming voice from the speaker telling “
Shoot it now!”.
2.4.2.Principles of Animation
Animation is possible because of a biological phenomenon known as persistence of vision. It
makes possible for a series of images that are changed very slightly and very rapidly one after
the other to seemingly blend together into a visual illusion of movement. To just change lightly
the location or shape of an object rapidly enough, the eye will perceive the changes as motion.
Television video builds 30 entire frames or pictures every second; the speed with which each
frame is replaced by the next one makes the images appear to blend smoothly into movement.
Movies on film are typically shot at a shutter rate if 24 frames per second but using projection
tricks, the flicker rate is increased to 48 times per second, and the human eye thus sees a motion
picture.
2.4.3. Animation by Computer
Using appropriate software and techniques , animate the visual images in many ways. The
simplest animation by 2D , more complicated by 2 ½D and most realistic animations by 3D.
2D animation creates movement in a two dimensional artistic space. It requires both creativity
and technological skills. 2D animation focuses on creating characters, storyboards and
backgrounds in two dimensional environments. (i.e.) the figures can move up or down, left and
right. It uses bitmap and vector graphics to create and animated images and is created using
computers and software programs such as adobe photoshop, flash , after effects and Encore.
In 2 ½ -D animation an illusion of depth is added to an image through shadowing and
highlighting, but the image itself still rests on the flat x axis and y axis in two dimensions.
Embossing, shadowing, beveling and high lighting provides a sense of depth by raising an image
or cutting it into a background. Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, fireworks and After Effects.
In 3D animation software created a virtual realm in three dimensions and changes (motion) are
calculated along all three axes(x, y, and z), allowing an image or object that itself is created with
a front, back, sides, top and bottom to move towards or away from the viewer or in this virtual
space of light sources and points of view, allowing the viewer to wander around and get a look at
all the object’s parts from all angles. Such animations are typically rendered frame by frame by
high end 3D animations programs such as Auto Desk’s Maya.
2.4.4.Animation Techniques
Animation is an illusion of movement created by sequentially playing still image frames at the
rate of 15-20 frames per second. The eye retains the image long enough to allow the brain to
connect the frames in a continuous sequence creating the illusion of movement. Colors and
background can be changed from frame to frame so that there is a perception of a moving object.
There are many ways to achieve varying levels of animation.
When create an animation, organize its execution into a series of logical steps. First, gather up in
the mind, about all the activities the designer wish to provide in the animation; If it is
complicated the designer may wish to create a written script with a list of activities and required
objects. Choose the animation tool best suited for the job. Then build and tweak the sequences;
experiment with lighting effects. Allow plenty of time for this phase when the designer are
experimenting and testing. Finally, post-process the animation, doing any special renderings and
adding sound effects.
The ways of achieving varying levels of animation by the following.
• Toggling between image frames
• Rotating through several image frames
• Delta frame animation
• Palette animation.
2.4.4.1.Toggling between image frames: create simple animation by changing images at
display time. The simple way is to toggle between two different images. A timer can be used to
toggle between the images at specific intervals to ensure that the user can see the change. The
timer measures intervals in increments of milliseconds. Icons and metafiles can also be used as
images for animation frames.
2.4.4.2.Rotating through several image frames : Playing several image frames in a loop to
create a rotation effect is another approach to animation. The animation contains several frames
displayed in a loop. Since the animation consists of individual frames , the playback can be
paused and resumed at any time. The application increments the frame numbers to keep track of
the current frame in the animation. The animation can be controlled by a timer if one could rely
on the computation time to achieve a reasonable playback.
2.4.4.3.Delta Frame animation: An initial frame is displayed and successive frames are based
on what has changed between the current image frame and the next image frame. The changes
are called the delta and by displaying only the data rendering time can be reduced to produce a
smoother animation.
The process as follows
• Select the first frame in the sequence and store it as a bitmap, such as a windows DIB
format.
• Compare the bitmaps of consecutive frames .Due to the nature of animation sequences
the differences are often quite small compared to the size of the entire frame.
• Encode the set of changed pixels into the RLE format. The encoded format will contain
information only on the pixels that change, the RLE bitmap is stored instead of the full
frame.
2.4.4.4.Palette Animation:Palette animation involves drawing the object and manipulating
palette colors or just manipulating palette colors without redrawing the object. Letus take a
circular shape moving from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen. The shape
begin moving toward the right side with an initial color of red. As it moves it is redrawn on a
regular basis with a different palette entry so that its color changes each time it is redrawn.
In some cases the object does not move. Only its color changes. For example, a wheel can be
drawn with different color segments. The palette entries are changed one at a time at regular
intervals so that the segment colors change on a regular basis. These palette entries can be cycled
in a such a manner as to create the illusion of movement.
2.4.5.Animation Using OpenGL:
The designer need a C/C++ compiler or Visual C/C++ Compiler. The first thing to do when
starting a new openGL project is to dynamically link with openGL. For Windows OS add
opengl32.lib to the linker input, for Linux OS Include –IGL in the compiler options and for OS
X add –framework openGL to the compiler options.
Before start drawing things the designer need to initialize openGL. This is done by creating an
openGL context which is essentially a state machine that stores all data related to the rendering of
the application. When the application closes the openGL context is destroyed and everything is
cleaned up.
2.4.5.1.A sample program for creating openGL context
# include <Libraryheaders>
int main
{
createWindow(title, width, height);
 createOpenGLContext(settings);
while(windowOpen)
{
while(event=newEvent())
handleEvent(event);
updateScene();
drawGraphics();
presentGraphics();
}
return 0;
}
When rendering a frame, the results will be stored in an off screen buffer known as the back
buffer to make sure the user only sees the final result. The presentGraphics
() call will copy the result from the back buffer to the visible window buffer the front buffer.
Every application that makes use of real time graphics will have a program flow that comes
down to this whether it uses a library or native code.

2.4.5.2.Libraries

We need the following sets of libraries in programming OpenGL:

• Core OpenGL(GL): It consists of hundreds of functions, which begin with a prefix "gl"
(e.g., glColor, glVertex, glTranslate, glRotate). The Core OpenGL models an object via a
set of geometric primitives, such as point, line, and polygon.
• OpenGL Utility Library(GLU): built on-top of the core OpenGL to provide important
utilities and more building models (such as qradric surfaces). GLU functions start with a
prefix "glu" (e.g., gluLookAt, gluPerspective).
• OpenGL Utilities Toolkit(GLUT): provides support to interact with the Operating System
(such as creating a window, handling key and mouse inputs); and more building models
(such as sphere and torus). GLUT functions start with a prefix of "glut"
(e.g., glutCreatewindow, glutMouseFunc). GLUT is not a full-featured toolkit so large
applications requiring sophisticated user interfaces are better off using native window
system toolkits. GLUT is simple, easy, and small.Alternative of GLUT includes SDL,
SFML,GLFW.
• SFML : SFML is a cross platform C++ multimedia library that provides access to
graphics, input, audio , networking and the system. It was designed to be used withits
own set of drawing functions.
• SDL : SDL is also a cross platform multimedia library targeted at C. it supports more
exotic platforms and most importantly offers more control over the creation of the
openGL context than SFML
• GLFW: GLFW is a C library specifically designed for use with OpenGL. It offers the
most control over the OpenGL context creation out of these three libraries.
• OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library(GLEW):GLEW is a cross-platform open-source
 C/C++ extension loading library. GLEW provides efficient run-time mechanisms for
determining which OpenGL extensions are supported on the target platform.
Each of the software package consists of:
1. A header file: "gl.h" for core OpenGL, "glu.h" for GLU, and "glut.h" (or "freeglut.h") for
GLUT, typically kept under "include\GL" directory.
2. A static library: for example, in Win32, "libopengl32.a" for core OpenGL, "libglu32.a" for
GLU, "libglut32.a" (or "libfreeglut.a" or "glut32.lib") for GLUT, typically kept under "lib"
directory.
3. An optional shared library: for example, "glut32.dll" (for "freeglut.dll") for GLUT under
Win32, typically kept under "bin" or "c:\windows\system32".

It is important to locate the directory path and the actual filename of these header files and
libraries in the operating platform in order to properly setup the OpenGL programming
environment.

2.4.5.3.Program for simple animation using GLUT

The main purpose of this program is to present the basic elements used in an animation loop in
openGL with GLUT.
#include <glut.h>

GLfloat gfPosX = 0.0;

GLfloat gfDeltaX = .0001;

void Draw() {
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
glBegin(GL_LINES);
glVertex3f(gfPosX, 0.25, 0.0);
glVertex3f(1.0 - gfPosX, 0.75,0.0);
glEnd();
glFlush();
gfPosX += gfDeltaX;
if (gfPosX >= 1.0 || gfPosX <= 0.0) {
gfDeltaX = -gfDeltaX;
}
glutPostRedisplay();
}

void Initialize() {
glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho(0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0);
}
int main(int iArgc, char** cppArgv) {
glutInit(&iArgc, cppArgv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB);
glutInitWindowSize(250, 250);
glutInitWindowPosition(200, 200);
glutCreateWindow("XoaX.net");
Initialize();
glutDisplayFunc(Draw);
glutMainLoop();
return 0;
}

Fig 2.10. Image in the starting stage

 Fig 2.11 Image in the toggling stage
The x coordinates of the endpoints alternate between the 0 and 1 in opposite directions. The
variables gfPosX is used as the x position of the lower endpoint, and (1-gfPosX) as the x position
of the upper endpoint, The value of the gfPosx is changed by the value of gfDeltaX at each
frame. The value of gfDeltaX changes sign whenever gfPosX reaches 0 or 1 by the “if”
statement that the designer added. this keeps gfPOSX and , by extension the x coordinates of the
endpoints from leaving the range[0,1].

The animation is created via an implied loop. The loop is created by redisplay event. By calling
glutDisplayFunc() with our Draw() function as the argument, set Draw() to be called every time
the window needs to be redisplayed. For example, Draw() is originally called when the window
is drawn for the first time. since this sends a redisplay message to the message queue. when this
message is handled ,Draw() is called which in turn, posts a redisplay message at the end of the
function when glutPostRedisplay() is called. This completes the loop.
The animation may much slower or faster depending on the speed of the computer. The value of
gfDeltaX may be changed to alter the speed of the animation to get a reasonable looking result.
2.5.VIDEO
Carefully planned well executed video clips can make a dramatic difference in multimedia
project.
2.5.1. Using Video
Digital video has supplanted analog video as a method of choice for making and delivering video
for multimedia use. A digital camcorder directly connected to a computer workstation using
FireWire(IEEE 1394) cables eliminates the image degrading during analog to digital
conversion step typically performed by video capture cards bringing the power of non linear
video editing and production to everyday users.
2.5.2.How Video Works and is Displayed
When light reflected from an object passes through a video camera lens that light is converted
into an electronic signal by a special sensor called a charge coupled device. Top quality
broadcast cameras and even camcorders may have as many as three CCDs (one for each color of
red, green and blue) to enhance the resolution of the camera. The output of the CCD is processed
by the camera into a signal containing three channels of color information and synchronization
pulses. There are several video standards for managing CCD output, each deals with the amount
of separation between the components of the signal. If the separation of the color information
found in the signal is more, then the quality of the image will be higher. If each channel of color
signal output is called RGB, which is the preferred method of high quality and professional video
work.
Camcorder combines both camera and tape recorder in a single device. One or more channels of
sound may also be recorded on the videotape. The video signal is written to tape by a spinning
recording head that changes the local magnetic properties of the tape’s surface in a series of long
diagonal stripes. Because the head is canted or tiled at a slight angle compared with the path of
the tape it follows a helical path which is called helical scan recording.
In digital systems, the video signal from the camera is first digitized as angle frame, and the data
is compressed before it is written to the tape in one of the several proprietary and competing
formats.
Colored phosphors on the CRT screen glowed red, green, or blue when they were energized by
the electron beam. Because the intensity of the beam varied as it moved across the screen some
colors glowed brighter than others. Finely tuned magnets around the picture tube aimed the
electrons precisely onto the phosphor screen while the intensity of the beam was varied
according to the video signal. Flat screen displays are all digital using either liquid crystal
display or plasma technologies are becoming increasingly popular and supplanting CRTs.
2.5.3. Analog Video
2.5.3.1.NTSC: National Television Standard Committee standard a single frame of video was
made up of 525 horizontal scan lines drawn on to the inside face of a phosphor coated picture
tube every 1/30th of a second by a fast moving electron beam. The electron beam actually made
two passes as it drew a single video frame-first it laid down all the odd numbered lines and then
all the even numbered lines. Each of these passes (60 per second) painted a field and the two
fields were then combined to create a single frame at a rate of 30 frames per second. Thie
process of building a single frame from two fields was called interlacing, a technique that helps
to prevent flicker on television screens. Computer monitors used a different progressive scan
technology and drew the lines of an entire frame in a single pass, without interlacing them and
without flicker.
2.5.3.2.PAL: Phase Alternate Line system was used in the United Kingdom, Western Europe,
Australia, South Africa, China and South America. The screen resolution is 625 horizontal lines
with a scan rate of 25 frames per second. The even and odd lines were interlaced, each field
taking 1/50 of a second to draw.
2.5.3.3.SECAM: Sequential Color and Memory system was used in France, Eastern Europe , the
former USSR and few other countries. Although it is a 625 line,50Hz system it differed greatly
from both the NTSC and PAL color system in its basic technology and broadcast method.
2.5.4. Digital Video
2.5.4.1.ATSC DTV : Advanced Television systems Committee standard for digital Television
mostly used in the united states, Mexico and Canada. It includes two primary high definition
video formats 1080i and 720p. It also includes standard definition formats, although initially
only HDTV services were launched in the digital format. ATSC can carry multiple channels of
information on a single stream, and it is common for there to be a single high definition signal
and several standard definition signals carried on a single NTSC channel allocation. More
significantly for multimedia producers, this emerging standard allowed for transmission of data
to computers and for new ATV interactive services.
HDTV high definition Television provides high resolution in a 16:9 aspect ratio. There is a
contention between the broadcast andcomputer industries about whether to use interlacing or
progressive scan technologies. The broadcast industry has promulgated an ultra high resolution
,1920x1080 interlaced format to become the cornerstone of a new generation of high end
entertainment centers but the computer industry would like to settle on a 1280x720 progressive
scan system for HDTV.While the 1920x1080 format provides more pixels than the 1280x720
standard the refresh rates are quite different. The higher resolution interlaced format delivers
only half the picture every 1/60 of a second, and because of the interlacing , on highly detailed
images there is a great deal of screen flicker at 30hz. Both formats have been included in the
HDTV standard by the ATSC.
2.5.4.2.DVB: digital video Broadcasting is used mostly in Europe where the standards define the
physical layer and data link layer of a distribution system.
2.5.4.3.ISDB: Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting is used in Japan to allow radio and
television stations to convert to digital format.
Setting up a production environment for making digital video, however does require hardware
that meets minimum spexifications for processing speed, data transfer and storage.
To setting up your production environment
• Computer with FireWire connecting cables
• Fast processors
• Plenty of RAM
• Fast and big hard disk for storing digital video data streams of raw video footage from a
camera at DV’s fixed transfer rate of above 8 MBps and have enough free space. Then
multiply that times five to allow for editing removable media such as Zip and CD_RW
will not work.
• Second display to allow for more real estate for your editing software.
• Audio mixer to adjust sound output from the cam corder.
• External speakers
• Television monitor to view your project
• Nonlinear editing software.
2.5.5. Digital video Containers
 A .exe file system tells the OS that it needs to execute this file. A .bat file tells the OS that there
are one or more executable commands that need to be run one after the other. Video containers
or wrappers are file systems designed to interface between the OS and the video data.
AVI: Audio Video Interleaved is a multimedia container format introduced by misrosoft. File
can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio with
video play back.
MOV:MPEG4 video container file format used in Apple’s quick time program.
MKV: Matroska multimedia container format . Container include Video. Audio and features
such as alternate audio tracks multilingual subtitles and chapter points as well as rich metadata
including cover art, ratings , descriptions and more.
MPEG: Movie Picture Experts Group is a working group of authorities that was formed by ISO
and IEC to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission.
FLV: flash audio-container file format used to deliver digital video content over the internet
using Adobe
MP4: MPEG4 video file contain not only video but also audio and subtitles.
MTS or TS: Transport Stream is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage
of audio , video and program and system information protocol data.It is used in broadcast
systems such as Digital video broadcasting, ATSC and IPTV.
MXF: Material Exchange format which supports a number of different streams of coded
”essence” encoded in any of a variety of video and audio compression formats together with a
metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file.
WMV: Window Media Video is the name of a series of video codecs and their corresponding
video coding formats developed by MicroSoft.
VOB: Video Object contain digital video, digital audio , subtitles , DVD menus and navigation
contents multiplexed together into a stream form.
R3D: Red Code RAW –proprietary file format that efficiently encodes measurements from a
camera’s digital sensor in a way that maximizes post production capabilities.
DNG-Digital Negative is patented open non free lossless raw image format written by adobe
used for digital photography.
JPG OR JPEG: Joint Photographic Expert Group is a commonly used method of lossy
compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography.
TIFF: Tagged Image File Format by Adobe. Common format for exchanging raster graphical
(bitmaps) images between application programs including those used for scanner images.
TARGA: True Vision TGA i.e. raster graphics file format.
DPX: Digital Picture Exchange by the SMPTE. Modification of the Kodak Cineon format
bitmap file format used to store a single frame of a motion picture or video data stream.
EXR: open EXR bit map file. It is an open source HDR(high dynamic range imaging) image file
format created by the Industrial Light & Magic Visual Effects company.
2.5.6.CODEC
Codec it is defined as short for compressor/decompressor. A codec is any technology for
compressing and decompressing a digital media file, such as video or song. It can be divided into
two parts encode and decode. The encoder performs the compression (encoding) function and
decoder performs the decompression(decoding ) function. Codecs can be implemented in
software, hardware or a combination of both.
To install codecs automatically
• Click start and then click All Programs
• Click Windows Media Player
• Clikck now playing and then click More Options
• On the Player Tab select the Download Codecs automatically check box and then click
ok.
.
2.5.7.Video Format Converters:
Video files are normally in the AVI,MPEG,MOV,DAT,MP4 formats. The video file formats are
depends on the recording media and the software in the media. Most users will at some point
need to change the format of a video file for example to transfer a movie or a clip to a different
file type for
• Viewing in a mobile device
• Uploading to the Internet
• Compressing to save hard drive space.
To convert video file format from one to another, different video format converter softwares are
used.
To change a video format using movavi video converter just download the program for the OS
and follow the simple steps below.
• Add a file to the program. Just click Add media and select add video
• Choose a new format
• Start the conversion.

2.5.7.1.To Convert WMV to MP4

• Download the WMV to MP4 converter. First download and run the installation file.
• Add WMV Files to the program. Hit the Add media button, choose Add video and add
the files for which you want to change the format
• Select an output format
• Convert your files.
2.5.7.2.To convert and upload video clips to You Tube follow the five quick steps below.
• Download Movavi video converter
• Launch the Program and Add Videos for Conversion
• Select a You Tube preset
• Convert Your Movie.
• Start Uploading Video to You Tube
2.5.8. Obtaining the Video Clip
Video clips are short clips of video, usually part of a longer recording. The term is also more
loosely used to mean any short video less than the length of a traditional television program. The
video clips are obtained by any one of the following methods.
• To capture films using video camera
• Create Video clips from already existing video by VCD cutter /DVD cutter software
tools.
• By continuously play graphic images
• By adding movements to cartoon diagrams.
• From television
2.5.9. Shooting and Editing Video
To add full screen , full motion video to a multimedia project specialized hardware and software
are needed. The following steps are required to do shooting and editing video.
• Story Boarding
• Shooting Platform
• Lighting
• Chroma Keys
• Composition
2.5.9.1.Story Boarding:
A graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose
of pre-visualizing a motion picture , animation , motion graphic or interactive media sequence is
known as story boarding. In video story boarding contains shooting drawings showing camera
and scene, shooting angles, lighting, action, special effects and how objects move through from
start to finish. It is just like a flow diagram showing where to add video in an application in a
detailed manner.
2.5.9.2.Shooting Platform:
Using a tripod or even placing the camera on a stable platform such as rolled –up sweater on the
hood of a car can improve the shot.
Using a rolling office chair and sitting facing the back with the camera balanced on the chair
back makes a convenient stable dolly. High resolution and storage capacity digital cameras for
getting best video stills.
2.5.9.3. Lighting
The greatest difference between professional camcorders and consumer camcorders is their
ability to perform at low light levels. Using a simple floodlight kit or even just being sure that
daylight illuminates the room can improve the image.As in photography , good lighting
techniques separate amateurs .
2.5.9.4.Chroma keys
A useful tool easily implemented in most digital video editing applications is blue screen, green
screen , ultimate or chroma key editing.Blue screen is a popular from professional in video shoot
technique for making multimedia titles because expensive sets are not required. Incredible
backgrounds can be generated using 3D modeling and graphic software and one or more actors,
vehicles or other objects can be neatly layered onto that background. Applications such as
Videoshop, Premiere. Final Cut-Pro and iMovie provide this capability.
2.5.9.5.Composition
When shooting video for playback from CDROM or the web in a small computer window it is
best to avoid wide panoramic shots. Use close ups and medium shots head and shoulders or even
tighter. Depending upon the compression algorithm used consider the amount of motion in the
shot. The more the screen changes from frame to frame the more the delta information needs to
be transferred from the computer’s memory to the screen and lower the playback speed will be.
Keep the camera still instead of panning and zooming. Let the subject add the motion to the shot
walking ,turning and talking.

