Chapter 1.1

Vaughan: Multimedia: Making It Work, Sixth Edition

1. What is Multimedia? Text © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2005

In this chapter, you willlearn how to:

■ Define common multimediaterms such as multimedia,integration, interactive, HTML,authoring

■ Describe the two primarymultimedia delivery media—CD-ROM and DVD versus theWorld Wide Web—and theirprimary differences

■ Qualify various characteristicsof multimedia: linear versusnonlinear content

■ Describe several differentenvironments in whichmultimedia might be used, andseveral different aspects ofmultimedia that provide abenefit over other forms ofinformation presentation

■ Cite the history of multimediaand note important projectedchanges in the future ofmultimedia

MU L T I M E D I A is an eerie wail as two cat’s eyes appear ona dark screen. It’s the red rose that dissolves into a little girl’s face when youpress “Valentine’s Day.” It’s a small window of video laid onto a map of In-dia, showing an old man recalling his dusty journey to meet a rajah there.It’s a catalog of fancy cars with a guide to help you buy one. It’s a real-timevideo conference with colleagues in Paris, London, and Hong Kong onyour office computer using whiteboards, microphones, and question tech-niques (www.webtrain.com). At home, it’s an algebra or geography lessonfor a fifth-grader. At the arcade, it’s goggle-faced kids flying fighter planesin sweaty virtual reality. On a DVD, it’s the interactive video sequence(screen hot spots) that explain how the Harry Potter movie was made—allusing your remote control.

Multimedia is any combination of text, art, sound, animation, andvideo delivered to you by computer or other electronic or digitally manip-ulated means. It is richly presented sensation. When you weave togetherthe sensual elements of multimedia—dazzling pictures and animations,engaging sounds, compelling video clips, and raw textual information—you can electrify the thought and action centers of people’s minds. When yougive them interactive control of the process, they can be enchanted.

This book is about creating each of the elements of multimedia andabout how you can weave them together for maximum effect. This book isfor computer beginners and computer experts. It is for serious multimediaproducers and their clients, as well. It is for desktop publishers and videoproducers who may need a leg-up as they watch traditional methods fordelivery of information and ideas evolve into new, technology-driven for-mats. This book is also for hobbyists, who want to make albums and fam-ily histories on the World Wide Web; for mainstream businesses, whereword-processed documents and spreadsheets are illustrated with audio,video, and graphic animations; for public speakers, who use animationand sound on large monitors and auditorium projection systems to presentideas and information to an audience; for information managers, who or-ganize and distribute digital images, sound, video, and text; and for educa-tors and trainers, who design and present information for learning.

chapter 1What is Multimedia?



If you are new to multimedia and are facing a major investment in hard-ware, software, and the time to learn each new tool, take a gradual ap-proach to these challenges. Begin by studying each element of multimediaand learning one or more tools for creating and editing that element. Getto know how to use text and fonts, how to make and edit colorful graphicimages and animate them into movies, and how to record and edit digitalsound. Read the computer trade periodicals that contain the most up-to-date information. Your skills will be most valuable if you develop a broadfoundation of knowledge about each of the basic elements of multimedia.

Producing a multimedia project or a web site requires more than cre-ative skill and high technology. You need organizing and business talent aswell. For example, issues of ownership and copyright will be attached tosome elements that you wish to use: text from books, scanned images frommagazines, audio and video clips. These require permission and often pay-ment of a fee to the owner. Indeed, the management and production infra-structure of a multimedia project may be as intense and complicated as thetechnology and creative skills you bring to bear in rendering it. Keys tosuccessful development of a multimedia project are management of digitaltools and skillsets, teamwork, general project management, documentingand archiving the process, and delivering the completed product on timeand within budget.

Definitions

Multimedia is, as described above, woven combinations of digitally ma-nipulated text, photographs, graphic art, sound, animation, and video ele-ments. When you allow an end user—the viewer of a multimedia project—to control what and when the elements are delivered, it is interactive mul-timedia. When you provide a structure of linked elements through whichthe user can navigate, interactive multimedia becomes hypermedia.

Although the definition of multimedia is a simple one, making it workcan be complicated. Not only do you need to understand how to makeeach multimedia element stand up and dance, but you also need to knowhow to use multimedia computer tools and technologies to weave them to-gether. The people who weave multimedia into meaningful tapestries aremultimedia developers.

