Multimedia Products::
Nikon/Universcale:::
This product was designed to really give people perspective of things that live in our universe, the biggest at 13.7 billion light years (the universe it self) to the smallest measurable thing the proton at one quadrillionth of a meter… It shows different measures of objects and educates us on different object while creating a fun interactive environment…
It is set up as a black background and an interactive toolbar… the toolbar is divided in to different measurements (femto-meter, pico-meter, nanometer, micrometer, millimeter, centimeter, meter, kilometer and light-year) in each of the different meter ’stages’ are broken up 10 meter increments, each increment is raise to a power ranging from 10 to the power of-15 to 10 to the power of 27.. You are able to view each object and view a profile of it {animals and famous buildings have information about where they are and what families they come from}.
Weaknesses:: Its main weakness would be that it continually scrolls thorough the ranges, this would be made better if there was a start/stop button, a speed control and a direction control..
Strengths:: The main strength is that it show a smaller object and a bigger object on some of the items. it shows how much bigger an object is compared to a smaller item, such as The Statue Of Liberty is less than a speck compared to Mt Everest.
It is very interactive, as you navigate your way through the site you will come across one other way to navigate.. and by being given the ability to navigate your own way through all the different items you can look at anything you like.
All in all it is a very good site which combines text, audio and a mixture of graphics and photographs.
Multimedia Interactivity:::
Multimedia is very different to any other form of individual media.. It is so diverse and is all around us every day.. It for one is a combination of all or a few of the media elements…
Genre:: Multimedia items that can be placed in genre categories include dvds, magazines, websites and presentations, they can be classified as teen, cars, life, health, business, comedy, romance, action. It is also possible to categorize media elements such as audio, text, video..
Format:: Multimedia can come in so many formats, websites, presentations, dvds and gaming cds.. Media products can come as .jpg, .png, .gif, .tiff, .mp3, .m4a, .wma, .avi or .bmp.
Viewing/Listening:: Viewing to view most media elements is very easy as long as you have the right programs, they don’t change very much between Mac and Pc, except for music which won’t play on itunes unless it is .mp3. Things such as books, printed text and pictures are viewed without the need of programs but are lost and damaged more easily. With multimedia products they are also easy as long as you have the right programs but websites may change between Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Portability/Currency:: While a newspaper is very portable is is not up to date, while if you had a laptop or mobile you could access the internet and get the news from an constantly updated website with the same portability. Its easier to carry a laptop with a slide show of photos than printing the photos off and transporting them every where you go.
Engagement/Interactivity:: look at normal media can boring there is only one thing to look at or listen to whether it be text, graphics, photographs, video or audio. But if you combine these things to make a website, slideshow or game you bring the audience into your product. adding an extra level of interactivity.
Audio:: I think the best way to turn audio into a multimedia piece is to combine it with photographs, graphics and text to create a slide show, using a program such as Powerpoint or Flash. This way you can tell a story, using the audio to create different moods… this will be very effective in your presentation as long as the text is kept to a minimum..
Operating Systems and Storage Devices::
Macintosh and Windows are very different and have various impacts on different products… For instance a website may look different on a mac to what it looks like on windows. Also there are different programs specifically designed for different operating systems.. You have to be careful when purchasing programs, so you do not purchase the wrong format.
External Hard Drives::: External hard drives are very useful.. They allow us to keep a back up of documents somewhere off our computer while still having very easy access to them.. They also allow us to store larger photo and video files off our computers, allowing us to have our computers not clogged up with big files..They also add the extra room if your computer is full.. The bonus of having a external hard drive is that they can store… They will work on any computer that recognizes fire wire or usb, making them so versatile… They are very easy to install and come in various sizes, from 40GB to over 250GB… Some negatives are they are very sensitive to magnets and don’t respond well to being dropped so being extra careful with them is a must. They can also be very expensive…
Memory Stick:: Memory sticks are a very small external memory device… They come in various sizes but are (as the technology progresses) becoming cheaper every day.. They are less likely to become damaged through rough handling like a Cd would. The negatives are that they are very small and become easily misplaced… Are not big enough to store multiple programs like an external hard drive is capable of doing…
Media Elements:::
Digitization–
Text::
Text can be digitized in two ways… The first is good old, old school typing… In many ways time consuming and tedious work… The new way i much quicker… Scan and with Optical Character Recognition we have our said article read to edit…
Graphics::
Graphics can be digitized by being scanned onto the computer or being drawn straight on through the use of a mouse or preferably graphics tablet… free hand or tracing… They can also be uploaded from a memory stick or other storage device…
Photographs::
Photographs can be scanned onto the computer or uploaded to the computer from the camera… They can also be taken by the computer…
Audio::
Audio is uploaded onto the computer or directly recorded onto the computer…
Video::
Video can be taken by the computer, directly filmed and saved on to the computer or uploaded to the computer.
Animation::
Animation can be directly created on the computer…
Compression–
Text:: Content compression is when things that are repeated over and over are taken out and replaced by a reference (algorithms)… As long as the person or program knows how to reform the file to it’s original state the file comes out unharmed.
Graphics:: Graphics are compressed all the time as they can become quite big file sizes.. There are two types of graphics compression… one is ‘lossy’ where some of the data is permanently lost while the other ‘lossless’ retains all the information needed.
Photographs:: Photo compression gives you two options… You can keep the resolution of your original photo in the compressed one, which is the better option if it is to be printed, or you can lessen the resolution which is better for email or putting on the net…
Audio:: There are many different kinds of audio compression for different formats… there is-silence compression, Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM), Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) and Code Excited Linear Predictor (CELP)…
Video::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… Although both lossy and lossless types of compensation are available lossless is rarely used, as the lossy type has higher compression ratios at acceptable levels of quality.
Animation:: Animation codec is the most common used animation compression… It is 100% lossless and is used on CD-roms and hard disk presentations for its ability to display high quality 24 bit colour plus an alpha channel…It is also fast to compress and decompress…
Delivery–
Text:: Text can be delivered in a website, magazine or newspaper.
Graphics:: Graphics can be delivered in a website {taking into consideration the speed they load up} or presentation..
Photographs:: Photographs can also be put into a website {making sure they aren’t to big} or a presentation.
Audio:: Delivered by disc or memory stick, making sure they are they right kind of format..
Video:: Video can be delivered on a dvd or a memory stick ..
Animation:: Animation can be delivered in a webpage or memory stick..
Multimedia Authoring::
Powerpoint 2008:: In Powerpoint, the theme selection has a range of themes, these themes are just the coloured background. the selection of layout is located in a different area. this allows you to be more free in your selection of combinations, but may led you away from the task at hand.
For animation of objects in the slide Powerpoint has a floating box tabbed with all your needs, although the box contains everything you need, it contains many vertically stacked section which change with your selection which can become very cluttered.
In the Slide sorter view Powerpoint offers 6 different sizes of the slides, but the largest view is still a tad to small to read easily. Powerpoint offers a wide range of transitions.
Keynote ‘08:: Firstly Keynote has a very straight forward set-up to choosing a theme.. A very wide range of themes is displayed when you open your document, with in a theme there are a selection of colour coded master slides. These master slides come in a wide range of layouts.
Keynote offers less features but its windows are less cluttered and can have many windows open.
Keynote only offers 3 different sized views in the slide sorter view but its largest size is bigger than Powerpoint which allows you to read a bit easier. There are not as many transition selections in Keynote though they appear to run smoothly and are more effective.