REVIEW QUESTIONS.

2MARKS
1. Define Font
2. Define Typeface
3. Define Ascender and Descender
4. Define leading and tracking
5. List out some font style
6. Give examples for Serif font
7. Give examples for San serif font
8. Define hypermedia
9. What is bitmap
10. How many colors can be obtained in 24 bit images
11. What is dithering
12. What is 3D drawing
13. What is rendering
14. What is reflection
15. What is shading
16. what is meant by power of sound
17. what do you mean by digitized sound
18. What is trimming
19. What are the HTML tags used to add sound
20. What is Red book
21. List some mobile supported sound formats
22. What is animation
23. Mention few libraries for OpenGL usage
24. What you mean container format
25. Expand CODEC
26. Give example for video format converter
27. Give example for video cutting software tools
28. What is Story board
29. What is Blue screen
 30. What is Chroma keys
3MARKS
1.What is kerning
2. Draw type face
3.What is color look up table
4.Define Image Enhancement
5. What is Image Acquisition
6, What is known as Image processing
7.How to make MIDI audio
8.How to add sound to a multimedia project
9. What are the different standards in audio CD’s
10.How to install CODECS
11.How to upload video in youtube
12. How to convert WMV to MP4
5MARKS
1. What are the factors to be noted when using text in multimedia
2. Write about hypermedia structures
3. Mention the types of rendering
4. Explain the basic sound editing operations
5. What are the different sounds available in your mobile
6. What are the different sounds available in your internet
7. Explain animation by computer
8. Explain different animation techniques
9. Write about libraries in open GL
10. How to create a small animation using GLUT (10 marks)
11. Mention the different analog video standards
12. Mention the different digital video standards
13. Explain about different digital video containers
14. How to do shooting and editing of video.(10marks)
 UNIT III.MULTIMEDIA DATA AND STANDARDS

3.1. DATA COMPRESSION

3.1.1 Data compression and Need for Data Compression

Compression is the way of making files to take up less space. In multimedia systems, in order to
manage large multimedia data objects efficiently, these data objects need to be compressed to
reduce the file size for storage of these objects. Compression tries to eliminate redundancies in
the pattern of data. For example, if a black pixel is followed by 20 white pixels, there is no need
to store all 20 white pixels. A coding mechanism can be used so that only the count of the white
pixels is stored. Once such redundancies are removed, the data object requires less time for
transmission over a network. This in turn significantly reduces storage and transmission costs.
The process of reducing the volume of data by applying a compression technique is called
compression. The resulting data is called compressed data. The reverse process of reproducing
the original data from compressed data is called decompression. The resulting data is called
decompressed data.
Data Compression
• Reduces the size of data. ƒ
• Reduces storage space and hence storage cost.
• Reduces time to retrieve and transmit data
3.1.2 General Data Compression schemes
Compression techniques can be categorized based on following consideration:
• Non Lossy or lossy
• Symmetrical or asymmetrical
• Software or hardware

a. Lossless or lossy
If the decompressed data is the same as the original data, it is referred to as lossless
compression, otherwise the compression is lossy.
b. Symmetrical or asymmetrical
In symmetrical compression the time required to compress and to decompress are roughly
the same. In asymmetrical compression, the time taken for compression is usually much
longer than decompression.
c. Software or hardware
A compression technique may be implemented either in hardware or software. As
compared to software codecs (coder and decoder), hardware codecs offer better quality
and performance.
3.1.3 Compression Standards
Compression and decompression techniques are utilized for a number of applications, such as
facsimile system, printer systems, document storage and retrieval systems, video
teleconferencing systems, and electronic multimedia messaging systems. When information is
compressed, the redundancies are removed. Sometimes removing redundancies is not sufficient
to reduce the size of the data object to manageable levels. In such cases, some real information is
also removed. The primary criterion is that removal of the real information should not affect the
quality of the result. In the case of video, compression causes some information to be lost. Some
information at a delete level is considered not essential for a reasonable reproduction of the
scene. This type of compression is called lossy compression. Audio compression, on the other
hand, is not lossy. It is called Non Lossy compression.

a) Non Lossy Compression Standards

• Packpits encoding (Run-length encoding)
• CCITT Group 3 I D
• CCITT Group 3 2D
• CCITT Group 4
• Lempe l-Ziv and Welch algorithm LZW.

b) Lossy compression Standards

• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)
• Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
• Intel DVI
• CCITT H.261 (P * 24) Video Coding Algorithm
• Fractals.

3.1.4 Non Lossy Compression for Images

In Non Lossy compression, data is not altered or lost in the process of compression or
decompression. Decompression generates an exact replica of the original object. Text
compression is a good example of lossless compression. The repetitive nature of text, sound and
graphic images allows replacement of repeated strings of characters or bits by codes. Non Lossy
compression techniques are good for text data and for repetitive data in images like binary
images and gray-scale images.

3.1.5 Lossy Compression for Photographs and video

Lossy compression is that some loss would occur while compressing information objects. Lossy
compression is used for compressing audio, gray-scale or color images, and video objects in
which absolute data accuracy is not necessary. The idea behind the lossy compression is that, the
human eye fills in the missing information in the case of video. But, an important consideration
is how much information can be lost so that the result should not affect. For example, in a
grayscale image, if several bits are missing, the information is still perceived in an acceptable
manner as the eye fills in the gaps in the shading gradient. Lossy compression is applicable in
medical screening systems, video tele-conferencing, and multimedia electronic messaging
systems. Lossy compressions techniques can be used alone or in combination with other
compression methods in a multimedia object consisting of audio, color images, and video as well
as other specialized data types.

3.1.6 Difference between Hardware and Software Compression

• Hardware compression is more expensive compared to software compression.
• Hardware compression requires specialized hardware, while software compression does
not.
• Hardware compression is much faster compared to software compression.
• Software compression adds more load to the host, while hardware compression does not.
• Hardware compression often has little, or no configurable options, while you have a lot of
options with software compression.
• Software compression is better, compared to hardware compression, in terms of long
term storage.
3.2.COMPRESSION SCHEMES AND STANDARDS(ONLY CONCEPTS)

3.2.1 Binary Image compression

Binary Image Compression is a scheme by which a binary image containing black and white
pixel is generated when a document is scanned in a binary mode. The schemes are used primarily
for documents that do not contain any continuous-tone information or where the continuous-tone
information can be captured in a black and white mode to serve the desired purpose.The schemes
are applicable in office/business documents, handwritten text, line graphics, engineering
drawings, and so on. Let us view the scanning process. A scanner scans a document as sequential
scan lines, starting from the top of the page. A scan line is a complete line of pixels, of height
equal to one pixel, running across the page. It scans the first line of pixels (Scan Line), then
scans second "line, and works its way up to the last scan line of the page. Each scan line is
scanned from left to right of the page generating black and white pixels for that scan line.This
uncompressed image consists of a single bit per pixel containing black and white pixels. Binary 1
represents a black pixel, binary 0 a white pixel. Several schemes have been standardized and
used to achieve various levels of compressions.

3.2.2 Color, Gray Scale And Still-Video Image Compression

a. Color:
Color is a part of life we take for granted. Color adds another dimension to objects. It helps in
making things standout. Color adds depth to images, enhance images, and helps set objects apart
from -background.
Let us review the physics of color. Visible light is a form of electromagnetic radiation or radiant
energy, as are radio frequencies or x-rays. The radiant energy spectrum contains audio
frequencies, radio frequencies, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet rays, x-rays and gamma rays.
Radiant energy is measured in terms of frequency or wavelength. The relationship between the
two is meters.

where - is the wavelength in meters

c is the velocity of light in meters per second.
f is frequency of the radiation in hertz.
Since all electromagnetic waves travel through space at the velocity of light i.e., 3 x 10 8
meters/second - the wavelength is calculated by

Color Characteristics

We typically define color by its brightness, the hue and depth of color.
Luminance or Brightness
This is the measure of the brightness of the light emitted or reflected by an object; it depends on
the radiant, energy of the color band.

Hue This is the color sensation produced in an observer due to the presence of certain
wavelengths of color. Each wavelength represents a different hue.

Saturation This is a measure of color intensity, for example, the difference between red and
pink.

Color Models Several color models have been developed to represent color mathematically.

Chromacity Model It is a three-dimensional model with two dimensions, x and y, defining the
color, and the third dimension defining the luminance. It is an additive model since x and yare
added to generate different colors.

RGBModel RGB means Red Green Blue. This model implements additive theory in that
different intensities of red, green and blue are added to generate various colors.
HSI Model The Hue Saturation and Intensity (HSI) model represents an artist's impression of
tint, shade and tone. This model has proved suitable for image processing for filtering and
smoothing images.

CMYK Model The Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black color model is used in desktop publishing
printing devices. It is a color-subtractive model and is best used in color printing devices only.

YUV Representation The NTSC developed the YUV three-dimensional color model. It contains
y -Luminance Component UV -Chrominance Components.Luminance component contains the
black and white or grayscale information. The chrominance component contains color
information where U is red minus cyan and V is magenta minus green.

YUV Model for JPEG

The JPEG compression scheme uses several stages.
The first stage converts the signal from the spatial RGB domain to the YUV frequency domain
by performing discrete cosine transform. This process allows separating luminance or gray-scale
components from the chrominance components of the image.

3.2.3 Joint Photographic Experts Group Compression (Jpeg)

ISO and CCITT working committee joint together and formed Joint Photographic Experts
Group. It has focused exclusively on still image compression. Another joint committee, known
as the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), is concerned with full motion video
standards.JPEG is a compression standard for still color images and grayscale images, otherwise
known as continuous tone images.JPEG has been released as an ISO standard in two parts:
Part I specifies the modes of operation, the interchange formats, and the encoder/decoder
specifies for these modes along with substantial implementation guide lines .
Part 2 describes compliance tests which determine whether the implementation of an encoder or
decoder conforms to the standard specification of part I to ensure interoperability of systems
compliant with JPEG standards
Requirements addressed by JPEG
• The design should address image quality .
• The compression standard should be applicable to practically any kind of continuous-tone
digital source image .
• It should be scalable from completely lossless to lossy ranges to adapt it.
• It should provide sequential encoding .
• It should provide for progressive encoding .
• It should also provide for hierarchical encoding .
 • The compression standard should provide the option of lossless encoding so that images
can be guaranteed to provide full detail at the selected resolution when decompressed.

Definitions in the JPEG Standard

The JPEG Standards have three levels of definition as follows:
• Base line system
• Extended system
• Special lossless function.
The base line system must reasonably decompress color images, maintain a high compression
ratio, and handle from 4 bits/pixel to 16 bits/pixel.
The extended system covers the various encoding aspects such as variable-length encoding,
progressive encoding, and the hierarchical mode of encoding.
The special lossless function is also known as predictive lossless coding. It ensures that at the
resolution at which the image is no loss of any detail that was there in the original source image.

Overview of JPEG Components

JPEG Standard components are:
(i) Baseline Sequential Codec
(ii) DCT Progressive Mode
(iii) Predictive Lossless Encoding
(iv) Hierarchical Mode.
These four components describe four different levels of JPEG compression.
The baseline sequential code defines a rich compression scheme and the other three modes
describe enhancements to this baseline scheme for achieving different results.
Some of the terms used in JPEG methodologies are:
Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)
DCT is closely related to Fourier transforms. Fourier transforms are used to represent a two
dimensional sound signal. DCT uses a similar concept to reduce the gray-scale level or color
signal amplitudes to equations that require very few points to locate the amplitude in Y-axis X-
axis is for locating frequency.
DCT Coefficients
The output amplitudes of the set of 64 orthogonal basis signals are called DCT Co-efficients.
Quantization
This is a process that attempts to determine what information can be safely discarded without a
significant loss in visual fidelity. It uses OCT co-efficient and provides many-to-one mapping.
The quantization process is fundamentally lossy due to its many-to-one mapping.
De Quantization This process is the reverse of quantization. Note that since quantization used a
many-to-one mapping, the information lost in that mapping cannot be fully recovered .

Entropy Encoder / Decoder Entropy is defined as a measure of randomness, disorder, or chaos,

as well as a measure of a system's ability to undergo spontaneous change. The entropy encoder
compresses quantized DCT co-efficients more compactly based on their spatial characteristics.
The baseline sequential. codec uses Huffman coding. Arithmetic coding is another type of
entropy encoding

JPEG Methodology
The JPEG compression scheme is lossy, and utilizes forward discrete cosine transform (or
forward DCT mathematical function), a uniform quantizer, and entropy encoding. The DCT
function removes data redundancy by transforming data from a spatial domain to a frequency
domain; the quantizer quantizes DCT co-efficients with weighting functions to generate
quantized DCT co-efficients optimized for the human eye; and the entropy encoder minimizes
the entropy of quantized DCT co-efficients. The JPEG method is a symmetric algorithm. Here,
decompression is the exact reverse process of compression.

Figure below describes a typical DCT based encoder and decoder.

Symmetric Operation of DCT based Codec

Fig 3.1 DCT based Encoder/Decoder

3.2.4 Video Image Compression

The development of digital video technology has made it possible to use digital video
compression for a variety of telecommunications applications. Standardization of compression
algorithms for video was first initiated by CCITT for teleconferencing and video telephony . The
following compression types are commonly used in Video compression:

• Spatial Redundancy Removal - Intraframe coding (JPEG)

• Spatial and Temporal Redundancy Removal - Intraframe and Interframe coding
(H.261, MPEG)
3.2.5 Multimedia standards for Video:

Fig 3.2 Multimedia Standards

3.2.6 Requirements for full-motion Video Compression
Applications using MPEG standards can be symmetric or asymmetric. Symmetric applications
are applications that require essentially equal use of compression and decompression.
Asymmetric applications require frequent decompression. Symmetric applications require on-
line input devices such as video cameras, scanners and microphones for digitized sound. In
addition to video and audio compression, this standards activity is concerned with a number of
other Issues concerned with playback of video clips and sound clips. The MPEG standard has
identified a number of such issues that have been addressed by the standards activity. Let us
review these Issues.
• Random Access
The expectations generated for multimedia systems are the ability to play a sound or video clip
from any frame with that clip, irrespective of on what kind-of media the information is stored.
• VCR paradigm
The VCR paradigm consists of the control functions typically found on a VCR such as play, fast
forward, rewind, search forward and rewind search.
• Multiplexing Multiple Compressed Audio and Video Bit Streams
It is a special requirement retrieved from different storage centers on a network. It may be
received from different storage centers on a network. It may have to be achieved in a smooth
manner to avoid the appearance of a jumpy screen.
• Editability
• Playback Device Flexibility

3.2.7 Moving Picture Experts Group Compression ( MPEG)

The MPEG standards consist of a number of different standards. The MPEG 2 suite of standards
consist of standards for MPEG2 Video, MPEG - 2 Audio and MPEG - 2 systems. It is also
defined at different levels, called profiles.
The main profile is designed to cover the largest number of applications. It supports digital video
compression in the range of2 to 15 M bits/sec. It also provides a generic solution for television
worldwide, including cable, direct broadcast satellite, fibre optic media, and optical storage
media (including digital VCRs).

MPEG Coding Methodology

The above said requirements can be achieved only by incremental coding of successive frames.
It is known as interframe coding. If we access information randomly by frame requires coding
confined to a specific frame, then it is known as intraframe coding.
The MPEG standard addresses these two requirements by providing a balance between
interframe coding and intraframe coding. The MPEG standard also provides for recursive and
non-recursive temporal redundancy reduction.
The MPEG video compression standard provides two basic schemes: discrete-transform-based
compression for the reduction of' spatial redundancy and block-based motion compensation for
the reduction of temporal (motion) redundancy. During the initial stages of DCT compression,
both the full motion MPEG and still image JPEG algorithms are essentially identical. First an
image is converted to the YUVcolor space (a luminance/chrominance color space similar to that
used for color television). The pixel data is then fed into a discrete cosine transform, which
creates a scalar quantization (a two-dimensional array representing various frequency ranges
represented in the image) of the pixel data.
Following quantization, a number of compression algorithms are applied, including run-length
and Huffman encoding. For full motion video (MPEG I and 2), several more levels of block
based motion-compensated techniques are applied to reduce temporal redundancy with both
causal and noncausal coding to further reduce spatial redundancy.
The MPEG algorithm for spatial reduction is lossy and is defined as a hybrid which employs
motion compensation, forward discrete cosine transform (DCF), a uniform quantizer, and
Huffman coding. Block-based motion compensation is utilized for reducing temporal
redundancy (i.e. to reduce the amount of data needed to represent each picture in a video
sequence). Motion-compensated reduction is a key feature of MPEG.

MPEG Encoder
Figure 3.3 below shows the architecture of an MPEG encoder. It contains DCT quantizer,
Huffman coder and Motion compensation. These represent the key modules in the encoder.
Architecture of MPEG Encoder:

Fig 3.3 MPEG Encoder

First an image is converted to the YUV color space.The pixel data is then fed into a DCT, which
creates a scalar quantization of the pixel data. Following quantization, a number of compression
algorithms are applied, including run-length and Huffman encoding. For full-motion video,
several more levels of motion compensation compression and coding are applied.

3.2.7 Audio Compression

Simple Audio Compression Methods
Traditional lossless compression methods (Huffman, LZW, etc.) usually don't work well on
audio compression (the same reason as in image compression).
The following are some of the Lossy methods applied to audio compression:
• Silence Compression - detect the "silence", similar to run-length coding
• Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM)
e.g., in CCITT G.721 - 16 or 32 Kbits/sec.
(a) encodes the difference between two consecutive signals,
(b) adapts at quantization so fewer bits are used when the value is smaller.
• Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) fits signal to speech model and then transmits parameters
of model. Sounds like a computer talking, 2.4 kbits/sec.
• Code Excited Linear Predictor (CELP) does LPC, but also transmits error term - audio
conferencing quality at 4.8 kbits/sec.

Audio consists of analog signals of varying frequencies. The audio signals are converted to
digital form and then processed, stored and transmitted. Schemes such as linear predictive coding
and adaptive differential. pulse code modulation (ADPCM) are utilized for compression to
achieve 40-80% compression.

3.2.8 Fractal Compression

Fractal image and video compression represents an entirely different coding method. In this
technique, no actual pixel information is transmitted, rather only a transformation function that
contains an image similar to the target image as a fixed point. The decoding process then consists
of an iterative application of this function to any beginning image.
For natural images, fractal compression can achieve high compression ratios (up to 1000:1) with
very good image quality. The biggest disadvantage of this coding method is the complexity of
calculation and its low efficacy when applied to graphics images. In addition to the complexity
of calculation, this coding technique is lossy since it uses only the similarity of blocks, not their
identity.
Advantages
The quality is extremly high, higher than JPEG
It is better scaleable
Disadvantages:
The support is not as good as with JPEG.
Extra plug ins are required to watch them in a browser.
It needs more calculation power to be encoded / decoded.

3.2.9 Advantages and Disadvantages of Compression

Size Reduction
File size reduction remains the single most significant benefit of image compression. Depending
on what file type you're working with, you can continue to compress the image until it's at your
desired size. This means the image takes up less space on the hard drive and retains the same
physical size, unless you edit the image's physical size in an image editor. This file size reduction
works wonderfully for the Internet, allowing webmasters to create image-rich sites without using
much bandwidth or storage space.
Slow Devices
Some electronic devices, such as computers or cameras, may load large, uncompressed images
slowly. CD drives, for example, can only read data at a specific rate and can't display large
images in real time. Also, for some webhosts that transfer data slowly, compressed images
remain necessary for a fully functional website. Other forms of storage mediums, such as hard
drives, will also have difficulty loading uncompressed files quickly. Image compression allows
for the faster loading of data on slower devices.
Degradation
When you compress an image, sometimes you will get image degradation, meaning the quality
of the image has declined. If saving a GIF or PNG file, the data remains even though the quality
of the image has declined. If you need to show a high-resolution image to someone, large or
small, you will find image compression as a disadvantage.
Data Loss
With some common file types, such as JPEG, when an image shrinks in size the compression
program will discard some of the photo's data permanently. To compress these images, you need
to ensure you had an uncompressed backup before starting. Otherwise, you will lose the high
quality of the original uncompressed image permanently.

3.3 DATA AND FILE FORMAT STANDARDS

3.3.1.Rich Text Format (RTF)

This format extends the range of information from one word processor application or DTP
system to another. The key format information carried across in RTF documents are given
below:
Character Set: It determines the characters that supports in a particular implementation.
Font Table: This lists all fonts used. Then, they are mapped to the fonts available in receiving
application for displaying text.
Color Table: It lists the colors used in the documents. The color table then mapped for display by
receiving application to the nearer set of colors available to that applications.
Document Formatting: Document margins and paragraph indents are specified here.
Section Formatting: Section breaks are specified to define separation of groups of paragraphs.
Paragraph Formatting: It specifies style sheds. It specifies control characters for specifying
paragraph justification, tab positions, left, right and first indents relative to document margins,
and the spacing between paragraphs.
General Formatting: It includes footnotes, annotations, bookmarks and pictures.
Character Formatting: It includes bold, italic, underline (continuous, dotted or word), strike
through, shadow text, outline text, and hidden text.
Special Characters: It includes hyphens, spaces, backslashes, underscore and so on
This file format allows embedding graphics and other file formats within a document. This
format is used by products such as Lotus Notus. This format is also the basis for the use of OLE.