The software vehicle, the messages, and the content presented on a com-puter or television screen together constitute a multimedia project. If theproject will be shipped or sold to consumers or end users, typically in a boxor sleeve or on the Internet, with or without instructions, it is a multimediatitle. Your project may also be a “page” or “site” on the World Wide Web,where you can weave the elements of multimedia into documents withHTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or DHTML (Dynamic HypertextMarkup Language) and play rich media files created in such programs asMacromedia’s Flash, Adobe’s LiveMotion, or Apple’s QuickTime by in-stalling “plug-ins” into a browser application such as Internet Explorer orNetscape Navigator. See Chapter 13 for more about plug-ins, multimedia,and the Web.

Chapter 1: What is Multimedia?

The implementation ofmultimedia capabilities incomputers is just the latest

episode in a long series: cavepainting, hand-crafted

manuscripts, the printing press,radio and television... Theseadvances reflect the innate

desire of man to create outletsfor creative expression, to usetechnology and imaginationto gain empowerment and

freedom for ideas.

Glenn Ochsenreiter, Director,Multimedia PC Council



A multimedia project need not be interactive to be called multimedia:users can sit back and watch it just as they do a movie or the television. Insuch cases a project is linear, starting at the beginning and running throughto the end. When users are given navigational control and can wanderthrough the content at will, multimedia becomes nonlinear and user inter-active, and is a powerful personal gateway to information.

Determining how a user will interact with and navigate through thecontent of a project requires great attention to the message, the scriptingor storyboarding, the artwork, and the programming. You can break anentire project with a badly designed interface. You can also lose the mes-sage in a project with inadequate or inaccurate content.

Multimedia elements are typically sewn together into a project usingauthoring tools.These software tools are designed to manage individualmultimedia elements and provide user interaction. Integrated multimediais the “weaving” part of the multimedia definition, where source docu-ments such as montages, graphics, video cuts, and sounds merge into a fi-nal presentation. In addition to providing a method for users to interactwith the project, most authoring tools also offer facilities for creating andediting text and images and controls for playing back separate audio andvideo files that have been created with editing tools designed for these media.The sum of what gets played back and how it is presented to the viewer on amonitor is the graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced “gooey”).This interface is just as much the rules for what happens to the user’s inputas it is the actual graphics on the screen. The hardware and software thatgovern the limits of what can happen are the multimedia platform or envi-ronment.

CD-ROM and the Multimedia Highway

Multimedia requires large amounts of digital memory when stored in anend user’s library, or large amounts of bandwidth when distributed overwires, glass fiber, or airwaves on a network. The greater the bandwidth, thebigger the “pipeline,” so more content can be delivered to end users quickly.

CD-ROM, DVD, and Multimedia

CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory, see Chapter 18) has becomethe most cost-effective distribution medium for multimedia projects: aCD-ROM disc can be mass-produced for pennies and can contain up to 80minutes of full-screen video or sound. Or it can contain unique mixes ofimages, sounds, text, video, and animations controlled by an authoringsystem to provide unlimited user interaction.

Discs can be stamped out of polycarbonate plastic as fast as cookies ona baker’s production line and just as cheaply. Virtually all personal com-puters sold today include at least a CD-ROM player, and the software thatdrives these computers is commonly available on a CD-ROM disc—appli-cations that required inserting as many as 16 or more floppy disks one af-ter another are now installed from a CD-ROM without muss or fuss.

Multimedia: Making It Work



Many systems now come with a DVD-ROM player. Multilayered DigitalVersatile Disc (DVD) technology increases the capacity and multimedia ca-pability of current optical technology to 18GB. CD and DVD burners areused for reading discs and for making them, too, in audio, video, and dataformats. DVD authoring and integration software allows the creation ofinteractive front-end menus for films and games.

In the very long term, however, CD-ROM and DVD discs are but interimmemory technologies that will be replaced by new devices that do not re-quire moving parts. As the data highway described below becomes moreand more pervasive and users become better “connected,” copper wire,glass fiber, and radio/cellular technologies may prevail as the most commondelivery means for interactive multimedia files, served across the broadbandInternet or from dedicated computer farms and storage facilities.

The Multimedia Highway

Now that telecommunications networks are global, and when informa-tion providers and content owners determine the worth of their productsand how to charge money for them, information elements will ultimatelylink up online as distributed resources on a data highway (actually morelike a toll road), where you will pay to acquire and use multimedia-basedinformation.

