Understanding Multimedia

MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION

Multimedia and Information

Aims

To define data, information, communication, digital data

To define Multimedia and explore it's importance in business and management

Question: How can the owner of a pub or cocktail bar or the manager of a train station make money by understanding the effects that music has on people?

To introduce the Internet

To make the distinction between "multimedia for business" and "business for multmedia"

Content

What is Multimedia ?

Definition: Multimedia is the seamless integration of all the different media of human communication plus Interactivity - in our case to deliver information.

Still images

Video

Animation

Sound

Text

INTERACTIVITY

Using the above definition: what is not multimedia?

Advantages of using Multimedia over a single medium of communication

The multimedia revolution that we have today is the result of a learning theory explored in at the beginning of the 20th Century and the facilities brought to us by modern IT technologies such as the Personal Computer, theCompact Disk and the Internet.

The learning theory supports that:

"we remember 30% of what we see, 20% of what we hear, 10% of what we read and 40% of what we do."

Visualisation

Better Understanding

Emotional/Psychological Impact

Memory Retention

Effective delivery of information/entertainment

Uses of Multimedia

Education / Business Training / Client Training (infomercials)

Advertising

Marketing (collecting information as well as delivering)

Improving the Human Computer Interface (HCI)

Entertainment

Point of Sale

Business Communication

The Problems of using multimedia

Complex Design. What is a bad design? What is the effect of a bad design?

Vast amounts of computer data

Fast rate changing technology

A lot of Expertise (Credits at the end of a movie.)

large Cost

The Internet

What is the Internet?

What is the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web?

How was it developed and what for?

How is data transmitted over the Internet?

Computer Data and Numbers

Binary System

Data Storage: Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes

Data transfer rates ; Communications; Kbps, Mbps

Storage Space Required by each of the Media

Simple unformatted Text: 2 Kbytes (2,000 bytes) per page

Images: 1 - 2 MB (2,000,000 bytes per screen

CD quality Sound: 10.5 MB/minute

Broadcast Video: 33 MB/second

IMAGES

How do we see things?

• we need eyes, light, and an object

• light mostly comes from the sun and travels in straight lines

• it is made of an infinite number of colours - all mixed together

• we see different colours because objects around us have different reflection properties; they absorb some colours and reflect others. We see only the ones they reflect.

• there are millions of sensors at the back of our eyes to convert light to messages that get sent to our brain

• we designed cameras to work in a similar way to our eyes and those of the eyes of insects

How images are STORED in a computer

There are 2 main methods of creating, storing and sending IMAGES

BITMAP and VECTOR

1. BITMAP IMAGES

Bitmap: The Image is a Map of Pixels (like a square grid)

Pixel: defines the smallest unit of an image (on the computer screen)

A pixel is, (in theory), equivalent to DPI (dot per inch) the smallest unit of a printed image. DPI is also used by scanners to define the scanning resolution (amount of detail scanned).

Example: An image 1 inch wide which has been scanned on a scanner at 300 dpi (dots per inch) will result in an image which is 300 pixels on a computer screen.

Width of image (inch) x dpi = pixels.

Example: pixels per inch (ppi)

300ppi= 1” x 300dpi

300ppi= 2” x 150dpi

300ppi= 3” x 100dpi

300ppi= 0.5” x 600dpi

Colour: Each pixel has a colour. This is made up by mixing different amounts of the 3 basic colours of light: Red Green and Blue.

Sometimes (in what we call indexed images) each pixel has an assigned