3.3.2.Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF)

The RIFF file formats consist' of blocks of data called chunks. They are
RIFF Chunk - defines the content of the RIFF file.
List Chunk - allows to embed archival location copy right information and creating date.
Subchunk - allow additional information to a primary chunk
The first chunk in a RIFF file must be a RIFF chunk and it may contain one or more sub chunks.

3.3.3.TIFF File Format

TIFF is an industry-standard file format designed to represent raster image data generated by
scanners, frame grabbers, and paint/ photo retouching applications.

3.3.3.1.TIFF Version 6.0 .

It offers the following formats:
(i) Grayscale, palette color, RGB full-color images and black and white.
(ii) Run-length encoding, uncompressed images and modified Huffman data compression
schemes.
The additional formats are:
(i) Tiled images, compression schemes, images using CMYK, YCbCr color models.

3.3.3.2.TIFF Structure
TIFF files consists of a header. The header consists of byteordering flag, TIFF file format
version number, and a pointer to a table. The pointer points to image file directory. This
directory contains table of entries of various tags and their information.
TIFF file format Header:

Fig 3.4 TIFF structure

3.3.3.3.TIFF Tags
The first two bytes of each directory entry contain a field called the Tag ID.
Tag IDs arc grouped into several categories. They are Basic, Informational, Facsimile, Document
storage and Retrieval.
3.3.3.4.TIFF Classes: (Version 5.0)
It has five classes
1. Class B for binary images
2. Class F for Fax
3. Class G for gray-scale images
4. Class P for palette color images
5. Class R for RGB full-color images.

3.3.4.MIDI File Format

The MIDI file format follows music recording metaphor to provide the means of storing separate
tracks of music for each instrument so that they can be read and synchronized when they are
played.
The MIDI file format also contains chunks (i.e., blocks) of data. There are two types of chunks:
(i) header chunks (ii) track chunks.

3.3.4.1.Header Chunk
It is made up of 14 bytes .The first four-character string is the identifier string, "MThd" .
The second four bytes contain the data size for the header chunk. It is set to a fixed value of six
bytes The last six bytes contain data for header chunk.

3.3.4.2.Track chunk
The Track chunk is organized as follows:
• The first 4-character string is the identifier.
• The second 4 bytes contain track length.

3.3.4.3.MIDI Communication Protocol

This protocol uses 2 or more bytes messages.
The number of bytes depends on the types of message. There are two types of messages:
(i) Channel messages and (ii) System messages.

Channel Messages
A channel message can have up to three bytes in a message. The first byte is called a status byte,
and other two bytes are called data bytes. The channel number, which addresses one of the 16
channels, is encoded by the lower nibble of the status byte. Each MIDI voice has a channel
number; and messages are sent to the channel whose channel number matches the channel
number encoded in the lower nibble of the status byte. There are two types of channel messages:
voice messages and the mode messages.
Voice messages Voice messages are used to control the voice of the instrument (or device); that
is, switch the notes on or off and sent key pressure messages indicating that the key is depressed,
and send control messages to control effects like vibrato, sustain, and tremolo. Pitch wheel
messages are used to change the pitch of all notes .

Mode messages Mode messages are used for assigning voice relationships for up to 16 channels;
that is, to set the device to MOWO mode or POLY mode. Omny Mode on enables the device to
receive voice messages on all channels.
System Messages System messages apply to the complete system rather than specific channels
and do not contain any channel numbers. There are three types of system messages: common
messages, real-time messages, and exclusive messages. In the following, we will see how these
messages are used.
Common Messages These messages are common to the complete system. These messages
provide for functions such as select a song, setting the song position pointer with number of
beats, and sending a tune request to an analog synthesizer.
System Real Time Messages These messages are used for setting the system's real-time
parameters. These parameters include the timing clock, starting and stopping the sequencer,
ressuming the sequencer from a stopped position, and resetting the system.
System Exclusive messages These messages contain manufacturer-specific data such as
identification, serial number, model number, and other information. Here, a standard file format
is generated which can be moved across platforms and applications.

3.3.5.TWAIN
To address the problem of custom interfaces, the TWAIN working group was formed to define
an open industry standard interface for input devices. They designed a standard interface called a
generic TWAIN . interface. It allows applications to interface scanners, digital still cameras,
video cameras.

3.3.5.1.TWAIN ARCHITECHTURE:
The Twain architecture defines a set of application programming interfaces (APls) and a protocol
to acquire data from input devices. It is a layered architecture.It has application layer, the
protocol layer, the acquisition layer and device layer.

Fig 3.5 TWAIN Architecture

Application Layer: This layer sets up a logical connection with a device. The application layer
interfaces with protocol layer.
Protocol Layer: This layer is responsible for communications between the application and
acquisition layers. The main part of the protocol layer is the source Manager. Source manager
manages all sessions between an application and the sources, and monitors data acquisition
transactions. The protocol layer is a complex layer. It provides the important aspects of device
and application interfacing functions.
The Acquisition Layer: It contains the virtual device driver.
It interacts directly with the device driver. This layer is also known as source.
It performs the following functions:
1.Control of the device.
2.Acquisition of data from the device.
3.Transfer of data in agreed format.
4.Provision of user interface to control the device.
The Device Layer: The device layer receives software commands and controls the device
hardware.

3.3.6.Microsoft AVI
AVI is an acronym for Audio Video Interleave Standard. It is similar to Apple's Quick Time. It
offers low-cost, low-resolution video processing for the average desktop user. It is a layered
product. A VI is scalable. It allows users to set parameter such as window size, frame rate,
quality and compression algorithm through a number of dialog boxes. AVI-compatible hardware
allows enhancing performance through hardware-accelerated compression algorithms such as
DVI and MPEG. AVI supports several compression algorithms.

3.3.7.Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE)

A digital file representation of digital audio. The WAVE file format is a subset of Microsoft’s
RIFF specification for the storage of multimedia files. A RIFF file starts out with a file header
followed by a sequence of data chunks. A WAVE file is often just a RIFF file with a single
WAVE chunk which consists of two sub chunks – “fmt” chunk specifying the data format and a
“data” chunk containing the sample data.

3.3.8.Windows Metafile Format (WMF) This is a vector graphic format used by Microsoft
Windows as an interchange format. WMF files actually consist of a collection of Graphics
Device lnte1face (GDI) function calls, also native to the Windows environment. When a WMF
file is "played" (typically using the Windows PlayMetaFile {) function) the described graphic is
ren-dered. WMF files are ostensibly device-independent and unlimited in size.

3.3.9.MPEG
MPEG was developed and defined by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 29/WG 11 to cover motion video as
well as audio coding. In light of the state of the art in CD technology, the goal was a compressed
stream data rate of about 1.2Mbit/s. MPEG specifies a maximum data rate of 1,856,000 bit/s,
which should not be exceeded. The data rate for each audio channel can be chosen between 32
and 448 Kbit/s in increments of 16Kbit/s. This data rate enables video and audio compression of
acceptable quality. Since 1993, MPEG has been an International Standard (IS).Besides the
specification of video coding and audio coding, the MPEG standard provides a system
definition, which describes the combination of individual data streams into a common stream.

3.3.10.GIF
Graphics Interchange Fonnat (GIF) was devised by UNISYS Corporation and Compuserve,
initially for transmitting graphical images over phone lines via modems. The GIF standard uses
the Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm modified slightly for image scanline packets to use the line
grouping of pixels effectively. The GIF standard is limited to 8-bit (256) color images only.
While this produces accept-able color, it is best suited for images with few distinctive colors
(e.g., graphics or drawing). The GIF image format has a few interesting features, notwithstanding
the fact that it has been largely supplanted. The standard supports interlacing - the successive
display of pixels in widely spaced rows by a four-pass display process.
In fact, GIF comes in two flavors. The original specification is GIF87a. The later version,
GIF89a, supports simple animation via a Graphics Control Extension block in the data. This
provides simple control over delay time, a transparency index, and so on. Software such as Corel
Draw allows access to and editing of GIF images.

3.3.11.BMP
BitMap (BMP) is the major system standard graphics file format for Microsoft Windows, used in
Microsoft Paint and other programs. It makes use of run-length encoding compression and can
fairly efficiently store 24-bit bitmap images. Note, however, that BMP has m y different modes,
including uncompressed 24-bit images.

3.3.12.JFIF
A JPEG file interchange format file is generally classified as an image file integrated with digital
graphics encoding specifications also implemented into JPEG files, though the content of a JPEG
file interchange format file is the compressed version of the corresponding JPEG file. The digital
image data stored in a JPEG file interchange format file are digital JPEG graphics in bitmap
format, and this digital graphic content is stored in the JFIF file format. Definitions
corresponding to alignment specifications of simple arrays integrated into JPEG image files are
stored in the associated JPEG file interchange format files. This format is used for the primary
stages of digital image creation and rendering as a JPEG image archive compressed and stored in
the JFIF format.

3.3.13.MIX
MIX is the native image format of Microsoft's Picture It! photo editing software. It is based
on Microsoft Compound File format.MIX is a proprietary vector and raster image format
associated with microsoft's PhotoDraw graphics software.

3.4 MULTIMEDIA DATABASES

3.4.1 Multimedia Storage and Retrieval

Multimedia storage is characterized by a number of considerations. They are:
(i) massive storage volumes
(ii) large object sizes
(iii) multiple related objects
(iv) temporal requirements for retrieval
Massive Data Volumes
A single multimedia document may be a combination of different media Hence indexing of
documents, fi lms and tapes is more complex. Locating massive data volumes requires searching
through massive storage files.
Locating and indexing systems can be understood only by a few key staff personnel. Hence it
requires a major organizational eff0l1 to ensure that they are returned in proper sequence to their
original storage location.
Storage Technologies
There are two major mass storage technologies used currently for storage of multimedia
documents.
(i) Optical disk storage systems. (ii) High-speed magnetic storage.
Advantages of Optical disk storage systems:
(i) Managing a few optical disk platters in a juke box is much simpler than man;lging a
large magnetic disk farm.
(ii) Optical disk storage is excellent storage system for off line archival of old and
infrequently referenced documents for significant periods of time.
Multimedia object storage
Multimedia object storage in an optical medium serves its original purpose, only if it can be
located fast and automatically. A key issue here is random keyed Access t6 various components
of hypermedia database record. Optical media providcs very dense storage. Speed of retrieval is
another consideration.Retrieval speed is a direct result of the storage latency, size of the data
relative to display resolution, transmission media and speed, and decompression efficiency.
Indexing is important for fast retrieval of information. Indexing can be at multiple levels.
Multimedia document retrieval
The simplest form of identifying a multimedia document is by storage platter identification and
its relative position on the platter (file number). These objects can then be grouped using a
database in folders (replicating the concept of paper storage in file folders) or within complex
objects representing hypermedia documents.
The capability to access objects using identifiers stored in a database requires capability in the
database to perform the required multimedia object directory functions. Another important
application for sound and full motion video is the ability to clip parts of it and combine them
with another set.
Indexing of sound and full-motion video is the subject of intense debate and a number of
approaches have been used.
3.4.2 Database Management systems
Since most multimedia applications are based primarily on communications technologies, such
as electronic mail, the database system must be fully distributed. A number of database storage
choices are available. The choices available are:
* Extending the existing relational database management systems, (RDBMSs) to support the
various objects for multimedia as binary objects.
* Extending RDBMSs beyond basis binary objects to the concepts of inheritance and classes.
RDBMSs supporting these features provide extensions for object-programming front ends
and/or C++ support.
* Converting to a full fledged object oriented database that supports the standard SQL language.
* Converting the database and the application to an object oriented database and using an object-
oriented language, or an object-enabled SQL for development.
Multimedia applications combine numerical and textual data, graphics from GUI front-ends,
CAD/CAM systems and GIS applications, still video, audio and full-motion video with recorded
audio and annotated voice components. Relational databases, the dominent database paradigm,
have lacked the ability to support multimedia databases. Key limitations of relational database
systems for implementing multimedia applications stem from two areas: the relational data
model and the relational computational model. RDBMSs have been designed to manage only
tabular alphanumeric forms of data (along with some additional data types stored in binary form
such as dates).

RDBMS Extensions For Multimedia

Binary Large Object (BLOB) is a data type which has been adapted by most of the leading
relational databases. BLOBs are used for objects such as images or other binary data types.The
relational database is extended to access these BLOBs to present the user 'with a complete' data
set.Extended relational databases provide a gradual migration path to a more object-oriented
environment.
Relational database tables include location information for the BLOBs which may be stored
outside the database on separate image or video servers. Relational databases have the strength
of rigorous set management for maintaining the integrity of the database .

Object-Oriented Databases for Multimedia

In object databases, data remains in RMS or flat files. Object databases can provide the fastest
route to multimedia support. Object programming embodies the principles of reusable code and
modularity. This will ease future maintenance of these databases. Object database capabilities
such as message passing, extensibility, and the support of hierarchical structures, are important
for multimedia systems. ODBMSs are extensible. They allow incremental changes to the
database applications. Object-oriented software technology has important concepts. They are:

Extensibility: Extensibility .means that the set of operations, structures and constraints that are
available to operations are not fixed, and developers can define new operations, which can then
be added as needed to their application.
Encapsulation allows for the development of open systems where one part of the application
does not need to know the functioning of other part. It also provides autonomy
Association: It is the ability to define a software entity in terms of its differences from another
entity.
Classification: It is the ability to represent with a single software entity a number of data items
that all have the same behavior and the same state attributes.
Object orientation helps to organize the software in a more, modular and re-usable manner.
Autonomy means we can interface to a variety of external programs can be built in one class of
objects and the storage of the data in another class of objects.
3.4.3 Database Organization for Multimedia Applications
Optical disk storage technology has reduced the cost of multimedia document storage by a
significant factor. Distributed architectures have opened the way for a variety of applications
distributed around a network accessing the safe database in an independent manner. Data
organization for multimedia systems has some key issues. They are:
(l) Data independence (2) Common distributed database architecture (3) Distributed database
servers· (4) Multimedia object management
Data Independence: Flexible access to a variety of distributed databases for one or more
applications requires that the data be independent from the application so that future applications
can access the data without constraints related to a previous application. Important features of
data independent design are:
1. Storage design is independent of specific applications.
2. Explicit data definitions are independent of application programs.
3. Users need not know data formats or physical storage structures .
4. Integrity assurance is independent of application programs.
5. Recovery is independent of application programs .
Common Distributed Database Architecture: Employment of Common Distributed database
architecture is presented by the insulation of data from an application and distributed application
access.
Key features of this architecture are:
1.The ability for multiple independent data structures to co-exist in the system (multiple server
classes).
2.Uniform distributed access by clients.
3.Single point for recovery of each database server.
4.Convenient data re-organization to suit requirements.
5.Tunability and creation of object classes.
6.Expandibility.

Distributed database servers

A database server is a dedicated resource on a network accessible to a number of applications,
When a large number of users need to access the same resources, problem arises. This problem is
solved by setting up multiple data servers that have copies of the same resources. Distributed
Data servers Distributed database servers are a dedicated resource on a network accessible to a
number of applications. The database server is built for growth and enhancement, and the
network provides the opportunity for the growth of applications and distributed access to the
data.

Multimedia Object Management

The object management system must be capable of indexing, grouping and storing multimedia
objects in distributed hierarchical optional storage systems, and accessing these objects on or
keyed basis. The design of the object management system should be capable indexing objects in
such a manner that there is no need to maintain multiple storage copies. Multimedia transactions
are very complex transactions. We define a multimedia transaction as the sequence of events that
starts when a user makes a request to display, edit, or print a hyper media document. The
transaction is complete when the user releases the hypermedia document and stores back the
edited versions or discards the copy in memory (including virtual memory) or local storage.

3.4.4 Transaction management for Multimedia Systems

It is defined as the sequence of events that starts when a user makes a request to create, render,
edit, or print a hypermedia document. The transaction is complete when the user releases the
hypermedia document and stores back any edited versions or discards the copy in memory or
local storage.
Use of object classes provides an excellent way for managing and tracking hypermedia
documents, Given that all components of a hypermedia document can be referenced within an
object as attributes, we can find a solution for the three-dimensional transaction management
problem also in the concept of objects.

3.5 MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION SHARING AND RETRIEVAL

3.5.1 Social Media Sharing

Social networking is the ultimate manifestation of user generated content, and as such, holds
more potential for growth than any other form of content on the Web today. User Generated
Content (UGC) and Social Networks are transforming the media ecosystem. Today’s media
model is collaborative, collective, customized and shared. It’s a world in which the consumer is
the creator, consumer and distributor of content. Today there are over a billion content creators
and hundreds of millions of distributors. The proliferation of quality, affordable technology and
the popularity of social networks and UGC sites have forever changed the media landscape.

Social media platforms such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Yelp, WhatsApp, and Twitter enable users
to interact with each other through the generation and sharing of content. One can create and
share content, as well as participate in online discussions. For example one can create a blog post
and then share over social networks, and invite discussion around the content. The media is thus,
“social” in the sense that it can be shared, easily disseminated and discussed online. Social
Media refers not the content, but to the channels through which content is distributed and
consumed. UGC is thus one of the many types of content that is shared or disseminated over
social media. Social Media need not be a channel for just UGC. Content consumed and shared on
social media can of course also be mainstream media, or corporate or organizational media,
rather than only UGC. In this sense, social media operates as an amplifier for existing media
channels. Many mainstream media outlets, also have social media channels (e.g. Twitter streams
or Facebook pages) to amplify the existing dissemination of such content.

3.5.2 User-Generated Media Content Sharing

Social media involves the confluence of online social networking and user-generated content. It
refers in part to the platforms for content generation and consumption: Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube are examples of social media. It allows for dissemination of content in a peer-to-peer
rather than unidirectional manner such as is done by television, radio, newspapers and some
news websites. The common thread across the social networking platforms is that they contain
user-generated content (UGC).

UGC is material that a platform sources from its own end-users. Part of the crowd sourcing
movement, UGC ranges from videos on YouTube to posts on Wikipedia to reviews on Yelp. All
social media platforms contain UGC. However, not all UGC is contained on traditional social
media platforms. Virtually all online platforms—ranging from online newspapers to online
marketplaces rely to some extent on UGC. UGC is dramatically transforming the media
landscape. In addition to producing unprecedented amounts of information, UGC raises a variety
of new intellectual and practical questions and challenges.

User Generated Content (UGC), also known as consumer-generated media (CGM), refers to any
material created and uploaded to the Internet by non-media professionals, whether it’s a
comment left on Amazon. com, a professional-quality video uploaded to YouTube, or a student’s
profile on Facebook. UGC refers to content that is created by Internet users, often through
content platforms such as BlogSpot, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Wikipedia, and
YouTube. UGC includes blog posts, podcasts, online videos, tweets and status updates. It is
currently one of the fastest growing forms of content on the Internet. UGC is fundamentally
altering how audiences interact with the Internet, and how advertisers reach those audiences.Still,
obstacles remain that prevent advertisers from taking advantage.

In comparison to traditional media content, UGC development and distribution is neither

expensive nor technically complex. Content quality is not guaranteed through traditional media
gatekeepers. Content curation (selection of content for publishing and dissemination) is not
centralized, as it is with traditional or “old media”. while with UGC internet access and computer
and web literacy are the only prerequisites for distribution. With regards to UGC, there are many
active creators and a large supply of content that can engage viewers, although of potentially
lower or more diverse quality. Users are also inspired by, and build on, existing works as in the
traditional media chain. Users select what does and does not work, for example, through
recommending and rating, possibly leading to recognition of creators who would not be selected
by traditional media publishers.
The concept of user-generated information has spread well beyond encyclopedias. Consumers
now turn to Yelp to find new restaurants, TripAdvisor to plan a vacation, Rotten Tomatoes to
find a movie, 99 acres, Magic Bricks for Selling and Renting Houses and Buildings, ZocDoc to
check on physicians reputations, and Amazon reviews when purchasing anything ranging from a
book to a vacuum cleaner to cat food. With the click of a button, consumers can share
experiences, information etc.