Curiously, the actual glass fiber cables that make up much of the physicalbackbone of the data highway are, in many cases, owned by railroads andpipeline companies who simply buried the cable on existing rights of waywhere no special permits and environmental reports are necessary. One rail-road in the United States invested more than a million dollars in a special ca-ble-laying trenching car; in the United Kingdom, there is talk of placing afiber-optic cable backbone along the decaying 19th-century canal and bargesystem. Bandwidth on these lines is leased to others, so competing retailerssuch as AT&T, MCI, and Sprint may even share the same cable.

Full-text content from books and magazines is accessible by modemand electronic link; feature movies are played at home; real-time news re-ports from anywhere on earth are available; lectures from participatinguniversities are monitored for education credits; street maps of any city areviewable—with recommendations for restaurants, in any language—andonline travelogues include testimonials and video tracks. This is not sci-ence fiction; it is happening now. For each of these interfaces or gatewaysto information is a multimedia project just waiting to be developed.

http://www.moviefone.comhttp://www.travelocity.comhttp://www.nytimes.comhttp://www.5pm.co.uk

Showtimes for many major cities, restaurants, vacation trips, andcurrent news items are quickly available on the Web

Interactive multimedia is delivered to many homes throughout theworld. Interest from a confluence of entertainment megacorps, information





publishers and providers, cable and telephone companies, and hardware andsoftware manufacturers is driving this inevitable evolution, and profoundchanges in global communications strategy are on the drawing boards. Whatwill be piped through this new system for entertainment, reference, and life-long learning experiences are the very multimedia elements discussed inthe chapters of this book: text, graphics, animation, sound, and video. Thesoftware tools for making and editing these elements are discussed later inthe book; the methods for delivering these elements on the Internet are de-scribed in Chapter 14. The actual content provided, let us hope, will be ex-cellent fare generated by thinking and caring creative people using ideasthat will propel all of us into a better world. Entertainment companies thatown content easily converted to multimedia projects are teaming up withcable TV companies. Film studios are creating new divisions to produceinteractive multimedia, and wealthy talents have formed new companiesto join the action. Even without a clear business model with known prof-its, large media corporations are uniting to create huge conglomerates tocontrol the content and delivery of tomorrow’s information. Disneymerged with Capital Cities/ABC, Time Warner purchased Turner Broad-casting, and both were bought by AOL, and Microsoft joined forces withNBC. Indeed, Microsoft’s interests in the growing Internet are so pervasivethat it continues to risk government intervention under antitrust and mo-nopoly laws.

Some companies will own the routes for carrying data, other companieswill own the hardware and software interfaces at the end of the line, at of-fices and homes. Some will knit it all together and provide supply-on-de-mand and billing services. Regardless of who owns the roadways and thehardware boxes, multimedia producers will create the new literature andthe rich content sent along it. This is a fresh and exciting industry comingof age, but one still faced with many growing pains.

Where to Use Multimedia

Multimedia is appropriate whenever a human interface connects a humanuser to electronic information of any kind. Multimedia enhances minimal-ist text-only computer interfaces and yields measurable benefit by gainingand holding attention and interest; multimedia improves information re-tention. When properly woven, multimedia can also be profoundly enter-taining.

Multimedia in Business

Business applications for multimedia include presentations, training, mar-keting, advertising, product demos, databases, catalogs, instant messaging,and networked communications. Voice mail and video conferencing areprovided on many local and wide area networks (LANs and WANs) usingdistributed networks and Internet protocols.

After a morning of mind-numbing 35 mm slide and overhead presenta-tions delivered from the podium of a national sales conference, a multime-dia presentation can make an audience come alive. Most presentation

Multimedia is a very effectivepresentation and sales tool. If

you’re being driven somewherein the back seat of a car, you

may not remember how you gotto your destination; but if you

had been driving the caryourself, chances are you couldget there again. Studies indicatethat if you’re stimulated with

audio, you will have about a 20percent retention rate,

audiovisual is up to 30 percent,and in interactive multimediapresentations where you arereally involved, the retentionrate is as high as 60 percent.

Jay Sandom, Einstein & Sandom




software packages let you add audio and video clips to the usual “slideshow” of graphics and text material.

Multimedia is enjoying widespread use in training programs. Flight at-tendants learn to manage international terrorism and security throughsimulation. Drug enforcement agencies of the UN are trained using inter-active videos and photographs to recognize likely hiding places on air-planes and ships. Mechanics learn to repair engines. Salespeople learnabout product lines and leave behind software to train their customers.Fighter pilots practice full-terrain sorties before spooling up for the realthing. Increasingly easy-to-use authoring programs and media productiontools even let workers on assembly lines create their own training pro-grams for use by their peers. Figure 1-1 is from an animated project madewith Macromedia’s Director that describes the process of making steel.

