Multimedia

Introduction :

Multimedia is any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation and video delivered to you by computer or other electronic means. It is richly presented sensation. When you wave together the sensual elements of multimedia - dazzling pictures and animations., engaging sounds, completing video clips, and raw textual information- you can electrify the thought and action centers of people's minds. When you gave them interactive control of the process, they can be enchanted. Multimedia excites eyes, ears, finger-tips, and, most importantly, the head.

Definitions :

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

Although the definition of multimedia is simple one, making it work can be complicated. Not only do you understand how to make each multimedia element stand up and dance, but you also need to know how to use multimedia computer tools and technologies to weave them together. The people who weave multimedia into meaningful tapestries are multimedia developers.

The software vehicle, the message, and the content presented on a computer or television screen- together constitute a multimedia project. if the project will be shipped or sold to consumers or end users, typically in box or sleeve, with or without instructions, it is a multimedia title. Your project may also be a page on the World Wide Web, where you can weave the elements of multimedia into HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
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. In such a cases a project is linear, starting at a beginning and running through to an end. When user are given navigational control and can wander through the content at will, multimedia becomes nonlinear, and interactive, and is a very powerful personal gateway to information.

Multimedia elements are typically sewn together into a project using authoring tools. These software tools are designed to manage individual multimedia elements and provide user interaction. In addition to providing a method for user to interact with the project. The sum of what gets played back and how it is presented to the viewer is the human interface.

CD - ROM and the Multimedia Highway

CD-Rom ( compact disc-read-only memory) has emerged during the last few years as the most cost-effective distribution medium for multimedia projects: a CD-ROM disc can be mass produced for less than one dollar and can contain up to 72 minutes of full-screen video. Or it can contain unique mixes of images, sounds, text, video, and animations controlled by an authoring system tp provide unlimited user interaction.

In the long term, however, many experts view CD-ROM as an interim memory technology that will be replaced by new devices that do not require moving parts, such as flash memory. They also believe that as the data highway described below becomes more and more pervasive, copper wire, glass fiber, and radio/cellular technologies will prevail as the most commonly used delivery means for interactive multimedia.

Entertainments companies that own content easily converted to multimedia projects are teaming up with cable TV companies like QVC or Viacom (owner of MTV, Showtime, and Nickelodeon). Film studios like Disney and Warner Brothers are creating new divisions to produce interactive multimedia, and wealthy talents like Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen are forming new companies (Dream Works) to join the action. Already, Large media corporations are uniting to create huge conglomerates that will control the content's of tomorrow's information. Disney has merged with Capital Cities/ABC, Time Warner, Inc. Has purchased Turner Broadcasting, and Microsoft has joined forces with NBC.