3.5.3 Media Propagation in Online Social Networks

Online Social Networks became a major source of information in the news media. When
“connected” to the right persons one may find relevant information and opinions faster or is able
to publish content which is not represented in the traditional media. The content consists and
combines multiple types of information like video, audio, images and text. By analyzing and
understanding large scale social networks, policy makers, companies and users of Online Social
Networks (OSNs) could profit from each other. Social Networks evolve over time. Users are
linking with new friends or follow others having similar interests.
As content usually propagates along the relations in a OSN the interesting questions are: • How
far is content being propagated and how fast? • Who are the influential spreaders? Having
knowledge of this process can be used to assist community detection as well as understanding
human behavior in large groups. Examples of heterogeneous networks include rating networks
consisting of people and objects such as songs, movies, books, etc. Such networks can be found
in media appraisal and consumption platforms such as Last.fm and Flixster. Here, people may be
connected to one another via friendship or acquaintance, whereas objects (songs, movies, etc.)
may be linked with one another by means of similarity of their metadata. For example, two songs
may be linked since both are in the same genre or by the same artist. Similarly, two movies may
be directed by the same director. In addition, links may be present between people and objects
owing to their rating relationship: e.g., user Sam rating a specific model of Nikon SLR Camera
produces a link between the corresponding nodes. Another example of a heterogeneous network
is a scientific collaboration network between authors, augmented with articles (that are the result
of collaboration), and the venues they are published in. is network consists of three types of
nodes—authors, articles, and venues—and links between nodes of the same type as well as
between nodes of different types.
Examples of Information Propagation
Some concrete examples of propagations or information cascades in current online social
networking sites. Consider Facebook, where a user Sally updates her status or writes on a
friend’s wall about a new show in town that she enjoyed. Information about this action is
typically communicated to her friends. When some of Sally’s friends comment on her update,
that information is passed on to their friends and so on. In this way, information about the action
taken by Sally has the potential to propagate transitively through the network. Sam posts
(“tweets”) in Twitter about a nifty camera he bought which he is happy about. Some of his
followers on Twitter reply to his tweet while others retweet it. In a similar fashion, viewing of
movies by users tends to propagate on Flixster and MovieLens, information about users joining
groups or communities tends to spread through Flickr, adoption of songs and artists by listeners
spreads through last.fm, and interest in research topics propagates through scientific
collaboration networks.
In the business area, a famous case demonstrating information propagation leading to
commercial success, is the Hotmail phenomenon . In the early 1990s, Hotmail was a relatively
unknown e-mail service provider. They had a simple idea, which was appending to the end of
each mail message sent by their users the text “Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN
Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com.” This had the effect of building and boosting a brand. In a
mere 18 months, Hotmail became the number one e-mail provider, with 8 million users. The
underlying phenomenon was that a fraction of the recipients of Hotmail messages were inspired
by the appended message to try it for themselves. When they sent mail to others, a fraction of
them felt a similar temptation. This phenomenon propagated transitively and soon, adoption of
Hotmail became viral.

On November 16, 2011, a song from the soundtrack of a then upcoming Indian (Tamil) movie,
called “Why this kolaveri di?” was released. By November 21, it was a top trend in Twitter.
Within a week of its release, it had attracted 1.3 million views on YouTube and more than a
million “shares” on Facebook, reaching and propagating through many non-Tamil speakers. It
eventually went on to win the Gold Award from YouTube for most views (e.g., 58 million as of
June 2012) and was featured in mainstream media such as Time, BBC, and CNN.

3.5.4 Content based Retrieval in Digital Libraries

The advance of computer technology makes it possible to include a colossal amount of
information in various formats in a digital library. In addition to traditional text-based documents
such as books and articles, other types of materials—including images, audio, and video—can
also be easily digitized and stored. Therefore, how to retrieve and present this multimedia
information effectively through the interface of a digital library is of great significance.

Currently, there are three methods of retrieving information in a digital library. The first and the
easiest way is free browsing. By this means, a user browses through a collection and looks for
desired information. The second method—the most popular technique used today—is textbased
retrieval. Through this method, textual information (full text of text-based documents and/or
metadata of multimedia documents) is indexed so that a user can search the digital library by
using keywords or controlled terms. The third method is content-based retrieval, which enables a
user to search multimedia information in terms of the actual content of image, audio, or video.
Some content features that have been studied so far include color, texture, size, shape, motion,
and pitch.

A patron comes to a public library with a picture of a rare insect. Without expertise in
entomology, the librarian won’t know where to start if only a text-based information retrieval
system is available. However, with the help of content-based image retrieval, the librarian can
upload the digitized image of the insect to an online digital image library of insects, and the
system will retrieve similar images with detailed description of this insect. Similarly, a patron
has a segment of music audio, about which he or she knows nothing but wants to find out more.
By using the content-based audio retrieval system, the patron can get similar audio clips with
detailed information from a digital music library, and then listen to them to find an exact match.
This procedure will be much easier than doing a search on a text-based music search system. It is
definitely helpful if a user can search this non-textual information by styles and features.

Ideally, a content-based information retrieval system can understand the multimedia data
semantically, such as its objects and categories to which it belongs. Therefore, a user is able to
submit semantic queries and retrieve matched results. However, a great difficulty in the current
computer technology is to extract high-level or semantic features of multimedia information.

A typical content-based information retrieval system works in this way: First, for each
multimedia file in the database, certain feature information (e.g., color, motion, or pitch) is
extracted, indexed, and stored. Second, when a user composes a query, the feature information of
the query is calculated as vectors. Finally, the system compares the similarity between the feature
vectors of the query and multimedia data, and retrieves the best matching records. If the user is
not satisfied with the retrieved records, he or she can refine the search results by selecting the
most relevant ones to the search query, and repeat the search with the new information.

REVIEW QUESTIONS
2 Marks
1.What is compression ?
2.What is Non-lossy compression /
3.List any four non-lossy compression standards.
4.What is lossy compression ?
5.Expand JPEG.
6.What is the use of JPEG?
7.Expand MPEG.
8.List some lossy compression standards.
9.What do you mean by Asymmetrical applications ?
10. What is binary image ?
11. List some binary image compression scheme.
12. Define DCT.
13. What is the function of Quantizer?
14. What is Entropy?
15. What do you mean by symmetrical compression?
16. What is video image?
17. What is interframe compression?
18. List some video standards.
19. Expand AVI.
20. What is dynamic range compression?
21. List some audio compression techniques.
22. What is silence compression?
23. What are fractals?
24. What are the disadvantages of fractal compression?
25. Expand RTF.
26. Expand RIFF,
27. Define chunks.
28. What are the file name extensions of RIFF?
29. What are the advantages of GIF?
30. Expand PNG.
31. Expand TIFF.
32. Expand MIDI.
33. What is MIDI.
34. What are the file name extension of JPEG?
35. Expand JFIF.
36. What are the disadvantages of AVI?
37. Give examples of bitmap images?
38. Expand WMF.
39. What is the use of TWAIN?
40. List the layers of TWAIN architecture.
41. What are the two major mass storage technology?
42. What is transmission latency?
43. What do you mean by RDBMS Extension?
44. What is BLOB?
45. What are the object oriented principles used in multimedia database?
46. What is distributed database Server?
47. What does the Multimedia object management do?
48. What is content based retrieval.
49. What are digital libraries.
50. What are Online social Networks.
51. What is a user generated content.
52. What is media propagation.

3 marks

1.What is the need for data compression.

2. What is the difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical compression.
3. Distinguish a lossy compression from Non lossy compression.
4. What are the various Lossy and Non lossy compression standards.
5. How does a hardware compression differ from a software compression.
6. Explain the various characteristics of color.
7. Explain fractal compression.
8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of fractal compression.
9. Explain RTF in detail.
10. Explain RIFF in detail.
11. Explain TIFF structure.
12. What is MIX.
13. What are the advantages of optical file system.
14. What is data independence.
15. What is common Distributed architecture.
16. What is a distributed database server.
17. What is multimedia object management.
18. What is transaction management.

10 Marks

1. (a) Write abou the need of compression.

(b) Explain lossy compression schemes.

2. (a) Explain Non-lossy compression schemes.

(b) Explain Binary image compression.

3. (a) Explain briefly about JPEG compression.

(b) Explain various standards of Video.

4. (a) Write about the requirements for full-motion video compression.

(b). Explain the various techniques for audio compression.

5. (a) Write about fractal compression.

(b) Explain RTF and RIFF.

6. (a) Explain MIDI.

(b) Write about any five popular file formats.

7. (a). Explain JPEG and MPEG Compression standards

(b) Explain TWAIN architecture.

8. (a) Write about storage and retrieval methods.

(b) Explain DBMS for multimedia.

9. (a) Explain database organization for multimedia.

(b) Write about Transaction management of multimedia.

10. Explain Content based retrieval in digital library.

11. Explain Media Propagation in online social networks.

12. Explain User Generated Content sharing in social media.

 UNIT IV

4.0 MULTMEDIA DEVICES AND MAKING MULTIMEDIA

4.1 MULTIMEDIA INPUT/OUTPUT TECHNOLOGIES

There are a number of devices used to input the multimedia data into the system as well as
output devices used to playback or display the data from the system. For example keyboard,
mouse, scanner, microphone and camera are the multimedia input devices. Printer, monitor,
projector and speaker are the multimedia output devices.

4.1.1 Limitations of Traditional input devices

Keyboard is the traditional input device for entering data into a computer system. In earlier days
keyboard was used only for entering numeric data. Then it was changed to alphanumeric and
then it was changed to multifunction keyboard.When the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) was
introduced, the pointing device mouse became essential for selecting or moving graphical objects
and menu items. Multimedia technology requires a variety of other types of data input including
voice, video and images. These types of inputs require special devices such as digital pens,
microphones, scanners and video cameras.

4.1.2 Multimedia input output devices

4.1.2 PEN input

In our daily life, we use paper and pen to write and draw. A digital pen is a input device that has
the same paper –pen concept. Digital pen(electronic pen) is a powerful input device that allows
the user to write, draw and point.

Advantages of electronic pen over mouse

▪ Pen input requires no training to operate.

▪ Pen input can perform all mouse operations such as pick, drag, drop etc.
▪ Palmtop computers integrated with all phones use an electronic pen to select icons.
▪ A pen is a more natural drawing device than a mouse.
▪ Writing text with electronic pen is faster than keyboard.

Working of Electronic Pen

The electronic pen is managed by a special system in Microsoft windows called pen computing
system. The pen computing system consists of the following.

▪ Electronic pen
▪ Digitizer
▪ Pen driver
▪ Recognition context manager(RC manager)
▪ Recognizer
 ▪ Dictionary
▪ Display driver

The following figure 4.1 shows the windows pen computing system.

Figure 4.1 Electronic Pen

Electronic pen: The electronic pen is used to write or draw as input

Digitizer : The digitizer generates the pen position(x,y) distance of the pen from screen
surface, and pen contact with the screen.
Pen driver : A device driver that collects all pen information and build pen packets and send
to RC Manager.
RC manager : RC manager is the heart of the pen system. It works with the recognizer,
dictionary and device drivers.
Recognizer : It recognizes the hand written characters and converts to ASCII.
Dictionary : It receives characters from the recognizer and make them words and sentence.
Display driver : It helps the objects whether any character or symbols exist on the screen. It
creates a new cursor on the screen.

4.1.3 Video and image display systems

Most of the applications are windows based with menus, icons, graphics, 3D drawings and so
on. High resolution display systems are required to present these objects. The performance of a
display system is affected by three major factors.

▪ Network bandwidth
▪ Decompression and decoding
 ▪ Display technology
Bandwidth is measured by the amount of data transmitted per second. If the bandwidth
becomes low, it is seen as a delay in the display of records or image. The compressed data must
be decompressed before display. In the case of poor decompression, it causes an irritating delay
for the user. The performance of the display is also affected by the display technologies includes
sufficient video memory, dual buffering system, etc.

4.1.4 Video display technology

The earlier video standards became inadequate because of the current advanced technology and
user demands for higher resolution. Various earlier and newer video standards are listed below:

Table 4.1.Video Standards

S.No Technology Feature

1. MDA (Monochrome Display This standard was introduced in 1981 to display only
Adapter) text. It cannot be used for images. Its resolution is
720 x 350 pixels.
2. CGA(Color Graphics Adapter) This standard was introduced in 1981. It can display
text in 640 x200 resolution and graphics in 640x300
resolution.
3. MGA(Monochrome Graphics This standard was introduced in 1982. It can display
Adapter) text in 720x350 resolution and graphics in 720x338
resolution.
4. EGA(Enhanced Graphics This standard was introduced in 1984. It can display
Adapter) text in 640x350 resolution and graphics in 640x200
resolution with 16 colors.
5. PGA(Professional Graphics It was introduced in 1985, specifically to display
Adapter) bitmap graphics at 640x480 resolution with 256
colors.
6. VGA(Video Graphics Array) It was introduced in 1987. It can display text in
720x400 resolution and the RGB signals to display
256 colors in 640x480 resolution.
7. SVGA(Super VGA) It was introduced by Video Electronics Standard
Association(VESA) in 1989. Its goal is to develop a
standard for a higher resolution than VGA. Its display
resolution is 1024x768 pixels.
8. XGA(Extended Graphics Array) XGA is VGA compatibility in addition a resolution
of 1024x768 pixels in 256 colors.

4.1.5 CRT

The system that generates the visual output of text, graphics and video is known as display
system . For video display, CRT monitor is being used for long years. Most CRT monitor
manufactures attempt to support as many standards as they can with the same monitor
electronics. For most applications, VGA resolution is sufficient to display text and images in a
14 inch monitor.

Working of a CRT monitor

A Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitor works by illuminating millions of tiny red, blue and green
phosphor dots with a beam of electrons.

Figure 4.2 Cathode Ray Tube

The above figure shows the working principle of a CRT monitor. A cathode ray tube behind the
monitor’s Screen contains a filament that held in a vacuum. The filament generates negatively
charged electrons when it is heated and these get attracted toward positively charged anode that
is placed between the cathode and screen. This produces a beam of electrons that strike the layer
of phosphor dots coating on the screen and illuminates them. To generate the correct image, the
electron beam can be filtered by shadow mask.

4.1.6 Flat panel display system

Flat panel displays are used for notebook computers and laptop computers. It is used for both
monochrome and color display. It uses LCD screen technology in two basic ways.

▪ Passive LCD Matrix Display

▪ Active LCD Matrix Display

Passive LCD Matrix Display

A passive LCD screen is organized in a matrix consisting of 640x480 pixels(640 columns and
480 rows of pixels). The address of each pixel is defined by its x and y position in the matrix.
The address of the first pixel is (0,0) and the address of the last pixel is(639,479). In the passive
matrix system, each column has a separate electronic driver to drive or to address but there is
only one row driver to drive or address the pixel. For example to illuminate the pixels (255,198)
and (340,198), column driver 255 and 340 is turned on and the row driver 198 its turned on. This
takes more time to display. To overcome the time delay the matrix is divided into the halves and
each half is independently operated.

Active LCD Matrix Display

An active LCD matrix display contains 640x480 pixels same as passive LCD matrix display. It is
faster than passive LCD matrix system because the number of transistors used is very high. For
example there are 640x480x3=921600 transistors used for VGA and 800x600x3=1,440,000
transistors are used for SVGA display. Active-matrix LCDs depend on thin film
transistors (TFT). Basically, TFTs are tiny switching transistors and capacitors. They are
arranged in a matrix on a glass substrate. To address a particular pixel, the proper row is
switched on, and then a charge is sent down the correct column. Since all of the other rows that
the column intersects are turned off, only the capacitor at the designated pixel receives a charge.
The capacitor is able to hold the charge until the next refresh cycle. And if we carefully control
the amount of voltage supplied to a crystal, we can make it untwist only enough to allow some
light through.

4.2 PRINT OUTPUT, IMAGE, AUDIO AND VIDEO TECHNOLOGIES

4.2.1 Print Out Technologies

There are various printing technologies available namely Dot matrix, inkjet, laser printer and ink
jet color printer.. But, laser printing technology is the most common for multimedia systems.
4.2.2 Laser printing
Laser printers are the suitable printers for multimedia systems. Most of the laser printer in offices
provides the resolution ranging from 300 to 600 dpi. This resolution is more than enough for
office purpose. But multimedia systems require higher resolution ranging from 600 to 1200 dpi.
Laser printer can print all types of documents including graphics and images.
The basic components of the laser printer are :
• Paper feed mechanism
• Corona wires
• Paper guide
• Laser assembly
• Fuser
• Toner cartridge.
 Figure 4.3 Laser Printing

Working: The paper feed mechanism moves the paper from a paper tray through the paper path
in the printer. The paper passes over a set of corona wires that induce a charge in the paper . The
paper is then struck by a scanning laser beam that follows the pattern of the text on graphics to
be printed .The charged paper passes over a drum coated with fine-grain carbon (toner), and the
toner attaches itself to the paper as a thin film of carbon . The carbon particles attach themselves
to the pixels traced by the laser beam . The fuser assembly then binds the carbon particles to the
paper.
Role of Software in the printing mechanism:
The software package sends information to the printer to select and control printing features .
Printer drivers (files) are controlling the actual operation of the printer and allow the application
software to access the features of the printer.

4.2.3 Dye sublimation printer

Dye sublimation printer is more suitable to multimedia applications because it prints in color
and in high quality. It is very useful to print photographic quality prints and so the graphic artists,
advertising agencies, film industries use this printer.

Working principle

The major parts of the dye sublimation printer includes

• Thermal printing head
• Paper rollers 2 nos
• Film transfer roll
• Drum
• Color dyes panel
 Figure 4.4 Dye Sublimation Printer

The thermal printing head contains thousands of tiny heating elements. The film transfer roll
contains a panel of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dyes. During printing, individual heating
elements are heated in different heating levels based on the color. The dye panel is rolled under
the head and cyan dye is heated first into a vapor state. This state is called sublimation. This
vapor is absorbed by the paper in the drum. The paper is coated with polyester to help absorb the
dye quickly. This process is then repeated for other three dyes magenta, yellow and black to
create a photographic quality print

4.2.4 Color printing technology issues

There are some draw backs in color printing. These issues are categorized as
• Pre Printing Problems
• Post Printing Problems
` Pre Printing Problems
• The color range of the printer and the monitor do not match. Printer uses the CMYK
(cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color range while the monitor uses
RGB(Red,Green,Blue) color range.
• Each technology has its own color range.
• Even after the devices are calibrated, the colors vary when printed.

Post Printing Problems

• Some colors cannot be dithered (Dithering is the process of adjusting to the nearest
color).
• When colors like cyan and magenta are mixed, sometimes they generate a repetitive
pattern called moiré pattern.
• Colors look different for different output medium. For example colors on a glass paper
look very different from the same color on a paper.

4.2.5 Image Scanners

In a document imaging system, documents are scanned using a scanner. The document being
scanned is placed on the scanner bed or fed into the sheet feeder of the scanner .The scanner acts
as the camera eye and takes a photograph of the document, creating an image of the original. The
pixel representation (image) is recreated by the display software to render the image of the
original document on screen or to print a copy of it.
4.2.6 Types of Scanners
A and B size Scanners, large form factor scanners, flat bed scanners, Rotory drum scanners and
hand held scanners are the different types of scanners.
All scanners use charge-coupled devices (CCD) as their photo sensors. CCDs consists of cells
arranged in a fixed array on a small square or rectangular solid state surface. Light source moves
across a document. The intensity of the light reflected by the mirror charges those cells. The
amount of charge is depending upon intensity of the reflected light, which depends on the pixel
shade in the document.

4.2.7 Digital Voice and Audio

4.2.7.1.Digital Audio
Sound is made up of continuous analog sine waves that tend to repeat depending on the music or
voice. The analog waveforms are converted into digital format by analog-to-digital converter
(ADC) using sampling process.

Figure 4.5 Digital Audio

Sampling process
Sampling is a process where the analog signal is sampled over time at regular intervals to obtain
the amplitude of the analog signal at the sampling time.
Sampling rate
The regular interval at which the sampling occurs is called the sampling rate.
Digital Voice
Speech is analog in nature and is converted to digital form by an analog-to-digital converter
(ADC). An ADC takes an input signal from a microphone and converts the amplitude of the
sampled analog signal to an 8, 16 or 32 bit digital value.
The four important factors governing the ADC process are
• sampling rate
• Resolution
• linearity and conversion speed.

Sampling Rate: The rate at which the ADC takes a sample of an analog signal.
Resolution: The number of bits utilized for conversion determines the resolution of ADC.
Linearity: Linearity implies that the sampling is linear at all frequencies and that the amplitude
only represents the signal.
Conversion Speed: It is a speed of ADC to convert the analog signal into Digital signals. It must
be fast enough.

4.2.8 Voice Recognition System

Voice Recognition Systems can be classified into three types.
1. Isolated-word Speech Recognition.
2. Connected-word Speech Recognition.
3. Continuous Speech Recognition.

1. Isolated-word Speech Recognition.

It provides recognition of a single word at a time. The user must separate every word by a pause.
The pause marks the end of one word and the beginning of the next word.
Stage 1: Normalization
The recognizer's first task is to carry out amplitude and noise normalization to minimize the
variation in speech due to ambient noise, the speaker's voice, the speaker's distance from and
position relative to the microphone, and the speaker's breath noise.
Stage2: Parametric Analysis
It is a preprocessing stage that extracts relevant time-varying sequences of speech parameters.
This stage serves two purposes: (i) It extracts time-varying speech parameters. (ii) It reduces the
amount of data of extracting the relevant speech parameters.
Training mode In training mode of the recognizer, the new frames are added to the reference
list.
Recognizer mode If the recognizer is in Recognizer mode, then dynamic time warping is
applied to the unknown patterns to average out the phoneme (smallest distinguishable sound, and
spoken words are constructed by concatenating basic phonemes) time duration. The unknown
pattern is then compared with the reference patterns.
A speaker independent isolated word recognizer can be achieved by grouping a large number of
samples corresponding to a word into a single cluster.
Connected-Word Speech Recognition
Connected-word speech consists of spoken phrase consisting of a sequence of words. It may not
contain long pauses between words. This method uses Word Spotting technique .It Recognizes
words in a connected-word phrase. In this technique, Recognition is carried out by compensating
for rate of speech variations by the process called dynamic time warping (this process is used to
expand or compress the time duration of the word), and sliding the adjusted connected-word
phrase representation in time past a stored word template for a likely match.