Multimedia around the office has become more commonplace. Imagecapture hardware is used for building employee ID and badging databases,for video annotation, and for real-time teleconferencing. Presentationdocuments attached to e-mail and video conferencing is widely available.Laptop computers and high-resolution projectors are commonplace formultimedia presentations on the road. Cell phones and personal data as-sistants (PDAs) utilizing Bluetooth communications technology makecommunication and the business of business more efficient.

As companies and businesses catch on to the power of multimedia, andthe cost of installing multimedia capability decreases, more applicationswill be developed both in-house and by third parties to allow businesses torun more smoothly and effectively. These advances will change the veryway business is transacted as they affirm the use of multimedia that offersa significant contribution to the bottom line while advertising the publicimage of the business as an investor in technology.

Multimedia in Schools

Schools are perhaps the most needy destination for multimedia. Manyschools in the United States today are chronically underfunded and occa-sionally slow to adopt new technologies, but it is here that the power ofmultimedia can be maximized for the greatest long-term benefit to all.

The Clinton/Gore administration challenged the telecommunicationsindustry to connect every classroom, library, clinic, and hospital in Americato the information superhighway, and much work has been done in this

FIGURE 1-1

Animated instructional

and training

multimedia can

simulate the real thing,

allowing trainees to

actually turn valves

and flip switches

History has proven thatadvances in the way we

communicate can give rise toentirely new communication

cultures. Much like thetransition from radio to TV, theevolution from text messaging

to multimedia messaging(MMS) marks a whole new era

of mobile communications,combining images with

sound and text.

Jorma Ollila, Chairman andCEO of Nokia




area. Steps have also been taken to provide governmental support forstate-of-the-art technology in low-income rural and urban school districts.The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) has established similar aims forschools in the United Kingdom.

Multimedia will provoke radical changes in the teaching process duringthe coming decades, particularly as smart students discover they can go be-yond the limits of traditional teaching methods. There is, indeed, a moveaway from the “transmission” or “passive-learner” model of learning tothe “Experiential Learning” or “active-learner” model of Kolb. In some in-stances, teachers may become more like guides and mentors, facilitators oflearning, leading students along a learning path, not the primary providersof information and understanding. The students, not teachers, become thecore of the teaching and learning process. This is a sensitive and highly po-liticized subject among educators, so educational software is often posi-tioned as “enriching” the learning process, not as a potential substitute fortraditional teacher-based methods. The work of Warren Longmire of SanFrancisco organizes subject matter into “Learning Objects” or “granules”of learning material to build rich learning objects (like Lego buildingblocks) that have a long shelf life and multi-use applications.

Multimedia for learning takes manyforms. Figure 1-2 shows Mercer Meyer’spioneering and award-winning classic “JustGrandma and Me,” aimed at three- toeight-year-olds. Reading skills grow throughword recognition: a mouse click on anyword plays it back. The computer readsthe story aloud, sometimes spelling wordsindividually. Click on the mailbox and afrog jumps out; the chimney coughs smoke;the telephone rings, but nobody is home,and you hear Grandma’s answering ma-chine. Wait ‘til you get to the beach! Fig-ure 1-3, at the other end of the educational

Technological literacy mustbecome the standard in our

country. Preparing children fora lifetime of computer use is just

as essential today as teachingthem the basics of reading,

writing, and arithmetic.

Bill Clinton, former president ofthe United States

FIGURE 1-2

“Just Grandma and

Me” is aimed at

developing reading

skills, but it also

entertains with

interactive sights and

sounds

FIGURE 1-3

This multimedia

project from Yale

University School of

Medicine lets

physicians and

radiology professionals

learn new technologies

at their own pace



continuum, shows the title screen from an advanced electronic teachingtool prepared by Yale University School of Medicine. It provides physi-cians with over 100 case presentations and gives cardiologists, radiolo-gists, medical students, and fellows an opportunity for in-depth learningof new clinical techniques in nuclear cardiac perfusion imaging. Adults, aswell as children, learn well by exploration and discovery.

