5 Computer -- Recent Trends in ICT

What is multimedia? What are the hardware devices required by a personal computer to make it ‘multimedia capable’?

What is multimedia? What are the hardware devices required by a personal computer to make it ‘multimedia capable’?

Multimedia is a form of communication that combines different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to traditional mass media which features little to no interaction from users, such as printed material or audio recordings.


For producing multimedia you need hardware, software and creativity.

MULTIMEDIA HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

CPU

Central Processing Unit (CPU) is an essential part in any computer. It is considered as the brain of computer, where processing and synchronization of all activities takes place. The efficiency of a computer is judged by the speed of the CPU in processing of data. For a multimedia computer a Pentium processor is preferred because of higher efficiency.

Monitor

The monitor is used to see the computer output. Generally, it displays 25 rows and 80 columns of text. The text or graphics in a monitor is created as a result of an arrangement of tiny dots, called pixels. Resolution is the amount of details the monitor can render. Resolution is defined in terms of horizontal and vertical pixel (picture elements) displayed on the screen.

Video Grabbing Card

We need to convert the analog video signal to digital signal for processing in a computer. Normal computer will not be able to do it alone. It requires special equipment called video grabbing card and software to this conversion process. This card translates the analog signal it receives from conventional sources such as a VCR or a video camera, and converts them into digital format.

Sound Card

Today’s computers are capable of creating the professional multimedia needs. Not only you can use computer to compose your own music, but it can also be used for recognition of speech and synthesis. It can even read back the entire document for you. But before all this happens, we need to convert the conventional sound signal to computer understandable digital signals. This is done using a special component added to the system called sound card.

CD-Rom

CD-ROM is a magnetic disk of 4.7 inches diameter and it can contain data up to 680 Megabytes. It has become a standard by itself basically for its massive storage capacity, faster data transfer rate. To access CD-ROM a very special d1rive is required and it is known as CD-ROM drive.

 MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS 

For the creation of  multimedia on the PC there are hundreds of software packages that are available from manufacturers all over the world.

These software packages can cost anything from being absolutely free (normally this software is called freeware or shareware) to anything upwards of £500.

Here is a summary of just a few of these programs.

Adobe CS4

Adobe CS4 is a collection of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications made by Adobe Systems many of which are the industry standard that includes

Adobe Dreamweaver

Although a hybrid WYSIWYG and code-based web design and development application, Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG mode can hide the HTML code details of pages from the user, making it possible for non-coders to create web pages and sites.WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web development software that allows users to create websites with out using Html, everything can be done visually.

Adobe Fireworks

A graphics package that allows users to create bitmap and vector graphics editor with features such as: slices, the ability to add hotspots etc.) for rapidly creating website prototypes and application interfaces.

Gimp

 Is an alternative to Photoshop and cheaper but not quite as good.

Google Sketchup

SketchUp is a 3D modeling program designed for architectscivil engineers, filmmakers, game developers, and related professions.

Microsoft Frontpage

As a WYSIWYG editor, FrontPage is designed to hide the details of pages’ HTML code from the user, making it possible for novices to easily create web pages and sites.

 

 

Apple Quicktime

QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple, capable of handling various formats of digital video3D models, sound, text, animation, musicpanoramic images, and interactivity.       

Photoshop Pro

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as “an industry standard for graphics professionals”

Microsoft Powerpoint

Powerpoint Presentations are generally made up of slides may contain text, graphics, movies, and other objects, which may be arranged freely on the slide.

Adobe Flash Player              

Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform that is popular for adding animation and interactivity to web pages. Originally acquired by Macromedia, Flash was introduced in 1996, and is currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems.

Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page Flash components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.

 

Adobe Shockwave

Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave) is a multimedia player program, first developed by Macromedia, acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005. It allows Adobe Director applications to be published on the Internet and viewed in a web browser on any computer which has the Shockwave plug-in installed.

More questions on Recent Trends in ICT

Close Open App