Continuous Speech Recognition

This system can be divided into three sections:
(i) A section consisting of digitization, amplitude normalization, time nonnalization and
parametric representation.
(ii) Second section consisting of segmentation and labeling of the speech segment into a
symbolic string based on a knowledge based or rule-based systems.
(iii) The final section is to match speech segments to recognize word sequences.
The method using Word Spotting technique
It Recognizes words in a connected-word phrase. In this technique, Recognition is carried out by
compensating for rate of speech variations by the process called dynamic time warping (this
process is used to expand or compress the time duration of the word), and sliding the adjusted
connected-word phrase representation in time past a stored word template for a likely match.

Continuous Speech Recognition

This sytem can be divided into three sections:
(i) A section consisting of digitization, amplitude normalization, time normalization and
parametric representation.
(ii) Second section consisting of segmentation and labeling of the speech segment into a
symbolic string based on a knowledge based or rule-based systems.
(iii) The final section is to match speech segments to recognize word sequences.

4.2.9 Digital Camera

Digital cameras are used to capture images and stored in digitized form. They are small and
easy to use. Digital camera does not use photographic films but it uses light sensitive electronic
devices to capture images.

Working principle
The following figure shows the operation of a digital camera.

Figure 4.6 Digital Camera

The light from the focused object is passed through a lens. The lens send the signals to
CCD(Charge Coupled Devices) CCD is an array of photo sensors that generates an electric
current proportion to the intensity of the light. Then CCD passes the light signal to ADC. The
ADC converts the analog signal to digital. Digital Signal Processor (DSP) controls the contrast
and other details of the image and compress it. Then the image is stored as files such as JPG and
GIF.

Advantages
• Photographic film is not necessary
• Easy to use
• High quality images
• Images require less storage space
• Images can be edited by software

4.2.10 Video Frame Grabber

A video frame grabber is used to capture, manipulate and enhance video images. A video frame
grabber card consists of video channel multiplexer, Video ADC, Input look-up table with
arithmetic logic unit, image frame buffer, compression-decompression circuitry, output color
look-up table, video DAC and synchronizing circuitry.
A video channel multiplexer has multiple inputs for different video inputs. The video channel
multiplexer allows the video channel to be selected under program control and switches to the
control circuitry appropriate for the selected channel in a TV with multi – system inputs. Analog
to Digital Converter: The ADC takes inputs from video multiplexer and converts the amplitude
of a sampled analog signal to either an 8-bit digital value for monochrome or a 24 bit digital
value for color.
Input lookup table: The input lookup table along with the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) allows
performing image processing functions on a pixel basis and an image frame basis. The pixel
image-processing functions ate histogram stretching or histogram shrinking for image brightness
and contrast, and histogram sliding to brighten or darken the image. The frame-basis image-
processing functions perform logical and arithmetic operations.
Image Frame Buffer Memory: The image frame buffer is organized as a l024 x 1024 x 24
storage buffer to store image for image processing and display.
Video Compression-Decompression: The video compression-decompression processor is used
to compress and decompress still image data and video data.
Frame Buffer Output Lookup Table: The frame buffer data represents the pixel data and is
used to index into the output look uptable. The output lookup table generates either an 8 bit pixel
value for monochrome or a 24 bit pixel value for color.
SVGA Interface: This is an optional interface for the frame grabber. The frame grabber can be
designed to include an SVGA frame buffer with its own output lookup table and digital-to-
analog converter.
Analog Output Mixer: The output from the SVGA DAC and the output from image frame
buffer DAC is mixed to generate overlay output signals. The primary components involved
include the display image frame buffer and the display SVGA buffer. The display SVGA frame
buffer is overlaid on the image frame buffer or live video, This allows SVGA to display live
video
.
4.2.11 Video and Still Image Processing
Video image processing is defined as the process of manipulating a bit map image so that the
image can be enhanced, restored, distorted, or analyzed. Let us discuss about some of the terms
using in video and still image processing.
a. Pixel point to point processing
In pixel point-to-point processing, operations are carried out on individual pixels one at a time.
Histogram Sliding: It is used to change the overall visible effect of brightening or darkening of
the image. Histogram sliding is implemented by modifying the input look-up table values and
using the input lookup table in conjunction with arithmetic logic unit.
Histogram Stretching and Shrinking: It is to increase or decrease the contrast. In histogram
shrinking, the brighter pixels are made less bright and the darker pixels are made less dark.
Pixel Threshold: Setting pixel threshold levels set a limit on the bright or dark areas of a picture.
Pixel threshold setting is also achieved through the input lookup table.

b.Inter- frame image processing

Inter- frame image processing is the same as point-to-point image processing, except that the
image processor operates on two images at the same time. The equation of the image operations
is as follows:
Pixel output (x, y) = (Image l(x, y) Operator (Image 2(x, y)
Image Averaging: Image averaging minimizes or cancels the effects of random noise.
Image Subtraction: Image subtraction is used to determine the change from one frame to the next
.for image comparisons for key frame detection or motion detection.
Logical Image Operation: Logical image processing operations are useful for comparing image
frames and masking a block in an image frame.

b.Spatial Filter Processing

The rate of change of shades of gray or colors is called spatial frequency. The process of
generating images with either low-spatial frequency-components or high frequency components
is called spatial filter processing.
Low Pass Filter: A low pass filter causes blurring of the image and appears to cause a reduction
in noise.
High Pass Filter: The high-pass filter causes edges to be emphasized. The high-pass filter
attenuates low-spatial frequency components, thereby enhancing edges and sharpening the
image.
Laplacian Filter: This filter sharply attenuates low-spatial-frequency components without
affecting and high-spatial frequency components, thereby enhancing edges sharply.

c.Frame Processing
Frame processing operations are most commonly for geometric operations, image
transformation, and image data compression and decompression Frame processing operations are
very compute intensive many multiply and add operations, similar to spatial filter convolution
operations.
Image scaling: Image scaling allows enlarging or shrinking the whole or part of an image.
Image rotation: Image rotation allows the image to be rotated about a center point. The
operation can be used to rotate the image orthogonally to reorient the image if it was scanned
incorrectly. The operation can also be used for animation.
Image translation: Image translation allows the image to be moved up and down or side to side.
Again, this function can be used for animation. Tx and Ty are the horizontal and vertical
coordinates. x, yare the spatial coordinates of the original pixel.
Image transformation: An image contains varying degrees of brightness or colors defined by
the spatial frequency. The image can be transformed from spatial domain to the frequency
domain by using frequency transform.

4.2.12 Video Camera

Video cameras are used to capture live full-motion video. The multimedia video camera differ
from commercial video camera.
A video camera works with three basic parts.
a. Camera unit
b. VCR unit
c. View finder unit
The camera unit consists of lens and charge coupled devices(CCD) and motors that are used to
focus, zoom and lighting. The VCR unit is located inside the camera that records the video on
tapes. The view finder allows the user to see what is shooting and receives the video image.

4.2.13 Full Motion Video Controllers

Full motion video controllers are used to control the overall operations such as capturing video,
recording video and playback the video.

4.2.14 Video Capture Board

A full-motion video capture board is a circuit card in the computer that consists of the following
components:
(i) Video input to accept video input signals.
(ii) S- Video input to accept RS 170 input.
(iii) Video compression-decompression processor to handle different video compression-
decompression algorithms for video data.
(iv) Audio compression-decompression processor to compress and decompress audio data.
(v) Analog to digital converter.
(vi) Digital to analog converter.
(vii) Audio input for stereo audio LINE IN, CD IN.
(viii) Microphone.

Figure 4.7 Video Capture Board

A video capture board can handle a variety of different audio and video input signals and convert
them from analog to digital or digital to analog.
Video Channel Multiplexer: It is similar to the video grabber's video channel multiplexer.
Video Compression and Decompression: A video compression and decompression processor is
used to compress and decompress video data. The video compression and decompression
processor contains multiple stages for compression and decompression. The stages include
forward discrete cosine transformation and inverse discrete cosine transformation, quantization
and inverse quantization, ZigZag and Zero run-length encoding and decoding, and motion
estimation and compensation.
Audio Compression: MPEG-2 uses adaptive pulse code modulation (ADPCM) to sample the
audio signal. The method takes a difference between the actual sample value and predicted
sample value. The difference is then encoded by a 4-bit value or 8-bit value depending upon the
sample rate
Analog to Digital Converter: The ADC takes inputs from the video switch and converts the
amplitude of a sampled analog signal to either an 8-bit or 16-bit digital value.

4.3 MAKING MULTIMEDIA

The basic stages of a multimedia project are planning and costing, design and production, testing
and delivery.Knowledge of hardware and software, as well as creativity and organizational skills
are essential for creating a high-quality multimedia project.

4.3.1 The Stages of a Multimedia Project

Most multimedia and web projects must be undertaken in stages. Here are the four basic stages
in a multimedia project:

a. Planning and costing

• The needs of a project are analyzed by outlining its messages and objectives.
• A plan that outlines the required multimedia expertise is prepared.
• A graphic template, the structure, and navigational system are developed.
• A time estimate and a budget are prepared.
• A short prototype or proof-of-concept is prepared.
b. Design and production:
• The planned tasks are performed to create a finished product.
• The product is revised, based on the continuous feedback received from the client.
c. Testing
The program is tested to ensure that it meets the objectives of the project, works on the
proposed delivery platforms, and meets the client requirements.
d. Delivering
The final project is packaged and delivered to the end user.

4.3.2 Creativity

The most precious asset to the multimedia workshop is creativity. It’s what separates
underwhelming multimedia from compelling, engaging, and award-winning products. There is a
lot of room for taking risks in making multimedia because there are few known formulas for
multimedia success. Taking inspiration from earlier experiments, developers modify and add
their own creative touches for designing their own unique multimedia projects. In a multimedia
project, being creative implies knowledge of hardware and software.

4.3.3 Organization

It’s essential that an organized outline and a plan is developed that rationally details the skills,
time, budget, tools, and resources needed for a project. These should be in place before starting
to render graphics, sounds, and other components. A protocol should be established for naming
the files so that it can be quickly retrieved when necessary.

4.3.4 Communication

Many multimedia applications are developed in workgroups comprising instructional designers,

writers, graphic artists, programmers, and musicians located in the same office space or building.
Communication among workgroup members and with the client is essential to the efficient and
accurate completion of the project. and is connected to the Internet, a combination of Skype
video and voice telephone, e-mail, and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Hence in the
workplace, use of quality equipment and software for the communications is required.

4.3.5 Hardware

Computer used for multimedia should have high end hardware. Hardware interprets your
commands into computer activity. Hence a fast computer with lot of speed and storage is
required. The components that make up the hardware of the computer includes processor,
motherboard and memory. Processor is basically the heart of the computer. When you turn your
computer on, it is the processor, which performs the startup operations Motherboard contains
computer components like microprocessor, memory, basic input/output system (BIOS),
expansion slots and interconnecting circuitry. RAM (random access memory), also called
primary memory, locates the operating system, application programs, and data in current use so
that the computer's processor reaches them quickly. RAM might get slow when used to its limit.
Hence more memory is needed to work on multimedia. Today's personal computers come with
128 or more of RAM, System devices, Memory and storage devices, Input devices, Output
devices, and Communication devices.

4.3.5.1.Memory and Storage Devices

As more memory and storage space is added to the computer, computing needs will keep pace.
If there are many videos, images, audios etc then more memory is needed. If making multimedia,
then one needs to allocate memory for storing and archiving working files used during
production, original audio and video clips, edited pieces, and final mixed pieces production
paperwork and correspondence, and at least one backup of the project files, with a second
backup stored at another location.

4.3.5.2.Random Access Memory (RAM)

In spite of a very high processor speed, this speed is ineffective if not accompanied by sufficient
RAM. A fast processor without enough RAM may waste processor cycles while it swaps needed
portions of program code into and out of memory. In some cases, increasing available RAM may
show more performance improvement on the system than upgrading the processor chip.
4.3.5.3.Hard Disks

Adequate storage space for your production environment can be provided by large-capacity hard
disks, server-mounted on a network. As multimedia has reached consumer desktops, makers of
hard disks have built smaller-profile, larger-capacity, faster, and less-expensive hard disks. As
network and Internet servers drive the demand for centralized data storage requiring terabytes
(one trillion bytes), hard disks are often configured into fail-proof redundant arrays offering
built-in protection against crashes.

4.3.5.4. Flash Memory or Thumb Drives

These flash memory data storage devices can be integrated with USB or FireWire interfaces to
store from eight megabytes to several GB of data. They are extremely portable, and, because
they have fewer moving parts, are more reliable than disk drives.

4.3.5.5.CD-ROM Discs and Digital Versatile Discs (DVD)

Compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) and Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) players have
become an integral part of the multimedia development workstation and are an important
delivery vehicle for mass-produced projects. A wide variety of developer utilities, graphic
backgrounds, stock photography and sounds, applications, games, reference texts, and
educational software are available on this medium.

4.3.5.6.Input Devices

A great variety of input devices—from the familiar keyboard and handymouse to touchscreens
and voice recognition setups—can be used for the development and delivery of a multimedia
project. If the project is designed for a public kiosk, a touchscreen can be used. If the project is
for a lecturing professor a remote handheld mouse can be used. Scanners enable one to use
optical character recognition (OCR).Other input devices include Digital cameras, Microphones
etc.

4.3.5.7.Output Devices

Presentation of the audio and visual components of the multimedia project requires hardware
that may or may not be included with the computer itself, such as speakers, amplifiers,
projectors, and motion video devices. The monitor required for development of multimedia
projects depends on the type of multimedia application created, as wellas the computer used. A
wide variety of monitors is available for both Macintoshes and PCs. High-end, large-screen
graphics monitors and LCD panels are available for both, and they are expensive. No other
contemporary message medium has the visual impact of video. When it is necessary to show the
material to more viewers , it should be projected onto a large screen or even a white-painted
wall. Cathode-ray tube (CRT) projectors, liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, Digital Light
Processing (DLP) projectors, and liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) projectors, as well as (for
larger projects),Grating-Light-Valve (GLV) technologies, are available.

4.3.6 Software

Multimedia software tells the hardware what to do. The basic tool set for building multimedia
projects contains one or more authoring systems and various editing applications for text,
images,s ounds, and motion video. A few additional applications are also useful for capturing
images from the screen, translating file formats ,and moving files among computers. The
software in the multimedia toolkit and one’s skill at using it—determines what kind of
multimedia work one can do and how fine and fancy one can render it. Making good
multimedia means picking a successful route through the software swamp. The software in the
multimedia toolkit and the ability to use it will determine the quality of the multimedia work.
The basic tool set for building a multimedia project can be divided into five categories: Painting
and drawing tools, 3-D Modeling and animation tools, Image editing tools, Sound editing tools,
Animation Video Digital Movie tool

4.3.7 Text Editing and Word Processing Tools

A word processor is usually the first software tool computer users learn. Your word processor
may also be your most often used tool, as you design and build a multimedia project.
Keyboarding and typing skills, the easier and more efficient will be your multimedia day-to-day
life. Word processor comes bundled in an “office suite” that might include spreadsheet, database,
e-mail;, web browser, and presentation application. Word processor such as Word and Word
perfect are powerful applications that include spell checkers, table formatters, thesauruses, and
pre built templates for letters, resumes, purchase orders and other common documents.

4.3.8 OCR Software

With optical character recognition software, a flat-bed scanner, and your computer, you can save
many hours of rekeying printed words, and get the job done faster than a roomful of typists.
OCR software turns bitmapped characters into electrically recognized ASCII text. A scanner
typically used to create a bitmap. Then the software breaks the bitmap into chunks according to
whether it contains text or graphics.

4.3.9 Painting and Drawing Tools

Painting and drawing tools, as well as 3-D modelers, are perhaps the most important items in
your multimedia projects. To have greater impact to the end user the painting and drawing tools
are used in the project Painting software such as Photoshop, Picture Publisher, and Fractal
Design Painter is dedicated to producing crafted bitmap images. Drawing software such as
CorelDraw, Freehand, Illustrator, Designer, and Canvas, is dedicated to producing vector based
line art easily to paper using PostScript or another page markup system such as QuickDraw on
the Macintosh.
Features
1) An intuitive graphical user interface with pull down menus, status bars, palette control, and
dialog boxes for quick logical selection.
2) Scalable dimensions, so you can resize, stretch, and distort both large and small bitmaps.
3) Paint tools to create geometric shapes, from squares to circles and from curves to complex
polygons.
4) Ability to pour a color, pattern, or gradient into any area.
5) Zooming for magnified pixel editing.
6) Customizable pen and brush shapes and sizes.
7) Good file importing and exporting capability for images formats such as PIC, GIF, TIF,
WMF, BMP etc.

4.3.10 Modeling and Animation Tools

With 3-D modeling software, objects rendered in perspective appear more Realistic. You can
create stunning scenes and wander through them, choosing just the right lighting and perspective
for your final rendering image. Powerful modeling packages such as Macromedia’s Extreme 3D,
AutoDesk’s 3D Studio Max, Strata Vision’s 3D are available for objects such as
people,furniture, buildings, airplanes, trees etc.,
Features
1) Multiple windows that allow you to view your model in each dimension, from the camera’s
perspective, and in a rendered preview.
2) Ability to drag and drop primitive shapes into a scene.
3) Lathe and extrude features
4) Color and texture mapping
5) Ability to add realistic effects such as transparency, shadowing, and fog.
6) Ability to add spot, local, and global lights, to place them anywhere, and manipulate them
from special lighting effects.
7) Unlimited cameras with focal length control.

4.3.11 Image-Editing Tools

Imaging editing tools are specialized and powerful tools for enhancing and retouching existing
bitmapped images. These applications also provide many of the features and tools of painting
and drawing programs and can be used to create images from scratch as well as digitized images
from scanners, video frame-grabbers and digital cameras.
Features
1) Multiple windows provide views of more than one image at a time.
2) Direct input of images from scanners and video sources.
3) Employment of virtual memory scheme that uses hard disk spaces as RAM for images that
require large amount of memory.
4) Capable of selection tools, such as rectangles, lassos, and magic wands, to select portions of a
bitmap.
5) Good masking feature
6) Multiple Undo and restore features
7) Color-mapping controls for precise adjustment of color balance.
8) Tools for retouching, blurring, sharpening, lightening, darkening, smudging, and tinting.
9) Ability to resample and resize an image.
10) 24-bit color, 8- or 4-bit indexed color, 8-bit gray scale, black-and-white, and customized
color palettes.
11) Ability to design in layers that can be combined, hidden, and reordered.
4.3.12 Sound Editing Tools
Sound editing tools for both digitized and MIDI sound let you see music as well as hear it. You
can cut, copy, paste and otherwise edit segments of it with great precision. System sounds are
shipped with both Macintosh and Windows systems as soon as you install the OS. Echo effects,
mixing of sound etc., can be made by Sound editing Tools. Software like Creative Labs’ Wave
Studio is used for editing sounds to perform in greater experience.

4.3.13 Animation, Video, and Digital Movie Tools

Animation and digital video movies are sequences of bitmapped graphic scenes (frames) rapidly
played back. Movie making tools take advantages of Quick Time (Macintosh and Windows) and
Microsoft Video for Windows (also known as AVI ,or Audio Video Interleaved, available for
Windows. only) technology and let you create, edit, and present digitized motion video
segments, usually in a small window in your project. Movie making tools such as Premiere,
Video Shop, and Media Studio Pro let you edit and assemble video clips captured from camera,
tape, other digitized movie segments , scanned images, animations, and from digitized audio.

4.3.14 Authoring Systems

Multimedia authoring tools provide the important framework for organizing and editing the
elements of your multimedia project, including graphics, sounds, animations, and video clips.
Authoring tools are used for designing interactivity and the user interface, for presenting the
project on screen, and for assembling diverse multimedia elements into a single, cohesive
product. Authoring software provides an integrated environment for binding together the content
and functions of the project, and typically includes everything you need to create, edit, and
import specific types of data. With multimedia authoring software, one can make.

• Video productions
• Animations
• Games
• Interactive web sites
• Demo disks and guided tours
• Presentations
• Kiosk applications
• Interactive training
• Simulations, prototypes, and technical visualization

4.3.15 Making Instant Multimedia

It is not necessary to invest in a dedicated multimedia package the current software can do the
job. One can save money and time by doing multimedia with tools that are familiar and already
at hand, Common desktop tools have become multimedia-powerful. Some multimedia projects
may be so simple that you can cram all the organizing, planning, rendering, and testing stages
into a single effort, and make “instant” multimedia.
Here is an example: The topic at your weekly sales meeting is salesforce performance. You want
to display your usual spreadsheet so that the group can see real names and numbers for each
member of the team, but t en you want to add an animated, multicolored 3-D bar graph for visual
impact. Preparing for your meeting, you annotate the cell containing the name of the most
productive salesperson for the week, using sounds of applause found on the Web or a recording
of your CEO saying “Good job!” or a colleague’s “Wait till next week, Pete!” At the appropriate
time during the meeting, you click that cell and play the file. And that’s it—you have just made
and used instant multimedia.

