Curious Design Consultants Pty Ltd

98 Bourke Street
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Australia
Tel (02) 9358 5333 ·
Fax (02) 9357 7078
Email :[email protected]

Digital Media Applications

(Audio, Photography & video)

Technical Report

Compiled by Meg Garven MM2

Digital Media Components (Event 1)
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Abstract
The last forty years has seen a massive change in audio and visual media. The
emergence of digital media has overtaken many forms of analogue media in
terms of both immediacy and quality; from conventional audio, photography and
video (including television broadcasting). More forms of media are accessible to
the general public than ever before, out of just the hands of professionals to the
enthusiasts.

It is vital as a design company that we embrace new technology not only for
survival in a cut throat world but to emerge as an innovative force for the future.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Audio..................................................................................5

1.1 Commonly used software and hardware ......................5

1.2 Characteristics of file types and compression techniques...........................6

1.3 Applications and Examples............................................7

1.4. Delivery Options...........................................................10

1.5. Future Trends................................................................11

2.1 Commonly used software and hardware ....................11

2.2. Characteristics of file types and compression techniques........................15

2.3. Applications and examples..........................................16

2.4 Future Trends................................................................17

3.1 Commonly used software and hardware ....................17

3.2. Characteristics of file types and compression techniques........................18

3.3 Applications and examples...........................................19

3.4 Future Trends................................................................19

4.0. Benefits (ROI)...............................................................19

5.0 References.....................................................................19

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 The Eiger Labs MPMan F10 5

Figure 2 An MP3 CD player (Philips Expanium) 5

Figure 3 Apple iPod, the best-selling hard drive- based player 6

Figure 4 TASCAM's new X-48 is the world's first standalone 8

48-track Hybrid Hard Disk Workstation

Figure 5 AKAI MPC-2500 digital audio workstation sampler 8

Figure 6 Zoom MRS-802BCD Hard disk recorder 9

Figure 7- Audacity - Audio editing software 9

Figure 8- AVS Audio Tools 9

Figure 9 - Audio Editor Plus (screen) 10

Figure 10 - Canon PowerShot A95 with Compact Flash card 13

loaded

Figure 11 - Canon EOS 30D (SLR) 13

Figure 12 - A Hasselblad 503CW with a digital camera back 14

Figure 13 - Samsung debuts five mega pixel camera phone with 14

3X optical zoom, ISO controls

Figure 14 - Sony unveils Qualia - Ultra compact digital camera 14

Figure 15 - Corel's Paint shop Pro software 15

Figure 16 - Mac Digital Photography software 15

Figure 17 - Adobe Photoshop CS2 software 16

Figure 18 - SONY DSR-570WSP Professional camera 17

Figure 19 - Panasonic NV-GX7 DV camera 17

Figure 20 - Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 17

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 Digital Media Applications
1. Audio
1.1 Commonly used software and hardware

A digital audio player (DAP) is a device that stores, organizes and plays audio files.
DAPs often play many additional file formats. Some formats are proprietary, such as
Windows Media Audio (WMA), and to a degree, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and
MP3. Other formats are completely patent-free or otherwise open, such as Ogg Vorbis,
FLAC, Speex (all part of the Ogg open multimedia project), and Module file formats.
There are three main types of digital audio players:

 Flash-based Players - These are solid state devices that hold digital audio files
on internal or external media, such as memory cards.
 Hard Drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes - Devices that read digital audio
files from a hard drive.

 MP3 CD Players - Devices that can play audio files from a CD-ROM in addition
audio CDs1

Figure 2 The Eiger Labs MPMan F10 1

Figure 2 An MP3 CD player (Philips Expanium)

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Figure 3 Apple iPod, the best-selling hard drive- based player

1.2 Characteristics of file types and compression techniques

1.2.1. Free and Open File Formats

• wav - standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly
used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, which means
that they can be large in size - around 10MB per minute of music.

• ogg - a free, open source container format supporting a variety of

codecs.the most popular of which is the audio codec Vorbis.