An interesting use of multimedia in schools involves the students them-selves. Students put together interactive magazines and newsletters, theymake original art using image manipulation software tools (see Chapter 10),they interview students and townspeople and coaches and teachers, and theymake QuickTime movies (see Chapter 5). They design and run web sites.

http://www.elibrary.comhttp://www.lib.umich.edu/chhome.htmlhttp://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.htmlhttp://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools.htmlhttp://www.gda.org

From homework helpers to literature guides to school registries tohome pages and information servers, education is finding a place on theWorld Wide Web

At one time, laserdiscs brought the greatest amount of multimedia to theclassroom—in 1994, there were more than 2,500 educational titles avail-able on laserdisc for grades K–12, the majority aimed at science and socialscience curricula. Use of laserdiscs has been supplanted as schools have pur-chased more computers with CD-ROM players. And as schools becomepart of the Internet, multimedia arrives by glass fiber and over a network.

Multimedia at Home

From gardening to cooking to home design, remodeling, and repair to geneal-ogy software (see Figure 1-4), multimedia has entered the home. Eventually,most multimedia projects will reach the home via television sets or monitorswith built-in interactive user inputs—either on old-fashioned color TVs or onnew high-definition sets (see Chapter 8). The multimedia viewed on these setswill likely arrive on a pay-for-use basis along the data highway.

Today, home consumers of multimedia own either a computer with anattached CD-ROM or DVD drive or a set-top player that hooks up to thetelevision, such as a Sega, Nintendo, X-box, or Sony game machine. Thereis increasing convergence of computer-based multimedia with entertain-ment and games-based media traditionally described as “shoot-em-up.”Nintendo alone has sold over 100 million game players worldwide and morethan 750 million games. Users with TiVo technology (www.tivo.com) canstore 80 hours of television viewing and gaming on a stand-alone hard disk.

Live Internet pay-for-play gaming with multiple players has becomepopular, bringing multimedia to homes on the data highway, often in com-bination with CD-ROMs inserted into the user’s machine. Microsoft’sInternet Gaming Zone and Sony’s Station web site boast more than a mil-lion registered users each—Microsoft claims to be the most successful,with tens of thousands of people logged on and playing every evening.


An interactive episode of Wild

Kingdom might start out withnormal narration. “We’re herein the Serengeti to learn about

the animals.” I see a lion on thescreen and think, “I want to

learn about the lion.” So I pointat the lion, and it zooms up on

the screen. The narration is nowjust about the lion. I say, “Wellthat’s really interesting, but I

wonder how the lion hunts.” Ipoint at a hunt icon. Now the

lion is hunting, and the narratortells me about how it hunts. Idream about being the lion. I

select another icon and now seethe world from the lion’s pointof view, making the same kinds

of decisions the lion has tomake—with some hints as I goalong. I’m told how I’m doingand how well I’m surviving.

Kids could get very motivatedfrom experiencing what it’s liketo be a lion and from wantingto be a competent lion. Prettysoon they’d be digging deeperinto the information resource,finding out about animals indifferent parts of the world,

studying geography from mapsdisplayed on the screen,

learning which animals areendangered species...

Trip Hawkins, Chairman,Electronic Arts




The home of the future will be very different when the cost of computerhardware and multimedia televisions becomes mass-market affordableand the multimedia connection to the data highway is widely available.When the number of multimedia households increases from hundreds ofthousands to many millions, a vast selection of multimedia titles and mate-rial will be required to satisfy the demands of this market, and vastamounts of money will be earned producing and distributing these multi-media products.

Multimedia in Public Places

In hotels, train stations, shopping malls, museums, and grocery stores,multimedia will become available at stand-alone terminals or kiosks toprovide information and help, or it will be piped to wireless devices such ascell phones and PDAs. Such installations reduce demand on traditional in-formation booths and personnel, add value, and they can work round theclock, even in the middle of the night, when live help is off duty. The waywe live is changing as multimedia penetrates our day-to-day experienceand our culture. Imagine a friend’s bout of maudlin drunk dialing (DD) ona new Nokia phone, with the camera accidentally enabled.

Figure 1-5 shows a menu screen from a supermarket kiosk that providesservices ranging from meal planning to coupons. Hotel kiosks list nearbyrestaurants, maps of the city, airline schedules, and provide guest servicessuch as automated checkout. Printers are often attached so users can walkaway with a printed copy of the information. Museum kiosks are not onlyused to guide patrons through the exhibits, but when installed at each ex-hibit, provide great added depth, allowing visitors to browse throughrichly detailed information specific to that display.

