Multimedia Products
My multimedia product I have chosen is an Interactive Website.
My website is the Herald Sun Home Page: (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/)
Its purpose is to inform the country and world about current news and keep people up to date about the issues that are going on in the world. It educates people about the world and things like politics and life. It informs people of things that are going on, sport and entertainment. Its features are movies, animation, links to other websites, polls, photographs, graphics and audio.
Strengths: The design of the website looks very appealing to all the different age groups of viewers. The moving animation on the web page is interesting and appealing to the viewers. The links are successful and quick and provide relevant information. This website can be viewed by all over the world and is very interactive.
Weaknesses: The website sometimes gets a little confusing and is a bit to over the top.
The levels of interactivity on this website is very high. Videos about current news and news interviews are on the page that you are able to watch. There is also a lot of Animation on the page advertising events and entertainment news. The website is filled with different photographs relating to different things that you can enlarge and view. The site has Audio Pod casts that play current music that you are able to listen to. The levels of interactivity on this website would rate on a scale of 1-10 as 9½.
Operating Systems and Storage Devices
The impact that different operating systems have on Multimedia are: The types of products you have to buy that is readable by your computer. Different products are programs work on certain computers and that impacts on the programs you have to by thinking about whether it will work on your computer or not. Programs work on different computers and different operating systems.
External Storages:
: USB Flash Drive: A USB flash-drive is a flash memory data storage device built in with a USB interface. Compared to the floppy disk it has many more advantages like more compact, holds more data, faster and a durable design. Even computers these days are being made with out a floppy disk drive while nearly every computer is being made with a USB port.
USB Flash Drive
Advantages: There are many advantages of the USB flash drive. They are readable by both PC’s and Mac computers and are very suitable and reliable for transferring data from place to place. Their size, design and durability impress many people with a USB drive being present in most computer designs. The resistance of the USB drive protects from dust penetration and scratches unlike the floppy disk.
Disadvantages: there are also some disadvantages of the USB flash drive. Some people find their small and compact size as a disadvantage being easily misplaced or lost. People think that after a few years of being used a USB flash drive will not be viable for use and will stop recording your information and storing. Some specialists in this field says a USB flash drive will only last 3 years but others say decades. The price of the USB used to be the main disadvantage for consumers but with continued use and growth the prices have dropped dramatically.
: Floppy Disk: A floppy disk is a portable storage device that is composed of a thin flexible magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. The floppy disk is read by a floppy disk drive also known as a FDD. Floppy disks come in 3 basic sizes: 8 inch, 5¼ inch and 3½ inch.
Floppy Disk
Advantages: One of the advantages of the floppy disks is that they are portable. Even though they are not as compact as some of the new storage devices they are still a portable storage device that you can take with you from place to place. Floppy disks are also very inexpensive. They are very affordable compared to other storage devices.
Disadvantages: A disadvantage of the floppy disk is the size of storage that they have on them. They cannot hold a lot of information compared to other modes of storage like the USB flash drive. The floppy disk is fairly easily to damage being so flexible and not very resistant. They are a relatively slow form of storage that sometimes takes a while to load on the computers. Floppy disks are not known as reliable forms of storage and are said to be very easy to loose the data and information you are trying to keep.Floppy Disk
Multimedia Interactivity
Multimedia has important things that make it different to other forms of media, like it is digital and interactive. This means that multimedia has various forms of analogue material that can be converted, stored and accessed in digital formats on the computer. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation and video while media is a term that is used to utilize traditional forms or hand-produced general media. Media includes print, film, video and audio.
The interactivity levels of Multimedia compared to general media is very different. The many different types of interactivity there are with Multimedia is much higher than general media. In Multimedia you can interact on computers by playing games which interacts you (the player) with the game, chat lines and web cams which interacts you with somebody else by either talking to them or sending them short forms of emails, videos and many more ways that interact you. Mobile phones also bring a lot of interactive multimedia by video calls, voice calls, games, videos and SMS. In media you can interact by watching Videos or TV shows, talking on the telephone or even by talking to people face to face. The internet has increased the interactivity of Multimedia. Viewing Multimedia compared to viewing general media is different and different in the things you are viewing. General Media for example magazines provide us with photos, text and graphics while in Multimedia you can view information like this on an Internet Website that shows us the same information with photos, text and graphics with the added inclusion of videos, games, animations and competitions you can compete in. the viewing of Multimedia compared to general media comes across more interesting and interactive. There are different genres of Multimedia and different genres of general media. Multimedia genres can range from the different genres of Video like Romance, Horror, Mystery and Comedy to the different genres of Audio like Rock, Classical, Pop and RnB. General media genres can be something like Magazines and how they are in different genres like Health, Lifestyle, Auto and Beauty.