4.3.16 Types of Authoring Tools

These are the tools which provide the capability for creating a complete multimedia presentation,
including interactive user control, are called authoring tools/p g ro rams. • Some of the examples
are:

• Macromedia Flash.
• Macromedia Director
• Author ware
• Quest.
The various multimedia authoring tools can be categorized into three groups, based on the
method used for sequencing or organizing multimedia elements and events:

• Card- or page-based tools

• Icon-based, event-driven multimedia and game-authoring tools
• Time-based tools
1) Card or page based tools
In these authoring systems, elements are organized as pages of a book or a stack of cards.
These tools are best used when the bulk of your content consists of elements that can be
viewed individually, like the pages of a book or cards in a card file. The authoring system
lets you link these pages or cards into organized sequences. You can jump, on command,
to any page you wish in the structured navigation pattern. It allows you to play sound
elements and launch animations and digital video. Example of Page-based authoring
systems are LiveCode from Runtime Revolution(www.runrev.com) and ToolBook
(www.toolbook.org)

2) Icon based, event driven tools

In these authoring system, multimedia elements and interactions cues are organized as
objects in a structural framework or process. Icon based event-driven tools simplify the
organization of your project and typically display flow diagrams of activities along
branching paths. In complicate structures, this charting is particularly useful during
development. Example , Authorware from Adobe
 3) Time based tools

In these authoring systems, elements and events are organized along a timeline, with
resolutions as high or higher than 1/30 second. Time based tools are best to use when you
have a message with a beginning and an end. Sequentially organized graphic frames are
played back at a speed that you can set. Other elements are triggered back at a given time
or location in the sequence of events. The more powerful time based tools let you
program jumps to any location in a sequence, thereby adding navigation and interactive
control. Example, Flash Player.

4.4 MULTIMEDIA SKILLS

4.4.1 The Team

A typical team for developing multimedia for DVD or the Web consists of people who bring
various abilities to the table. Often, individual members of multimedia production teams wear
several hats: graphic designers may also do interface design, scanning, and image processing. A
project manager or producer may also be the video producer or scriptwriter. Depending upon the
scope and content of the project and the mix of people required for a multimedia production team
may require as many as 18 discrete roles, including:

• Executive Producer
• Producer/Project Manager
• Creative Director/Multimedia Designer
• Art Director/Visual Designer
• Artist
• Interface Designer
• Game Designer
• Subject Matter Expert
• Instructional Designer/Training Specialist
• Scriptwriter
• Animator (2-D/3-D)
• Sound Producer
• Music Composer
• Video Producer
• Multimedia Programmer
• HTML Coder
• Lawyer/Media Acquisition
• Marketing Director
4.4.2 Project Manager

A project manager’s role is at the center of the action. A project manager is responsible for the
overall development and implementation of a project as well as for day-to-day operations. He/
She is responsible for

• overseeing project’s timeline and resources, finances, and priorities

• Facilitating communication and documentation- “Budgets, schedules, creative sessions,
time sheets, illness, invoices, team dynamics
• The project manager is the glue that holds the team together.”
• A program manager has two major areas of responsibility:
• Design and Development.
The management side consists of scheduling and assigning tasks, running meetings, managing
milestones – essentially overseeing all aspects of product development from beginning to end. A
good project manager must completely understand the strengths and limitations of hardware and
software so that he or she can make good decisions about what to do and what not to do.

4.4.3 Multimedia Designer(Information Designer)

A multimedia designer often wears many hats, but most importantly he or she looks at the
overall content of a project, creates a structure for the content, determines the design elements
required to support that structure, and decides which media are appropriate for presenting which
pieces of content. They Prepare the blue print for the entire project: content, media and
interaction. Graphic designers, illustrators, animators, and image processing specialists deal with
the visuals. Multimedia designers need a variety of skills.
4.4.4 Interface Designer

The role of interface designer is to create software devices that organize the multimedia content,
that lets the user to access or modify that content, and that presents the content on screen. The
ease with which a user can move about within a project, effective use of windows, backgrounds,
icons, and control panels – these are the result of an interface designer’s work.

4.4.5 Writer

• They create a character, action and point of view.

• They write proposals, they script voice-overs and actors narrations
• They write text screens to deliver messages, and they develop characters designed for an
interactive environment.
• Scriptwriters write dialog, narration, and voice-overs.

4.4.6 Video Specialist

He is responsible for an entire team of videographers, sound technicians, lighting designers, set
designers, script supervisor, etc. A multimedia video specialist does much more than just shoots
and edit video. He must also understand interactivity and how it will affect the video.
4.4.7 Audio specialist
An audio specialists working in multimedia should have a through understanding of the needs
and requirements involved in producing a successful sound track.Depending upon the situations
occur in the picture he has to change the background music.He is a person can show all his music
talents in the multimedia project.Can be either a sound engineer or music composer.

4.4.8 Multimedia programmer

Someone who can implement programs that integrate media elements.“A multimedia
programmer is a software engineer who integrates all of the multimedia elements into a seamless
whole using an authoring language or programming language. Programming tools for
multimedia are typically higher level than typical programming languages, include Authoring
tools (such as Authorware), HTML editors, Java applets, Flash, etc

4.4.9 Producer of Multimedia for the Web

Web site producer is a new occupation, but putting together a coordinated set of pages for the
World Wide Web requires the same creative process, skill sets, and (often) teamwork as any kind
of multimedia does. With a little effort, many of us could put up a simple web page with a few
links, but this differs greatly from designing, implementing, and maintaining a complex site with
many areas of content and many distinct messages. A web site should never be finished, but
should remain dynamic, fluid, and alive. Unlike a DVD multimedia product replicated many
times in permanent plastic, the work product at a web site is available for tweaking at any time.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

2marks/3 marks

1.List some multimedia input devices.

2. List some multimedia output devices.
3. What is the use of input devices ?
4. What is the use of multimedia output devices ?
5. Expand GUI.
6. Which are the multimedia data types ?
7. Give examples for audio hardware
8. Give examples for video hardware.
9. What is Digital pen?
10. What is bandwidth ?
11.List some video standards.
12. Expand MDA, MGA.
13. Expand CGA, VGA.
14. Expand SVGA, XGA.
15. Expand CRT.
16. Differentiate passive LCD and active LCD.
17. Compare the speed of inkjet printer and laser printer.
18. Why is laser printer suitable for multimedia ?
19. Which printer has good photographic quality ?
20. Expand CMYK.
21. What is color dithering ?
22. What is the disadvantage of hand-held scanner ?
23. Expand RGB
24. What are the advantages of hand-held scanners?
25. Differentiate flat-bed scanner and Rotary-drum scanner.
26. What is the work of ADC?
27. What is the work of DAC ?
28. What is voice recognition system ?
29. What is normalization ?
31. What is connected-word speech recognition?
32. What is the use of digital camera?
33. What is CCD ?
34. What is the function of DSP?
35. Write any two advantages of Digital camera.
36. What is the function of video frame grabber ?
37. What is the use of frame of buffer memory ?
38. What is image processing?
39. What is histogram ?
40. What is histogram stretching ?
41. What is histogram shrinking ?
42. What is image averaging ?
43. What is image subtraction ?
44. What is image scalling ?
46. What is the use of video camera ?
47. What is the use of view finder in video camera ?
48. What is story board ?
49. What is costing ?
50. What is content cost ?
51. Give examples for multimedia input hardware.
52. Give examples for multimedia output hardware.
53. What is the use of communication devices ?
54. Give examples for communication devices ?
55. What is the use of word processing tools.
56. Give examples for word processing tools.
57. What is OCR?
58. Give examples for 3-D animation tools.
60. What is the use of image editing tools ?
61. Give examples for image editing tools.
62. Give examples for audio editing tools.
63. What is authoring system ?
64. What are the responsibilities of a project manager ?
65. What is static web page?
66. What is dynamic web page?
67. Expand AJAX, CSS.
68. Expand CSS, ASP
69. What are the languages used to create dynamic web page?
70.What language is used to create static web page?

10 marks
1.(a) Explain the function of digital pen.
(b) Write about the various video display standards.

2. (a) Explain the function of CRT.

(b) Write about flat-panel display system.
3. (a) Explain the function of Laser printer.
(b) Explain the function of dye sublimation printer.

4. (a) Explain the various types of scanners.

(b) Write about the color printing issues.

5. Explain the function of Voice recognition system.

6.(a) Explain the function of Digital camera.

(b) Explain the function of video frame grabber.

7. (a) Explain the types of video image processing.

(b) Explain the function of video camera.

8. (a) Explain the architecture of video capture board.

(b) Write about digital voice and digital audio.

9. (a) Explain the stages of multimedia project.

(b) Write about multimedia hardware.

10. Write about the various multimedia software tools.

11. Explain the types of authoring tools.

12. Explain about the various team members of multimedia team.

13. (a) Explain how multimedia applications are produced for web.
(b) Write about instant multimedia.
 UNIT V. MULTIMEDIA DESIGN ,MULTIMEDIA FOR INTERNET
5.1. DESIGNING AND PRODUCING

5.1.1.Designing

Multimedia design is the art of integrating multiple forms of media. It is used in video games ,
information kiosks, web sites and many other interactive applications. The multimedia project
design is divided into two as the manner in which project material is organized known as
structure and a blend of its graphic elements and its navigation system known as user interface.

5.1.2.Designing the structure

The structure design is through

• Navigational maps
• Story Board
• Hotspots, Hyperlinks, Icons and Buttons
• Image Maps

5.1.2.1. Navigation map (site map) :A map provides with a table of contents as well as chart of
the logical flow of the interactive interface. While at web sites, a site map is typically a simple
hierarchical table of contents with each heading linked to a page, as a more detailed design
document. The map may prove very useful to a project listing of multimedia objects and
describing what happens when the user interacts. When design a multimedia product, the user
should work with two types of structure. Depth structure represents the complete navigation map
and describes all the links between all the components of the project. Surface structure represents
the structure actually realized by a user while navigating the depth structure.

There are four fundamental organizing depth structures used in multimedia projects.

• Linear: users navigate sequentially from one frame / bite of information to another.
• Hierarchical: users navigate along the branches of a tree structure that is shaped by the
natural logic of the content.
• Nonlinear: Users navigate freely through the content of the project unbound by
predetermined routes.
• Composite: users may navigate freely but are occasionally constrained to linear
presentations of movies or critical information and / or to data that is mostly organized in
a hierarchy.
 Fig 5.1. The four primary navigational structures used in multimedia

Many navigation maps are essentially non linear. in these navigational system, viewers are
always free to jump to an index a glossary various menus , help or about .. sections or even to a
rendering of the map itself. It is often important to give viewers the sense that free choice is
available. This empowers them within the context of the subject matter.

5.1.2.2.Story board:

Originally built for a small black and white low resolution display is organized sequentially
screen by screen and each screen is sketched out with design notes and specifications before
rendering. It can be something as simple as a sequence of crude stick figure drawings in
frames(or cells) with accompanying notes for scene numbers , titles , onscreen dialog, voice over
narration and transition effects along with a set of coordinated production notes to help organize
everything in advance. It serves as road map for producers, directors , casts, crews animators ,
audio engineers and post production editors.
 Fig 5.2. Story boards on the left with finished screens on the right

5.1.2.3. Hotspots ,Hyperlinks and Buttons: Multimedia systems allow to make any part of the
screen or any object into a hotspot. When users click a hot spot at that location something
happens which makes multimedia as interactive and exciting. Categories of hotspots are text,
graphic, and icon. The simplest hotspots on the web are text anchors that link documents to
another document.

If the hotspot connects the use to another part of the document or program or to a different
program or web site it is referred to as a hyperlink. If the hotspot is a graphic image designed to
look like a push button or toggle switch it is called a button. Icons are graphic objects designed
specifically to be meaningful buttons and are usually small. Plug-ins such as flash, shockwave or
Java scripts enable users to create plain or animated buttons. Small JPEG or GIF images that
themselves anchor links can also serve as buttons on the web.

5.1.2.4. Image Maps: In HTML and XHTML an image map is list of coordinates relating to a
specific image, created in order to hyperlink areas of the image to different destinations ( as
opposed to a normal image link , in which the entire area of the image links to a single
destination). For Example a map of the world may have each country hyperlinked to further
information about that country. The intention of an image map is to provide an easy way of
linking various parts of an image without dividing the image into separate image files.(i.e)large
images that are sectioned into hot areas with associated links.

5.1.3.User Interface:

User interface can contain plenty of navigational power which provide access to content and
tasks for users at all level. The interface should be

• Simple and user friendly.

• To contain plenty of navigational power,
• Providing access to content and tasks for users at all levels as well as a help system to
provide some hand holding and reassurance.

The Mac and windows GUI are successful partly because their basic point and click style is
simple , consistent and quickly mastered.

5.1.3.1.Things that work: Here are some graphical approaches that get good results;

• Neatly executed constrasts big/small, heavy/light, bright/dark, thin/thick , cheap/clear.

• Simple and Clear screens with lots of WHITE SPACE.
• Eye grabbers such as Drop caps or a single brightly colored object alone on a gray scale
screen.
• shadows and deop shadows in various shades
• Gradients
• Reversed graphics to emphasize important text or images
• shaded objects and text in 2D and 3D.

5.1.3.2.Things to Avoid: Here are some mistakes want to be avoided in creation

• Clashes of color
• Busy Screen
• Using a picture with a lot of contrast in color or brightness as a background
• Trite humor in oft-repeated animations
• Clanging bells or squeaks when a button is clicked.
• Frilly pattern borders
• Cute one-liner from famous movies
• Requiring more than two button clicks to quit.
• Too many numbers
• Too many words
• Too many substantive elements presented too quickly.
5.1.3.3. Audio Interfaces : A multimedia user interface may include important sound elements
that reflect the rhythm of a project. Sounds can be background music, special effects for button
clicks, voice-overs effects synced to animation or they may be buried in the audio track of a
video clip. The tempo and style of background music can set the “tone” of a project.

5.1.4. Producing:

Production is the phase when the multimedia project is actually rendered. During this the
designer will contend with important and continuous organizing tasks.

Managing production so that the client is continually informed and formally approves by signing
off an artwork and other elements as the designer build them. Develop a scheme that specify the
number and duration of client approval cycles and then provide a mechanism for change orders
when changes are requested after signoff.

Because multimedia files are large, means of transporting the project to distinct clients is
particularly important. Typically both the designer and the client will have access to the internet
at high bandwidth.

If the designer use the internet to deliver the multimedia to the client, be sure that he should
setup rules and conventions for naming files placed at an FTP site and use codes in the subject
headers of his email to describe the content of the message.

.5.1.5 Tracking

Develop a file naming convention specific to the project ‘s structure. Store the files in directories
or folders with logical names. It may also need to set up a database with filenames as eight
character codes matched to lengthier descriptive names , so the user know what the code means.
Version control of the files is critically important too especially in large projects. If more than
one person is working on a group of files , be sure that the user always know what version is the
latest and who has the current version

5.1.6. Copy right

Copy right is a law to protect the content or product from others for copying. This is for books,
research, novals ,musics and videoCDs and for softwares. When the product is copyright by the
owner then he is having rights to do the following

• Publish the product

• Give copy of the product to others
• Remove the copyright
• Permit others to publish the product
• Permit the others to use the product
• Publish the copyright of the product on the front page of the document.
 Some products don’t have copyrights and they are known as public domains. The products are
access by anyone and they are free of cost. Examples are Government websites, games ,
Education products.

Some products have partial copy rights and they are known as Fair use. It allow the user to
access the initial portions of the product and not allowing the user to access fully. Examples are
Online articles, Musical presentations, online advertisements.

Insert a copyright statement in the projects that clearly designates the code as intellectual
property, but the code, tricks and programming techniques remain accessible for study, learning
and tweaking by others.

5.1.7 Virtual Reality Designing and Modeling

5.1.7.1.Virtual Reality Designing

Virtual reality systems are designed to produce in the participant the cognitive effects of feeling
immersed in the environment created by a computer using sensory inputs such as vision, hearing,
feeling and sensation of motion. Virtual reality systems require the computer to produce rapid
coordinated changes in visual effects, sound effects and sensory perceptions while at the same
time accepting multimedia inputs from a variety of devices tracking the movements and actions
of the participant.

The human –computer relationship is much more intense in virtual reality than in any other
human interactions with a computer. Let us review some of the contemporary factors involved in
virtual reality.

• Color, Brightness and Shading: Most plants and grass are green and flowers are
multicolored. Similarly traffic lights around the world are red, yellow and green. Use
color as a means of distinguishing and identifying objects although color by itself is not a
very definitive means of doing so.

Variation in brightness give a sense of the time of the day. A sudden change in brightness
is identified as an edge. changes in brightness resulting from the movement of theht
source give us a sense of the three dimensional rendering of an object

Shading gives us a three dimensional sense of the geometry of an object. Shading is

essential for getting a three dimensional perspective on solid objects.

• Object Recognition: The object geometry and changes in the geometry over time give us
a perception of the object type. For the feeling of a moving river, the surface geometry
depiction of the water must change at a rate that we associate with a real time river.
• Navigation: If a navigation is very natural and instantaneous and does not require
distracting thought then the system appears very authentic to the participant
 • Motion Processing : An object in motion has a velocity. i.e. it is moving in a specific
direction at a specific speed. As the object moves the background does not change but
the object perception does. If we are on the top of the bridge we can see the front hood
ornament of a car passing underneath. As the car moves away from the bridge we see less
and less of the hood and eventually we can see no more than would be visible if we were
standing behind it at essentially the same level.
• Depth Perception: Three important factors are used for depth perception: motion,
pictorial clues and other sensory clues. Pictorial clues can consists of changes in shapes
and sizes, changes in gradients of surfaces, changes in density of objects and field of
vision and changes in brightness and light reflection from object surfaces.
• Lag: Lag is defined as the time between the participant action and the associated
application response. For example when a participant “ touches” a steam pipe , how long
does it take for the electronic glove to pass on the sensation of heat.

5.1.7.2. Virtual Reality Modeling

Virtual reality is created by combining a number of components including sound and graphics
into sound and visual effects Other inputs can include the sensation of heat surface texture,pain
and changes in pressure. Another important aspect of virtual reality is user feedback and
adapting the next set of effects on the basis of this user feedback.

A number of approaches can be used for designing concurrent operation of multiple devices and
user feedback, including the following.

• Simulation loops: A set of objects(such as sound clips, video clips , graphics and
sensory stimuli) participate in a simulation. A procedure is created and a time step
allocated for each object. The simulation rate is bound to the display rate and each
procedure is assigned a slot in the timeline for the simulation. this is called a loop
because the main process loops around the simple logic of which object is scheduled
next. It is fairly easy to add new device and associated objects.
• Multiple Processes: they are combination of multiple simulation loops, rendering
processes, device activation processes and arbitration processes. Multiple simulation
loops allow programming variety of different effects that can be combined at runtime.
Separate device processes start devices on cue so that the devices are ready when
information is required. The devices can be operated at their highest efficiency level by
separating their actions from the simulation loop.
• Concurrent Objects: Multiple processes create the need for objects to communicate.
Active objects may need to communicate to ensure that the proper sequence of effects is
being generated. Objects send messages to each other and respond to messages from
other objects. This allows multiple processes to be synchronized. Each process and even
their sub processes can be encapsulated in objects so that they can be operated
independently.
 • Navigation :The navigation through virtual reality applications must be designed to
allow for multiple paths and options. The design of the processes and the objects
encapsulating them takes on a more important role when the potential variety of
navigation paths is considered.

5.2. THE INTERNET AND MULTIMEDIA

5.2.1. The Bandwidth Bottleneck

Bandwidth is how much data expressed in bits per second send from one computer to another in
a given amount of time. The faster the transmissions the less time will spend waiting for text,
images, sounds and animated illustrations to upload or download from computer to computer,
and more satisfaction with an internet experience.

The bottleneck at a typical user’s low bandwidth modem connection is the most serious
impediment to sending multimedia across the internet. At low bandwidth a page of text can take
less than a second to send, but an uncompressed 640x480, 8bit /256 color image can take few
minutes; an uncompressed 640x480 24bit/16million color image can take many minutes to send.

The bottleneck is cleared by the wide use of inexpensive, higher speed cable modems and
wireless connections. The following options are also helpful in clearing the bottlenecks.

• Compress data as tightly as possible before transmitting

• Require users to download data only once, then store the data in a local hard disk cache.
• Design each multimedia element to be efficiently compact.
• Design alternate low bandwidth and high bandwidth navigation paths to accommodate all
users.
• Implement streaming methods that allow data to be transferred and displayed
incrementally as it comes in.

5.2.2. Internet Services

The services in the internet are E-mail, file transfer, discussion groups and news-groups, real-
time chatting by text, voice and video and the ability to log into remote computers are common.
Each internet service is implemented on an internet server by dedicated software known as a
Daemon.