The power of multimedia has been part of the human experience for manythousands of years: the mystical chants of monks, cantors, and shamans

FIGURE 1-4

Genealogy software

such as Reunion

from Leister

Productions lets

families add text,

images, sounds, and

video clips as they

build their

family trees



accompanied by potent vi-sual cues, raised icons, andpersuasive text has long beenknown to produce effectiveresponses in public places.Scriabin, the 19th-centuryRussian composer, used anorchestra, a piano, a chorus,and a special color organ tosynthesize music and colorin his Fifth Symphony, Pro-metheus. Probably sufferingfrom synesthesia (a strangecondition where a sensorystimulus, such as a color,evokes a false response, suchas a smell), Scriabin talkedof tactile symphonies withburning incense scored into the work. He also claimed that colors can beheard; Table 1-1 lists the colors of his color organ.

Prometheus premiered before a live audience in Moscow in 1911, butthe color organ had proved technologically too complicated and was elim-inated from the program. Then Scriabin died suddenly of blood poisoningfrom a boil on his lip, so his ultimate multimedia vision, the Mysterium, re-mained unwritten. He would have reveled in today’s world of MIDI syn-thesizers (see Chapter 5), rich computer colors, and video digitizers, and,though smell is not yet part of any multimedia standard, he would surelyhave researched that concept, too. The platforms for multimedia presenta-tion have much improved since Scriabin’s time.


Frequency (Hz) Note Scriabin’s Color

256 C Red

277 C# Violet

298 D Yellow

319 D# Glint of steel

341 E Pearly white shimmer of moonlight

362 F Deep red

383 F# Bright blue

405 G Rosy orange

426 G# Purple

447 A Green

469 A# Glint of steel

490 B Pearly blue

TABLE 1-1 Scriabin’s Color Organ �

FIGURE 1-5

Kiosks in public

places can make

everyday life

simpler



Virtual Reality

At the convergence of technology and creative invention in multimedia isvirtual reality, or VR. Goggles, helmets, special gloves, and bizarre humaninterfaces attempt to place you “inside” a lifelike experience. Take a stepforward, and the view gets closer; turn your head, and the view rotates.Reach out and grab an object; your hand moves in front of you. Maybe theobject explodes in a 90-decibel crescendo as you wrap your fingers aroundit. Or it slips out from your grip, falls to the floor, and hurriedly escapesthrough a mouse hole at the bottom of the wall.

VR requires terrific computing horsepower to be realistic. In VR, yourcyberspace is made up of many thousands of geometric objects plotted inthree-dimensional space: the more objects and the more points that de-scribe the objects, the higher the resolution and the more realistic yourview. As you move about, each motion or action requires the computer torecalculate the position, angle, size, and shape of all the objects that makeup your view, and many thousands of computations must occur as fast as30 times per second to seem smooth.

On the World Wide Web, standards for transmitting virtual reality worldsor “scenes” in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) documents (withthe file name extension .wrl) have been developed. Intel and software makerssuch as Macromedia and Adobe have announced support for new 3-D tech-nologies. See Chapter 14 for more about 3-D on the Internet.

Using high-speed dedicated computers, multimillion-dollar flight simu-lators built by Singer, RediFusion, and others have led the way in commer-cial application of VR. Pilots of F-16s, Boeing 777s, and Rockwell spaceshuttles have made many dry runs before doing the real thing. At theMaine Maritime Academy and other merchant marine officer trainingschools, computer-controlled simulators teach the intricate loading andunloading of oil tankers and container ships.

Specialized public game arcades have been built recently to offer VRcombat and flying experiences for a price. From Virtual World Entertain-ment in Walnut Creek, California, and Chicago, for example, BattleTech isa ten-minute interactive video encounter with hostile robots. You competeagainst others, perhaps your friends, who share couches in the same Con-tainment Bay. The computer keeps score in a fast and sweaty firefight. Sim-ilar “attractions” will bring VR to the public, particularly a youthfulpublic, with increasing presence.

Virtual reality (VR) is an extension of multimedia—it uses the basicmultimedia elements of imagery, sound, and animation. Because it re-quires instrumented feedback from a wired-up person, VR is perhaps in-teractive multimedia at its fullest extension.


BattleTech is pretty cool. I’veplayed the one in Chicago. Thekey to winning is getting a unit

where the controls worksmoothly, otherwise you wind

up running in circles untilsomeone puts you out of

your misery.