Converting Media to Multimedia
Using Dreamweaver, which is a program that easily creates sites for the Internet that includes graphics and multimedia elements you could convert a magazine into an interactive website with photos, graphics, games, animations, videos, information and other multimedia elements which are relevant for the type of site we are creating.
Media Elements
Digitisation:
Digitisation is the process of converting analog information into digital format for use by a computer. Text Digitisation is when you type out something that has been originally hand written or can even be writing that is scanned into a computer. It changes it to a digital form that can be put on the Internet and be reproduced perfectly.
Graphics can be created on paper and then can be scanned into the computer to edit, put on the Internet, and send it to other people and many more. Computer programs can create graphics that are straight away digital and cannot be digitalised any more.
Photograph digitisation is very popular and can be done in many ways that has evolved over the years. You can scan photos into the computer using a scanner that has a negative scanner option and separate illumination for the negative. Photo’s can be taken with digital cameras, which is the most popular option to use. You can then transfer the digital photos straight from the camera to the computer ready to edit, send, print or put on the Internet. Companies also digitalise photographs and print them off for you.
Audio can be digitalised by being directly recorder onto the computer by using a program like Garage Band. Audio can also be digitalised by being uploaded onto the computer after previously being recorded.
Video Digitisation can refer to changing VHS to DVD. Changing a VHS to a DVD can be done with professional hardware that is dedicated to changing these, which can also correct colour, adjust audibility and be remastered digitally. The video then can be written onto a disk. Video can be made using a Video camera, which can then be directly uploaded to a computer.
Animation can be digitised by being directly made on the computer with animation programs or can be made with stop animation that is filmed then directly uploaded onto a computer.
Compression:
Compression is the reduction in size of data in order to save space or transmission time. For data transmission, compression can be performed on just the data content or on the entire transmission unit depending on a number of factors.
Text Compression is a technique, which reduces the file size without effecting the information that is contained in that file.
There are 2 types of compression that can compress graphics. There is Lossy and Lossless. Lossy compression creates smaller files by discarding information from the original image. It removes details and colour changes that are to small for the human eye to see. While Lossless compression never discards anything from the original file. Graphic compression is something that makes the graphic file smaller they’re for quicker to load.
Photo compressing can be done with programs on the computer once you have uploaded them. The programs take your photos and compress them either with their original resolution that is best for printing or with a reduced resolution that is best for viewing onto the computer or emailing.
Audio compression is known as Audio Data Compression. Audio Data Compression is in which the amount of data in a recorded waveform is reduced for transmission. This is used for CD and MP3 encoding, Internet and radio.
Video compression refers to reducing the quantity of data used to represent video images and is a straightforward combination of image compression and motion compensation. Most video compression is lossy. (Creates smaller files by discarding irrelevant image) Today most video compressions apply a discrete cosine transform (DCT) for special reduction.
Delivery:
Delivery in Multimedia relates to graphics by different forms of graphics being on a Web site which is delivered by the web. Movies and animation can be delivered by being on a DVD or being put on the Web as a jpeg file. Audio delivery is how the audio presented, audio can be presented by the Web in a mp3 or on a by playing a CD.
Multimedia Authoring
The 2 Multimedia authoring tools I have choose that provide us with the same purposes are Dreamweaver and iWeb which are programs that create sites for the Internet that include graphics and multimedia elements.
iWeb: iWeb is a publishing program that creates pages that can be put on the Internet as your own website. Strengths- colourful, straightforward, easy to follow how to start up your page, simple, generates code automatically, appealing to the audience using the program. Weaknesses- hard to figure out were to start, can’t import any existing code, hyperlink control.
Dreamweaver: Dreamweaver is a web page editor, designed to allow users to create web pages with a wide variety of features without having to write the HTML code by hand. Strengths- Directive, Code/Split/Design, simple, available for both Mac and Windows, professional. Weaknesses- new, different to other programs.