Daemons are agent programs that run in the background, waiting to act on requests from the
outside. In case of the Internet, daemons support protocols such as HTTP for the world wide web
, POP for e-mail, or the FTP for exchanging files. In the URL
http://www.timestream.com/index.html ,the first few letters notify a server as to which daemon
to bring into play to satisfy a request.

5.2.3. MIME types

 To identify the nature of the data transmitted and by reference , the purpose of that data the
internet uses a standard list of file extensions called MIME(Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) .For example with Netscape navigator can define Adobe Acrobat files(PDF) as a
MIME type and select the Acrobat Reader as the player applications.

Multimedia elements are typically saved and transmitted on the internet in the appropriate MIME
type format and are named with the proper extension for that type.

• Shockwave Flash animation files end in .swf

• image files end in .jpg,.jpeg,.gif,or .png
• sound files end in .au,.wav,.aif,.mp3 or another conforming format
• Quick time and other video clips end in .qt,.mov ,or .avi.

5.2.4. Multimedia on the Web

In the web multimedia tools, software, audio and video are available. Clients are permitted to
download the elements. There are two modes of access the multimedia data from the web

• Application based Access: Access multimedia applications and tools from internet is
known as application based access. Downloading real time data like text, picture, audio,
video, necessary files for multimedia presentation, access mails and accessing multimedia
authoring tools are belong to this type.
• Browser based Access : Access browser related software from internet is known as
browser based access. Downloading server based applications , database , add-on
software to increase the capacity of a browser, access programming and scripting
languages for improving browser activities are belong to this type.

5.2.5. Web Page makers and Site Builders

For web operation separate multimedia elements are created. Different software tools are used
for the multimedia on the web page. Scripting languages and Automatic Tool generator tools are
used for web page making.

5.2.5.1.Scripting

Scripting codes are divided into two types. Client side scripting and server side scripting

• Client Side Scripting: when run the codes which are in the client computer are known as
client side scripting. When a client call a server, the server send the web page to the client
and the codes are run in the client machine’s browser. HTML,VB script, Java script and
WML script are some examples of client side scripting.
• Server side Scripting: when run the codes in the server are known as server side
scripting. When a client call a server , the sever runs the code for the web page in the
 server and send the result to the client is Server side scripting. ASP, ASP.net, JSP, PHP
are some examples of server side scripting.

5.2.5.2.Automatic Tool Generator:

Instead of writing codes for web page creation tools are used for designing web pages. When
tools are taken from tool box and placed on the web page the codes are auto generated. Dream
Viewer, MS front page and Adobe Glove are some examples.

5.2.6. Plug-ins and Delivery vehicles.

Plug –ins add the power of multimedia to web browsers by allowing users to view and interact
with new types of documents and images. Helper applications or players also provide multimedia
power by displaying or funning files downloaded from the internet by your browser but helpers
are not seamlessly integrated into the operation of the browser itself.

• TextPlug in: Text and document plug-ins such as the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader get
you past the display limitations of HTML and web browsers where fonts are dependent
on end users preferences and page layout is primitive.
• Image Plug-in: Most browsers will read only bitmapped JPEG,GIF and PNG image files.
Browsers could not display vector images since they are designed by functions. Adobe
Photo viewer is the tool used for vector images also.
• Sound Plug-ins: Digitized sound files in various common formats such as
MP3,WAV,AIF or AU may be sent to your computer and then played either as they are
being received or once they are fully downloaded. MIDI files may also be received and
played when Windows media player or real time player are used.
• Animation, Video and Presentation: The most data intense multimedia elements to
travel the internet are video streams containing both images and synchronized sound and
commonly packaged as Apples Quick time , Microsoft ‘s video for Windows(AVI) and
as MPEG files. Also data rich are the files for proprietary formats such as Keynote, MS
Power Point and other presentation applications.

5.3.DESIGNING FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB

5.3.1.Developing for the Web

Methods for developing and presenting the basic elements of multimedia within the constraints
of HTML and the world wide web are Workspace and nibbling. These are the two important
factors when creating web pages for multimedia contents.

5.3.2.Small Device Workspace:

Web pages look good on an 800x600 monitor in true color. Depending upon the browser and
preferences set by the user the usable area of the area on the screen will always be less than the
monitor’s display and is not controllable by the designer. When designing the web page for an
800 pixel wide display, by using tables and images that do not exceed 750 pixels across the page,
and will have room for browsing scroll bars. when designing and making multimedia elements
for the web should be called “nibbling”.

Nibbling is trimming image, audio, video files in order to access them. nibbling is the final stage
of creating web page for multimedia elements.

For example to the elegant bitmapped logo created in Photoshop when trim it from 24 to 8 to 4
bit color depth and resize it from 96 pixels square to 64 pixels square. Nibble the audio clip of
client’s theme song from 44.1kHz to 11 kHz and see if it’s acceptable at an 8 bit sample size.

Factors should be considered while doing nibbling

• Bandwidth should not be changed due to nibbling.

• Remove the shadows in the text and image contents.
• Don’t use more colors in the heading
• Permit the users to download image files and store it on the disk.

5.3.3.Text and Image for the Web

Text messages and images are the two multimedia elements mostly used when creating web
pages.

5.3.3.1. Text

When texts are added to a web page it should be easily downloadable. To manage the Text
information on the there are three main works.

• Making alternate Font

• Making columns of Text
• Flowing Text around Images.

5.3.3.1.1.Making Alternate Font:

Viewers of the web site may not be displaying the same preferred font that used to design the
page because user preferences in the browser may alter the way text in the document looks and
flows. To make the best of this uncertainty many developers design their documents in Times
New Roman for the proportional Seriphed font, Verdana for the proportional Sansserif and
Courier as the mono spaced font. These fonts readily move across platforms and are the default
fonts users typically see if they do not set their own preferences. You can specify a font, and
even alternate fonts using the FACE attribute of the <FONT> tag.

<FONT FACE =”Verdana, Arial, Helvetica”>.

5.3.3.1.2.Making Columns of Text:

The most powerful feature of HTML may be found in the <TABLE> tag. <TR> and <TD> tags
are used to define the row and columns in the text.

Example:

<Html>
<Head>
<Title> THE EXPLOSIOIN</Title>
</Head>
<Body>
<div align =”center”>
<H2> The Explosion</H2>
</div>
<table border =0 cell spacing=20>
<TR VALIGN= “TOP”>
<TD WIDTH=40%>
----------------text for column 1----------------
</TD>
<TD WIDTH=40%>
---------------text for column 2-------------
</TD>
</TR>
</table>
</Body>
</Html>
5.3.3.1.3.Flowing Text through Image:
To “flow” text around an image using the ALIGN attribute of the <IMG> tag. Add a
<BR CLEAR =left> tag at the end of the text paragraph , so that if there is not enough text to fill
the entire vertical height of the image your next paragraph will begin on a new line, left justified
and below the image. To add space around your image so it doesn’t right up against the text, use
the horizontal space (HSPACE) and vertical space (VSPACE) attributes of the <IMG> tag.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>sailing</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY> \<IMG SRC=”gbsky.gif” ALIGN=”left” HSPACE =”15” VSPACE=”5”>
<H2> departure</H2>
----text goes here-------
<BR CLEAR=”left”>
<hr>
</BODY>
</HTML>
5.3.3.2.Images
Theoretically the web can support any graphics format the client and server have in common.
Practically even though web standards do not specify a graphics format user must use, all
current releases of browsers recognize three image formats-GIF,PNG and JPEG without
resorting to special plug ins.
5.3.3.2.1.GIF: Graphical Interchange Files are limited to 8 bits of color depth(256 colors). It is a
simple format with built-in compression technique and no need for any plug- ins. It is not a open
software type.
5.3.3.2.2.PNG: Portable Network Graphics format is in many ways an improvement on the GIF
format. Image creation programs now support the PNG format. It is a open source software ,
suitable for web applications and no need for any plug-ins. The drawback of this format is it
wouldn’t work on old browsers and download time is high compared to GIF.
5.3.3.2.3.JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group images contain 24 bits of color depth.JPEG
uses a powerful but lossy compression method that produces files as much as ten times more
compressed than GIF.
5.3.4. Clickable Buttons
To make a graphical image “clickable” so that it links to another document, simply include the
image tag inside the bounding tags of an HTML anchor that points to that document’s URL.
<A HREF =”documentToGoTo.html”>
<IMG SRC=”imageDisplayed.gif” BORDER=”0”>
</A>
Example:
<A Href=”www.tndte.com”>
<IMG src=”D: /photos/Flower20.gif”>
</A>
Be sure to include the BORDER attribute in the <IMG> tag if user wish to avoid showing a
default border around the button image.
5.3.5.CIient Side Image Maps
Image maps are pictures with defined hotspots that link to other documents when a user clicks
on them. Browsers added support for client side image maps so that mouse coordinates and their
associated document URLs could be included in the client’s own HTML document, thus
avoiding the setup and communications hassles of the server side system. This is managed by the
USEMAP attribute of the <IMG> tag.
To make a client side image map with USEMAP you need three things. an image, a list of
coordinates designating hotspots on the image and the document URL associated with each
hotspot. To program the image map into the HTML document, use the USEMAP attribute of the
<IMG> tag.
<IMG src=”compass.gif” hspace=”5” vspace=”50” border=”0” usemap=”#compass”>
<MAP name =”compass”>
<AREA shape =”circle” ccords=”60,60,10” href=”help.htm”>
<AREA shape =”polygon” ccords=”60,60,0,0,120,0” href=”back.htm”>
<AREA shape =”polygon” ccords=”60,60,0,120,120,120” href=”forward.htm”>
<AREA shape =”polygon ” ccords=”60,60,0,0,0,120” href=”navmap.htm”>
</MAP>
“compass.gif “is the transparent image, the hspace=”5” and vspace=”50” attributes provide space
between the image and the text around it and the border=”0” attribute points to the <map>
extension tag that contains the coordinates and URLs. A <MAP> segment may be placed
anywhere in the body of the HTML document and is related to the correct image by the name
=”compass” attribute of the <MAP> tag.
5.3.6.Sound for the Web
As the web has developed , sound become more important and plug-ins currently allow
embedding of sounds into documents. Browsers have become sound capable. Netscape and
Internet Explorer offer the Quick Time Plug-in for playing AIFF,MIDI ,WAV and Au formats.
Streaming audio is more useful for the web where a sound file can start playing as soon as data
begins coming in. Microsoft Internet Explorer offers the <BGSOUND>, <EMBED>,
<OBJECT>,<PARAM> are different tags to play an AU,WAV or MIDI sound track in a
document background.
<OBJECT>
<PARAM name=SONG value=”glory.WAV”>
<EMBED type=”music” SONG=”glory.WAV” PLUGINGSPACE=www.music.com
AUTOSTART=”time”>
</OBJECT>
5.3.7.Animation for the Web
HTML makes no provision for animation, by itself delivering only a static page of text and
graphics. For the text animation, Netscape 1.0 offered the <BLINK> tag, Microsoft ‘s Explorer
offered the <MARQUEE> tag to scroll text horizontally. For image animation<IMG> tag is
used.
• GIF89A: It is possible to make simple animations by putting multiple images or frames
into a single GIF89a file and display them with programmable delays between them.
When use the <IMG> tag to embed a GIF89a multi frame image, Netscape Navigator
downloads the file and stores it in the cache folder of the local hard disk. Once fully
downloaded the image plays each frame quickly and smoothly. Limit animated GIFs to
small images and use a more capable plug-in for animations over larger areas.
5.3.8.Video for the web:
Most of the multimedia products contain still and full motion video. To transfer one minute
video through web it takes 50minutes for transferring through internet. So the video is
compressed before being transmitted through web since compressed video file takes 1.5 minutes
for transferring the same data.
The factors should be considered before video is created for the web
• To increase the bandwidth the video file should be compressed.
• Use high speed cable modem
• Convert Video files into MPEG format
• Video should be edited by trimming, cutting etc.
5.3.9. HTML5
HTML5 is the latest version of Hypertext Markup Language, the code that describes web pages.
It's actually three kinds of code: HTML, which provides the structure; Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS), which take care of presentation; and JavaScript, which makes things happen. The most
interesting new HTML5 elements are: New semantic elements like <header>, <footer>,
<article>, and <section>. New attributes of form elements like number, date, time, calendar, and
range. New graphic elements: <svg> and <canvas>. and new multimedia elements
<audio>,<embed>,<source>,<track> and <video>
Tag Description
<audio> Defines sound content
<embed> Defines a container for an external (non-HTML) application
Defines multiple media resources for media elements (<video> and
<source>
<audio>)
Defines text tracks for media elements (<video> and <audio>)
<track>
<video> Defines video or movie.
5.3.10. Video Plug- ins and Players
Video Plug-ins are software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer
program. When a program supports plug-ins it enables customization. Adobe Flash Player is
a plug-in that allows browsers such as Firefox to display Flash media on web pages. Flash is
often used for animations, videos and games. When visit a web page that uses Flash and the plug
-in is missing follow the steps below to install the latest Flash player Plug-in.
• Go to Adobe’s Flash Player download page and download the flash installer.
 • When the download has finished close Firefox. Click the Firefox menu then
click Exit.
• Open the flash installer file which is downloaded and follow the instructions.
Another prominent media players, Quick time has become quite famous for its ease of use and
the functionality that it provides. Quick Time is a media player that was created by Apple and
allows users to play back audio and video. In case there are any videos on a web page that have
been embedded with the QuickTime format the program can be used accordingly in order to run
those videos.
Netflix uses Silver light to stream TV episodes and movies to PC and MAC in Standard
Definition and HD streams that play back smoothly on any device. Silver light Deep zoom is the
fastest , smoothest, zooming technology on the web, bringing the highest resolution images and
frame rates with the lowest load times to users.

5.4. MULTIMEDIA COMMUNICATION AND APPLICATIONS.

5.4.1.Study of Multimedia Networking
Fundamentally multimedia network communication and (traditional) computer network
communication are similar. Since they both deal with data communication. Challenges in
multimedia network communications arise because multimedia data ( audio, video etc) are
known as continuous data. They have the following characteristics.

• Voluminous: They demand high data rates, possible dozens or hundreds of Mbps.
• Real-Time and Interactive: They demand low delay and synchronization between audio
and video for “lip sync”. In addition, applications such as videoconferencing and
interactive multimedia require two- way traffic.
• Sometimes Burst: Data rates fluctuate drastically- for example in video on-demand, no
traffic most of the time burst to high volume.

5.4.2.Quality of Data Transmission

QoS for multimedia data transmission depends on many parameters. Some of the most important
are

• Data rate: A meaure of transmission speed often in kilobits per second or megabits per
second
• Latency (maximulm frame/packet delay) :Maximum time needed from transmission to
reception , often measured in milliseconds .
• Packet loss or error: A measure (in percentage) of error rate of the packetized data
transmission. Packets get lost or garbled such as over the internet. They may also be
delivered late or in the wrong order. Since retransmission is often undesirable a simple
error-recovery method for real-time multimedia is to replay the last packet, hoping the
error is not noticeable.
 Ingeneral,uncompressed audio/video the desirable packet loss is <10¯2. When it
approaches 10% it becomes intolerable. For compressed multimedia and ordinary data,
the desirable packet loss is less than 10-7 to 10-8.
• Jitter : A measure of smoothness of the audio/video playback.i.e. Variance of
frame/packet delays.
• SyncSkew: A measure of multimedia data synchronization often measured in
milliseconds.

Multimedia Service classes: Based on the above measures multimedia applications can be
classified into following types

• Real Time: Two-way traffic, low latency and jitter, possibly with prioritized delivery
such as voice and video telephony.
• Priority Data : Two-way traffic, low loss and low latency with prioritized delivery such
as e-commerce applications .
• Silver: Moderate latency and jitter strict ordering and sync. One-way traffic such as
streaming video or two-way traffic such as web surfing and internet games.
• Best Effort: No real-time requirement, such as downloading or transferring large
files(movies)
• Bronze: No guarantees for transmission

Perceived QoS: In real-time multimedia, regularity is more important than latency. Temporal
correctness is more important than the sound and picture quality and humans tend to focus on
one subject at a time .User focus is usually at the center of the screen, and it takes tiem to refocus
especially after a scene change.

Prioritized Delivery

When a high packet loss or error rate is detected in the event of network congestion, prioritized
delivery of multimedia data can be used to alleviate the perceived deterioration.

• Prioritization for types of media: transmission algorithms can provide prioritized

delivered to different media-for example, giving higher priority to audio than to video-
since loss of content in audio is often more noticeable than in video.
• Prioritization for uncompressed audio: PCM audio bitstreams can be broken into
groups of every nth sample-prioritize and send k of the total of n groups(k<=n) and ask
the receiver to interpolate the lost groups if so desired.
• Prioritization for JPEG image: The different scans in progressive JPEG and different
resolutions of the image in Hierarchical JPEG can be given different priorities.
• Prioritization for compressed video: Video prioritization algorithms can set priorities to
minimize playback delay and jitter by giving the highest priority to reception of I-frames
and the lowest priority to B- frames. In MPEG using layered coding, the base layer can
be given higher priority than the enhanced layers.
5.4.3.Media on Demand
The multimedia on demand system developed at our DOTE system brings an environment and
its infrastructure for multimedia material production, storage, management and on demand or
real time distribution applied to Diploma learning.
The communication and data process technology evolution made available the infrastructure for
the development , transmission and distribution of numerous multimedia applications ranging
from distance education to entertainment. The polytechnics will be able to attend a large
number of students and these students can stands geographically distributed. The
communication infrastructure of our system is based on the ATM network technology.
In order to offer an online multimedia course, it is necessary to create a client/server structure
capable of in the server side, to store transmit and integrate all the involved media and in the
client side to receive and adequately reproduce the educational material. The customer will use a
browser and plug-ins for audio and video already at internet. The server side it is necessary to
architect a system to hold all the course material.
The required media is divided into two parts.
• Discrete Media
• Continuous Media
In discrete Media, storage and distribution do not cause difficulties usually due to small volume
of data that these media present. For the continuous media we must consider that the system
intends to implement transmission in real time ( i.e.) the audio and video data will be transmitted
on demand. Although audio is a continuous media it imposes small transmission rates mainly
when some compression technique is used.
Table 5.1. Transmission rate for compressed audio and video
Audio Quality Specifications Bit Rate

1 channel,

Voice-quality audio 8-bit samples / 8kHz 64 Kbps

Encoded voice G.728 Standard, 3.4 kHz 16 Kbps

1 channel,

Monophonic audio 16-bit samples/44.1kHz 705.6Kbps

2 channel,

CD-quality audio 16-bit samples/44.1kHz 1.411Mbps

MPEG encoded Equivalent to CD quality 384 Kbps

Table 5.2.Video signal estimated values (a) uncompressed (b) compressed (bytes).
Resolution 1 minute 1 hour
 a 640 x 480 1.6 GB 97 GB

320 x 240 400 MB 24 GB

b 640 x 480 16 MB 970 MB

320 x 240 4 MB 240 MB

Table 3 : Bandwidth Requirements for Moving Pictures.

Standard Bandwidth Comp. Ratio

Motion JPEG 10-20 Mbps 7-27:1
MPEG-1 1.2-2.0 Mbps 100:1

H.261 64Kbps-2 Mbps 24:1

MPEG-2 4-60 Mbps 30-100:1

Digitized video presents great volumes of data,even in the case of pictures in movement or
graphical animation.
The structure designed for the application uses LARC local network features which is based on
the internet site. Integrated high-speed network with a video server, file server ,web server and
clients machine interconnected, complemented by territory storage specific for videos. There are
two aspects specific for video. The great volume of data necessity of real time transmission.
Because the great video files volume, it is necessary to use techniques and standards for
compression like JPEG,MPEG etc with great losses, eliminating spaces and temporal
redundancies. The picture quality reduction usually is not perceivable and the volume of data
may be drastic reduced. The video server has a Disk array allowing the content to be divided and
stored in blocks of data. The block size must be chosen in order to balance the efficiency of disks
and the transmission.
 Fig 5.3 Multimedia on Demand System structure

The blocks are stored sequentially in slots. The disks read the numbered blocks and they deliver
them to the respective customer through the network. This is called striping technique and it
allows users have access to the same video in subsequent times.
The video server stores the most recently used videos, while the others are stored in a tertiary
memory. A jukebox is used for this purpose. When a requested video is in the tertiary storage the
server locates the video in the juke box place it in the video server for transmission to the
customer. The structure is connected to the Internet by 2Mbps communication links. The other
media type are stored in the web server.
The project intends to create a high speed network backbone linking all the Polytechnic
colleges.It forecasts a central site(DOTE) that will have video servers and territory memory for
storage of the educational material. Associated to this site there will be a studio for the
production of the multimedia material and a video conference room. On the departments it will
be implanted the site to receive data from the central studio and each college will have a video
conference room.
 Fig 5.4. Model DOTE – e lecture/ e-content network structure
5.4.4.Multimedia Over Wireless and Mobile Networks
Because wireless data transmission incur the most data loss and distortion, error resilience and
error correction become primary concerns. A few characteristics of wireless handheld devices
are worth keeping in mind when designing multimedia transmission, in particular video
transmission. Both the handheld size and battery life limit the processing power and memory of
the device. Thus encoding and decoding must have relatively low complexity. Due to memory
constraints and reasons for the use of wireless devices as well as billing procedures real time
communication is likely to be required. Long delays before starting to see a video are either not
possible or not acceptable. Finally wireless channels have much more interference than wired
channels.
The 3G PP2 group has defined the following Qos parameters for wireless video conferencing
services. The QoS parameters specified for the wireless part are more stringent th an those
required for end to end transmissions. The 3G PP QoS requirements for multimedia
transmission are nearly identical
• Synchronization : video and audio should be synchronized to within 20msecs
 • Throughput: The minimum video bitrate to be supported is 32kbps. Video rates of
128kbps,384kbps and above should be supported as well.
• Delay: The maximum end to end transmission delay is defined to be 400msec.
• Jitter: The maximum delay jitter is 200msec.
• Error Rate: The video conferencing system should be able to tolerate a frame error rate
of 10-2 or a bit error rate of 10-3 for circuit switched transmission.
5.4.5.Media 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. Some video games also use multimedia features.
Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as
passive recepients of information are called interactive multimedia.
5.4.6 Web based Applications

Web-based system applications, are Web applications with comparable capabilities to native
applications. They are implemented in languages such as HTML5 and JavaScript but operate
outside the Web browser sandbox, with access to the operating system on the host machine.
Many modern operating systems, including Ubuntu, Google Chrome, Windows, and Firefox OS,
provide runtime environment to support Web-based system applications, eroding the distinction
between desktop, mobile, and Web-based software.