Rich Santalesa, Editor,NetGuide Magazine

People who work in VR do notsee themselves as part of

“multimedia.” VR deals withgoggles and gloves and is still

a research field where noauthoring products are

available, and you need a hellof a computer to develop the

real-time 3-D graphics.Although there is a middle

ground covered by such thingsas QuickTime VR and VRML

that gives multimediadevelopers a “window” into

VR, people often confusemultimedia and VR and want

to create futuristic environmentsusing multimedia authoringtools not designed for that

purpose.

Takis Metaxis, Assistant Professor ofComputer Science, Wellesley College



Chapter 1 Review

■ Chapter SummaryFor your review, here’s a summary of the importantconcepts discussed in this chapter.

Define common multimedia terms such asmultimedia, integration, interactive, HTML,authoring

■ Multimedia is any combination of text, graphicart, sound, animation, and video delivered bycomputer or other electronic means.

■ Multimedia production requires creative,technical, organizing, and business ability.

Describe the two primary multimedia deliverymedia—CD-ROM and DVD versus the WorldWide Web—and their primary differences

■ Multimedia projects often require a large amountof digital memory; hence they are often stored onCD-ROM or DVDs.

■ Multimedia also includes web pages in HTML orDHTML (XML) on the World Wide Web, andcan include rich media created by various toolsusing plug-ins.

■ Web sites with rich media require large amountsof bandwidth.

Qualify various characteristics of multimedia:nonlinear versus linear content

■ Multimedia presentations can be nonlinear(interactive) or linear (passive).

■ Multimedia can contain structured linking; this iscalled hypermedia.

■ Multimedia developers produce multimedia titlesusing authoring tools.

■ Multimedia projects, when published, aremultimedia titles.

Describe several different environments in whichmultimedia might be used, and several differentaspects of multimedia that provide a benefit overother forms of information

■ Multimedia is appropriate wherever a humaninteracts with electronic information.

■ Areas in which multimedia presentations aresuitable include education, training, marketing,advertising, product demos, databases, catalogs,and networked communications.

Cite the history of multimedia and noteimportant projected changes in the futureof multimedia

■ The promise of multimedia has spawnednumerous mergers, expansions, and otherventures. These include hardware, software,content, and delivery services.

■ The future of multimedia will includehigh-bandwidth access to a wide array ofmultimedia resources and learning materials.

■ Key Termsauthoring tools (2)bandwidth (2)browser (1)burners (3)CD-ROM (2)content (2)convergence (7)digital manipulation (1)distributed resources (3)DVD (3)

environment (2)font (1)graphical user interface

(GUI) (2)HTML (1)hypermedia (1)integrated multimedia (2)interactive multimedia (1)linear (2)multimedia (0)

multimedia developers (1)multimedia elements (4)multimedia project (1)multimedia title (1)nonlinear (2)platform (2)scripting (2)storyboarding (2)web site (1)



■ Key Term Quiz1. _______________ is any combination of text,

graphic art, sound, animation, and videodelivered to you by computer or otherelectronic means.

2. _______________ multimedia allows an enduser to control what and when the elements aredelivered.

3. _______________ is a structure of linkedelements through which the user can navigate.

4. A _______________ multimedia project allowsusers to sit back and watch it just as they do amovie or the television.

5. _______________ tools are software toolsdesigned to manage individual multimediaelements and provide user interaction.

6. The sum of what gets played back and how itis presented to the viewer on a monitor is the_______________.

7. The hardware and software that govern thelimits of what can happen are the multimedia_______________.

8. The information that makes up a multimediapresentation is referred to as _______________.

9. CD and DVD _______________ are used forreading and making discs.

10. HTML and DHTML web pages or sites aregenerally viewed using a _______________.

■ Multiple-Choice Quiz1. LAN stands for:

a. logical access nodeb. link/asset navigatorc. local area networkd. list authoring numbere. low-angle noise

2. A browser is used to view:a. program codeb. storyboardsc. fontsd. Web-based pages and documentse. videodiscs

3. The “ROM” in “CD-ROM” stands for:a. random-order memoryb. real-object memoryc. read-only memoryd. raster-output memorye. red-orange memory

4. The software vehicle, the messages, and thecontent presented on a computer or televisionscreen together make up:a. a multimedia projectb. a CD-ROMc. a web sited. a multimedia titlee. an authoring tool

5. A project that is shipped or sold to consumersor end users, typically in a box or sleeve or onthe Internet, with or without instructions, is:a. a CD-ROMb. an authoring toolc. a multimedia projectd. a multimedia title

6. The 19th-century Russian composer, who usedan orchestra, a piano, a chorus, and a specialcolor organ to synthesize music and color in hisFifth Symphony, Prometheus, was:a. Rachmaninoffb. Tchaikovskyc. Scriabind. Rimsky-Korsakoffe. Shostakovitch