Features of Web-based applications

1. First, they are implemented in platform-independent Web languages and thus are
portable, in contrast to native applications. In theory, the developer can write the
application once and it will run on many desktop and mobile platforms.
2. Second, they have access to native functionality such as local files, camera, microphone,
etc., in contrast to conventional Web applications.
3. Third, after they are installed by the user, they can work offline, also in contrast to
conventional Web applications.
4. Fourth, they are easy to maintain and update by changing the Web code hosted on the
developer’s site, instead of requiring all users to update their local copies.
5. Fifth, even though they use runtime Web-browser libraries, they do not rely on browsers’
user interfaces, which can take up valuable display space on mobile devices and make
applications less responsive.

Categories of Web-Based Systems

Category Examples

Informational Online newspapers, manuals

Interactive Registration forms

Transactional Electronic shopping

Workflow-oriented Status monitoring

Collaborative work Distributed authoring

Online communities Discussion groups

Web portals Shopping malls

Web services Enterprise applications

Examples :-

Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo Mail -To read, compose, delete, forward and manage emails.

Zoho Writer
Ajax-based word processors may be good for collaboration, and they can offer solid basic
functionality.

DropBox
Dropbox is top notch, affordable cloud storage—primarily because it’s easy to use and incredibly
affordable.

Jing:
When you install Jing onto your computer, you can take screenshots of whatever you see on
your screen (and add graphics like arrows and things like that to them) and you’ll immediately
get a link you can use to share that image

PicResize:
It’s important to keep the file size of the images on your site to a minimum.

Windows Live OneCare safety scanner

– to help ensure the health of your PC.

Adobe Buzzword
– online word processor, perfect for writing reports and proposals

ShrinkFile.NET
– to compress your text documents, images, PDF files and other data online
CreativePro Office
– Manage team, clients, projects, invoices and events
Picnik
– a photo editing tools
CyberTester
– to create tests/exams/assignments (consisting of single-choice, multiple-choices or keywords-
based questions) and assign them to students to conduct online tests.
Advanced Stock Tracking System
– for keeping track of stocks and a search engine for the stock market
.Google Docs
– it lets you create your documents (like Word), spreadsheets, presentations and more. It also
allows you to collaborate and share documents.
Avairy
– a powerful web creation tools for photo editing, logos, web templates, color palettes , audio
editing and more.
Mint
– a web tool to access to your free personal financial and online management tool. It will help
you to organize your financial accounts, set your budgets needs, and put up your savings.
JayCut
– a web video editing software. With a user-friendly environment, it will let you create your
videos, add and edit clips, transitions, effects, audio, download, export in Youtube and more.
WobZip
– an online tool that makes you uncompressed your files on the fly. It supports different
compression format such as ZIP, RAR, and more zip formats. It has also an active scanner that
scan your compressed files before unzipping it.
Zamzar
-a powerful online file conversion tool. It converts various formats for documents, image, music,
video, e-book, compressed files, cad formats. Just follow 4 easy steps to convert your files
instantly.
Hulu
– a video/TV streaming website that lets you watch your favorite tv shows right at your
computer. If you missed some of your favorites episode you can just tune in here and enjoy
watching. Hulu is a US exclusive website.
TokBox
– a great online video chatting applications. For free users, you can chat up to 20 people. Just
simply sign up,invite your friends and start video chatting.
ESET Online Virus Scanner
– deep scan your PC using your web browser. The good thing is that you don’t need to install the
software and it is always up to date.
icloud
– web operating system over the web. It is like bringing your own desktop and files running in
your web browser that includes an office suite, media player, chat client, games, productivity
tool, utility applications and more. Now you won’t worry that you are working in a different PC.
Google Voice
– makes a huge deal in international calling communication. It delivers various features such as
voicemail transcription, one number calling, sms to email, block callers, screen callers,
conference call and more. Bringing your all phone into your gmail account given that you are in
US and Canada.
HootSuite
– a web apps for your social networking experience. Updating and monitoring your social
activities such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress and Ping.fm will be easy. It is also
good for businesses that tracks statistics of their business over the web.
Challenges of Web Based Applications
There is a growing concern over the security of Web-based applications, which are rapidly being
deployed over the Internet. For example, e-commerce—the leading Web-based application—is
projected to have a market exceeding $1 trillion over the next several years. However, this
application has already become a security nightmare for both customers and business enterprises
as indicated by the recent episodes involving unauthorized access to credit card information.
Other leading Web-based applications with considerable information security and privacy issues
include telemedicine-based health-care services and online services or businesses involving both
public and private sectors.

5.4. 7 E-learning and education

E-leaning focuses on usage of technology in the field of education and learning. E-learning is a
computer based educational tool or system that enables you to learn anywhere and at any time.
Today e-learning is mostly delivered though the internet, although in the past it was delivered
using a blend of computer-based methods like CD-ROM. Some of the most important
developments in education have happened since the launch of the internet. These days learners
are well versed in the use of smart phones, text messaging and using the internet. so participating
in and running an online course has become a simple affair. Message boards, social media and
various other means of online communication allow learners to keep them in touch and discuss
course related matters, whilst providing for a sense of community. E-learning applications and
processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital
collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite
TV, and CD-ROM. It is used by the educational Institutions to enhance and support the class
room teaching and offering courses to a larger population of learners across the Globe. It can be
self-paced or instructor led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming
video and audio .Some of the different types of E-learning methods are:
 • Computer-based Learning
• Computer-Based Training
• Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)

Computer-based Learning
Computer-based learning, sometimes abbreviated to CBL, refers to the use of computers as a
key component of the educational environment. While this can refer to the use of computers in a
classroom, the term more broadly refers to a structured environment in which computers are used
for teaching purposes.

Computer-Based Training
Computer-Based Trainings (CBTs) are self-paced learning activities accessible via a computer or
handheld device. CBTs typically present content in a linear fashion, much like reading an online
book or manual. For this reason they are often used to teach static processes, such as using
software or completing mathematical equations. The term Computer Based Training is often
used interchangeably with Web-based training (WBT) with the primary difference being the
delivery method. Where CBTs are typically delivered via CDROM, WBTs are delivered via the
Internet using a web browser. Assessing learning in a CBT usually comes in the form of
multiple-choice questions, or other assessments that can be easily scored by a computer such as
drag-and-drop, radial button, simulation or other interactive means. Assessments are easily
scored and recorded via online software, providing immediate end-user feedback and completion
status. Users are often able to print completion records in the form of certificates.

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is one of the most promising innovations to
improve teaching and learning with the help of modern information and communication
technology. Most recent developments in CSCL have been called E-Learning 2.0.It is widely
agreed to distinguish collaborative learning from the traditional 'direct transfer' model in which
the instructor is assumed to be the distributor of knowledge and skills.

Advantages of e-Learning to the Teacher or Institution

Some of the most outstanding advantages to the trainer or organization are:
• Reduced overall cost is the single most influential factor in adopting e-learning. The
elimination of costs associated with instructor's salaries, meeting room rentals, and
student travel, lodging, and meals are directly quantifiable.
• Learning times reduced, an average of 40 to 60 percent
• Increased retention and application to the job averages an increase of 25 percent over
traditional methods
• Consistent delivery of content is possible with asynchronous, self-paced e-learning.
• Expert knowledge is communicated, but more importantly captured, with good e-learning
and knowledge management systems.
Advantages to the Learner
Along with the increased retention, reduced learning time, and other aforementioned benefits to
students, particular advantages of e-learning include:
• On-demand availability enables students to refer conveniently from home.
• Self-pacing for slow or quick learners reduces stress and increases satisfaction.
• Interactivity engages users, pushing them rather than pulling them through training.
 • Confidence that refresher or quick reference materials are available reduces burden of
responsibility of mastery.
Disadvantages to the Teacher or Institution
• Up-front investment required of an e-learning solution is larger due to development costs.
Budgets and cash flows will need to be negotiated.
• Technology issues that play a factor include whether the existing technology
infrastructure can accomplish the training goals, whether additional tech expenditures can
be justified, and whether compatibility of all software and hardware can be achieved.
• Inappropriate content for e-learning may exist according to some experts, though are
limited in number.
• Cultural acceptance is an issue in Institutions where student demographics and
psychographics may predispose them against using computers at all, let alone for e-
learning.

Disadvantages to the Learner

The ways in which e-learning may not excel over other training include:
• Technology issues of the learners are most commonly technophobia and unavailability of
required technologies.
• Portability of training has become a strength of e-learning with the proliferation of
network linking points, notebook computers, PDAs, and mobile phones, but still does not
rival that of printed workbooks or reference material.
• Reduced social and cultural interaction can be a drawback. The impersonality,
suppression of communication mechanisms such as body language, and elimination of
peer-to-peer learning that are part of this potential disadvantage are lessening with
advances in communication Technologies.

5.4.8 Cloud Computing for Multimedia Services

Cloud computing is one of the emerging IT technologies used in computation nowadays. It is a

green technology which allows accessing, computing and storing the resources by offering
various services across the internet without physically acquiring them. Cloud computing
generally includes Infrastructure as a service(IaaS), Platform as a Service(PaaS), and Software as
a Service(SaaS). Inorder to reduce the computation time and to overcome the storage space
shortage issues, most of the organizations nowadays shifting to Cloud computing from the
traditional process of computation.
Due to the invention of cloud computing, nowadays users can easily access the multimedia
content over the internet at any time. Here the user can efficiently store the multimedia content
of any type and of any size in the cloud after subscribing it with no difficulties. Not only storing
the media content like Audio, Video and Image, but can process them within the cloud since the
computation time for processing media data is more in complex hardware. After processing the
processed data can be easily received from the cloud through a client without any need of
installing complex hardware.
Multimedia cloud computing is the processing, accessing and storing of multimedia contents like
audio, video and image using the services and applications available in the cloud without
physically acquiring them. Currently many company’s clouds like AmazonEC2, Google Music,
DropBox, SkyDrive provides content management system within the cloud network. The users
of these clouds can access the multimedia content for example; the user can view a video
anywhere in the world at anytime using their Computers, tablets or smartphones.
Cloud offers an environment which allows transparent access of data, storing it and processing
the data in a secured manner. Transferring media contents from a local device to cloud has
changed the data distribution model by its efficiency comparing with the previous less secured
data distribution models. It gives more benefits by reducing the storage challenges of local client
devices like computers, smartphones, tablets etc. The various cloud media services are,
A. Cloud gaming
Smart devices and computers are mainly used to play video games. But due to the power
requirement and the computation speed, most of the 3D related games cannot be played in those
smart devices. So to overcome this, there is a service for playing games in cloud. Using cloud
any kind of video games can be played with complete satisfaction even by using low end
devices.
B. Experiencing Multi-screens
Nowadays users have more expectation over multiscreens in devices. Users can access the
media content of the cloud through multiple devices by supporting wide variety of video, audio
codecs, aspect ratio and screen sizes for live or pay per use basis
C. Image Processing
There are various fields in which image processing is required, and most specifically in
investigation and medical field. It includes techniques like segmentation, denoising, fusion,
compression etc. Normally image processing software size will be more and it will reduce the
computation of the local system. Nowadays inorder to overcome that, the media content i.e.
images are processed in the cloud itself and the result will be received in our local client.

ADVANTAGES
Cloud media technology offers number of key benefits to its service providers as well as the
users through increased implementation time, efficient data storage capacity, less computation
and cost. It created a striking impact in the multimedia content processing like editing, storing,
encrypting and decrypting, gaming, streaming, compressing etc.

A. Cost
Cloud media computing offers cost effective services to its service providers through efficient
multiplexing of media contents like audio, video, image by providing a common infrastructure,
utilizing the server, optimization, virtualization, Mobility and automatic processing. There is no
need for physically acquiring a infrastructure or resource in our local system and thus reduces the
cost.

B. Upgradable
Cloud media is an always connected to the cloud service provider and therefore it is upgraded
and maintained without any manual interference. Software and security will be up to date
always.

C. Compatibility
Cloud media allows the media content to be accessed anywhere through any smart device and it
is compatible with all kinds of client service enabled computers, smartphones, cars tablets etc.

D. Consistent
 Cloud media provides consistency in distributing the specific media contents to the users of
other cloud within a cloud community using the streaming protocols like TCP/IP, UDP, RTP etc.

E. Green Technology
Cloud media computation uses optimized data centers for processing, distributing or sharing the
media content to the users. But the traditional computation requires more energy consumption.

F. Ubiquitous
Cloud media offers the users to purchase a media content once and it can be accessed anywhere
in multiscreen by providing customization ability depending upon the accessing device.

G. Storage
Cloud media technology has many bases for storing the media content in the cloud using the
resources. Also it is more secure since the stored media content will be duplicated without
manual interference.

Disadvantages
A. More confusion
There are more confusion among the user in choosing the type of cloud since both pay per use
and free clouds are launched by some mobile companies, service providers etc. So the users face
difficulty in taking a decision.

B. Inside attacks
There is a possibility for phishing and stealing of media content by the employee of the service
provider itself.

C. Legal and piracy difficulties

Since the cloud media computation is very new, the legal standards are not very good.

D. Migration
Since more and more clouds are launched by the service providers, the user might think to move
all his media content to some other cloud based on his change in requirements. But now the user
does not have the freedom of doing that.

E. Challenges over standards

Currently many vendors (person who sells services) developing and launching their own private
cloud environments based on their own conditions and security features which leads to issues in
interoperability in the near future.

F. QOS
In cloud media computing, since it is a new area, the developers are concentrating more on
computation speed and storage issue. Users going for unreliable networks without their
knowledge to share the media content even though there are availability of more promising
streaming technology and increased broadband speed.
5.4.9 Cloud-Assisted Media Sharing

Content sharing environments such as social networking are very dynamic in terms of the
number of on-line users, storage requirement, network bandwidth, computational capability,
applications and platforms, thus it is not easy for a service provider to allocate resources
following the traditional client-server model. As cloud computing offers application developers
and users an abstract view of services that hides much of the system details and inner workings,
it is more and more popular in content-sharing applications. Media content has become the major
traffic of Internet and will keep on increasing rapidly. Various innovative media applications,
services, devices have emerged and people tend to consume more media contents. We are
meeting a media revolution. But media processing requires great capacity and capability of
computing resources. Meanwhile Cloud Computing has emerged as a prosperous technology and
the Cloud Computing platform has become a fundamental facility providing various services,
great computing power, massive storage and bandwidth with modest cost. The integration of
Cloud Computing and media processing is therefore a natural choice. Media Cloud is the bridge
to an open architecture that allows users to join their data to constitute a Cloud.

Media Cloud pursues fulfilling two goals: Content Classification Content Sharing.
Content Sharing:

ISSUE: Consider a group of friends that have just arrived from a half month travel and they all
want to exchange the pictures stored in their cameras. Problem: An option would be to upload
every picture and video to a social network to let others to individually select and download the
pictures they like. However, viewing, selecting and downloading individual media file from the
social network would be pretty tough and time consuming process.
Solution: The goal of Content Sharing alleviates the problem of sharing large amounts of media
with family and friends.

For Example, Salesforce.com is a software-as-a-service Company, which is now also offering

platform-as-a service. Salesforce is a pioneer in providing a high quality on-demand CRM
software ( referred to as “ The Sales cloud “ by Salesforce). Salesforce is a classic manifestation
of two (SaaS and PaaS) out of the three major components Of Cloud computing. Build Media
Cloud application in the SalesForce.com by loging into free developer’s edition namely
developersforce.com Build an interface for login, registration, search and documents for
accessing the files as per the authorization to access it. Media Cloud provides an easy to manage,
cost-effective solution for bringing Cloud Computing paradigm to content sharing among
federated networks. The cost-effectiveness is achieved by sharing resources that could be
underused in other cases. Media Cloud encourages cooperation among networks facilitating
media classification, management and sharing. Distributed search and content delivery over the
cloud are among the most important features of Media Cloud.

Challenges In Building Scalable Digital Media Systems

Building a scalable digital media system from scratch that supports a large number of users and
stores huge amount of media content is not a trivial task. The following list provides an overview
of the common technical challenges associated with building scalable digital media systems.
Ingestion
• The system must allow end users to quickly and securely upload media objects while still
providing a compelling user experience.
• Metadata of the media objects needs to be ingested and synchronized if media objects are
modified or re-ingested.
• The ingestion workflow that defines the communication among all involved components needs
to be managed.
Storage • Virtually unlimited storage for the media content and the storage must be reliable,
globally accessible, and cost effective³.
Processing
• Scalable computing resources are required for media processing, such as document format
conversion, image processing, and media transcoding.
• The media processing workflow needs to be managed.
Serving
• The system must allow end users to quickly and securely download media content while still
providing a good user experience.
• The serving workflow needs to be managed.
Media Applications
• The system supports the integration of media metadata with application specific domain data.
It also allows for the development of scalable media applications, such as asset management, and
content sharing, on top of this data.
End User Experiences
• The system provides compelling user experiences for multiple clients such as browsers, mobile
devices, and desktop applications.
Cloud Platform is able to address each of the challenges described above. The proposed system
architecture is generally applicable to any media type. The system can be built using the Google
Cloud Platform:

System Components
Frontend and Media Applications Running on Google App Engine
• Authenticates and authorizes users and coordinate access to Google Cloud Storage.
• Implements the user interface for browser clients, and/or exposes APIs using Google Cloud
Endpoints to mobile and desktop clients.
• Plays the role of system controller and is responsible for managing workflows for media
ingestion, serving, and processing.
• Scalable media applications are powered by App Engine, with built-in load-balancing and auto-
scaling.
Google Datastore
• Stores media content metadata and application data model. Google Cloud SQL
• Stores media content metadata and application data model, as an alternative to Google
Datastore. App Engine Task Queue
• Integrates App Engine application with media processing software running on Google
Compute Engine.
Image Services
• Provides dynamic image processing services for App Engine applications, such as thumbnail
generation, resizing, and cropping.
Google Cloud Storage
• Provides scalable and highly available storage for media content. The storage can be accessed
by using RESTful APIs and/or signed URLs.
• Leverages Google network for the following advantages:
(1) to allow for fast and secure content ingestion into and serving from the storage and
(2) for edge caching capability for public content which lowers the serving costs.

Media Processing Server

• Executes media processing on Google Compute Engine.

REVIEW QUESTIONS
2MARKS
1. What is user interface
2. What is hotspot
3. List the stages of designing multimedia product
4. What is storyboard
5. What is Icon
6. Expand MIME
7. What is copyright
8. Define Virtual Reality
9. What are the inputs of virtual reality systems
10. Define bandwidth
11. Define plug-ins
12. Give examples for text plug-ins
13. What is nibbling
14. What is GIF
15. What is PNG
16. What is JPEG
17. What is the use of GIF89a.
18. Give example for automatic tool generator
19. Mention MIME type image file extension

3MARKS
1. where the image maps are used
2. Define production
3. what is copyright
4. When you have a copyright of a product what can you do
5. How to avoid bandwidth bottleneck
6. Define Daemon
7. What are the two modes of access the multimedia data from the web
8. What is client side scripting
9. What is server side scripting
10. Write about clickable buttons
11. Write about client side image maps
12. What are the factors to be considered before video is created for the web
13. Give a short note about HTML5
14. Give short note about Discrete media
15. Give short note about Continuous media
5MARKS
1. Explain Navigation map
2. Explain story board
3. What are the factors involved in virtual reality
4. Write about different virtual reality modeling
5. Explain different plug-ins
6. How a text element is used for the web(10marks)
7. How to flow text through image for the web
8. What are the parameters used for deciding quality of data transmission
9. Draw and explain multimedia demand system architecture(10marks)
10. Write about multimedia over wireless and mobile networks
11. Mention the features of web based applications
12. What are the categories present in web based systems
13. Explain about e-learning
14. Explain cloud computing for multimedia services