7. Which one of the following is not/are nottypically part of a multimedia specification?a. textb. odorsc. soundd. videoe. pictures

8. VR stands for:a. virtual realityb. visual responsec. video raster





d. variable ratee. valid registry

9. According to one source, in interactivemultimedia presentations where you are reallyinvolved, the retention rate is as high as:a. 20 percentb. 40 percentc. 80 percentd. 60 percente. 100 percent

10. Which of the following is displayable on a webpage after installation of a browser plug-in?a. Windows 98b. Macromedia Flashc. Mozillad. Internet Explorere. Netscape Navigator

11. PDA stands for:a. primary digital assetb. processor digital applicationc. personal digital assistantd. practical digital accessorye. portable digital armor

12. The glass fiber cables that make up much of thephysical backbone of the data highway are, inmany cases, owned by:

a. local governmentsb. Howard Johnsonc. television networksd. railroads and pipeline companiese. book publishers

13. DVD stands for:a. Digital Versatile Discb. Digital Video Discc. Duplicated Virtual Discd. Density-Variable Disce. Double-View Disc

14. At one time, the technology that brought thegreatest amount of multimedia to the classroomwas the:a. beta videotapeb. DVDc. SmartMedia cardd. broadband connectione. laserdisc

15. Which of the following is not a technologylikely to prevail as a delivery means forinteractive multimedia files?a. copper wireb. glass fiberc. radio/cellulard. floppy diske. CD-ROM

■ Essay Quiz1. Briefly discuss the history and future of

multimedia. How might multimedia be used toimprove the lives of its users? How might itinfluence users in negative ways? What mightbe its shortcomings?

2. You are a marketing director for a smalltelecommunications company. You areconsidering using multimedia to market yourcompany’s product. Put together an outlinedetailing the benefits and drawbacks of using

a CD-ROM presentation, a multimedia website, or a television advertisement.

3. Multimedia is shifting from being localized(contained on a CD-ROM) to being distributed(available on the Word Wide Web). What aresome of the implications of this? Who will haveaccess to the presentation? How will you keep itsecure? How will you distribute it?

Lab Projects

• Project 1.1You have been given the task of creating aninteractive Web presentation for marketing a new

bicycle. Visit four different bicycle web sites usinga suitable search tool. For each web site you visit,



write in the table below the name of the site, itsURL, and:

1. Describe each site in terms of its multimediaincorporation.

2. Discuss whether its multimedia content isappropriate and where and how additionalmedia content might improve the site.

3. Describe what multimedia presentation formatsit uses. Video? Virtual reality (or QuickTimeVR)? 3-D animations?

Site 1

URL (address):

Describe the GUI. What navigationalelements does it have? What colorsdoes it use? Is it cluttered?

Describe any multimedia presentationsof specific products. What formats didthey use?

Site 2

URL (address):



Site 3

URL (address):



Site 4

URL (address):




• Project 1.2Review an educational multimedia CD-ROM title,and then fill out the table below.

Title of CD

Describe the graphical user interface. What navigational elementsdoes it have? What color scheme(s) does it use? Is it cluttered?

Describe the educational content. Is it well organized? Would yoube able to easily learn the subject matter using this package?

Describe the product in terms of its multimedia incorporation.

Discuss whether its multimedia content is appropriate and whereand how additional media content might improve the site.




Question Multimedia Project 1 Multimedia Project 2

1. Name of project.

2. Kind of product created.

3. What authoring tool(s) were used to create the project?

4. Who made up the development team for the project?

5. How did the production of the project develop?

6. How long did the project take to complete?

7. What problems were encountered?

• Project 1.4Visit a large public area such as a shopping mall, thedowntown area of a city, or a museum. Locate a kioskor other public multimedia installation. Spend 15 min-utes observing who uses it and for how long.

1. Describe the installation. Where was it located?Is there a lot of foot traffic past it? Is itconveniently located? Is it accessible to a wide

range of users (tall, short, disabled, wheelchair,vision impaired)?

2. Describe the usage pattern. Characterize theusers. Were children attracted to it? Did users“play” with it?

• Project 1.3Contact a local multimedia development company.Ask them what kinds of products they develop and ifthey would describe two projects they have recently

completed. Be sure that they provide you withenough information to answer each of thefollowing questions.

Chapter 1.1

Technology

Transcript of Chapter 1.1