• flac - a lossless compression codec. You can think of lossless

compression as like zip but for audio. If you compress a PCM file to flac and
then restore it again it will be a perfect copy of the original. (All the other
codecs discussed here are lossy which means a small part of the quality is
lost). The cost of this losslessness is that the compression ratio is not good.

• aiff - the standard audio file format used by Apple. It is like a wav file for
the Mac.

• raw - a raw file can contain audio in any codec but is usually used with
PCM audio data. It is rarely used except for technical tests.

• au - the standard audio file format used by Sun, Unix and Java. The audio
in au files can be PCM or compressed with the μ-law, a-μlaw or G729 codecs.

1.2.2 Open File Formats

• mp3 - the MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for
downloading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that
are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the
size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality.

• gsm - designed for telephony use in Europe, gsm is a very practical

format for telephone quality voice. It makes a good compromise between file
size and quality. Note that wav files can also be encoded with the gsm codec.

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• dct - A variable codec format designed for dictation. It has dictation
header information and can be encrypted (often required by medical
confidentiality laws).

• vox - the vox format most commonly uses the Dialogic ADPCM (Adaptive
Differential Pulse Code Modulation) codec. Similar to other ADPCM formats,
it compresses to 4-bits. Vox format files are similar to wave files except that
the vox files contain no information about the file itself so the codec sample
rate and number of channels must first be specified in order to play a vox file.

• aac - the Advanced Audio Coding format is based on the MPEG2 and
MPEG4 standards. aac files are usually ADTS or ADIF containers.

• mp4/m4a - MPEG-4 audio most often AAC but sometimes MP2/MP3

1.2.3 Proprietary Formats

• wma - the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft.

Designed with Digital Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.

• atrac (.wav) - the older style Sony ATRAC format. It always has a .wav file
extension. To open these files simply install the ATRAC3 drivers.

• ra - a Real Audio format designed for streaming audio over the Internet.
The .ra format allows files to be stored in a self-contained fashion on a
computer, with all of the audio data contained inside the file itself.

• ram - a text file that contains a link to the Internet address where the Real
Audio file is stored. The .ram file contains no audio data itself.

• dss - Digital Speech Standard files are an Olympus proprietary format. It

is a fairly old and poor codec. Prefer gsm or mp3 where the recorder allows.
It allows additional data to be held in the file header.

• msv - a Sony proprietary format for Memory Stick compressed voice files.

• dvf - a Sony proprietary format for compressed voice files; commonly

used by Sony dictation recorders.

• m4p - A proprietary version of AAC in MP4 with Digital Rights

Management developed by Apple for use in music downloaded from their
iTunes Music Store.2

1.3 Applications and Examples

1.3.1. Software

There are different kinds of digital audio applications and can be divided into
three main categories: a) Samplers, b) hard disk recorders and c) CD burners
and MP3 encoders.

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1.3.2. Samplers

A sampler is an electronic instrument that uses digital recordings to either

reconstruct existing instruments or build new ones. The software sampler is
he most affordable solution of all.

1.3.3. Stereo Hard Disk Recording

Along with sequencing, files can be opened, edited and saved as well as
convert sample rates, apply equalization and effects and normalize tracks.

1.3.4. Multi-Track Hard Disk Recording

While programs like Bias Peak and Sound Studio place a stereo tape deck on
your hard disk, other applications provide multiple tracks for overdubbing
audio and mixing it later

1.3.5. CD Burners and MP3 Encoders

Rippin’ and burnin’ CD burners and MP3 encoders are definitely closer to
digital audio recorders than samplers. Given their prominence as of late
though.3

Figure 4 TASCAM's new X-48 is the world's first standalone 48-track

Hybrid Hard Disk Workstation

Figure 5 AKAI MPC-2500 DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATION SAMPLER

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 Figure 6 Zoom MRS-802BCD Hard disk recorder

1.3.6. Examples of Audio Software

• Audacity

• iTunes

• QuickTime Pro

• Deck

• Performer

• Goldwave

• Multiquence 4

Figure 7- Audacity - Audio editing software

Figure 8- AVS Audio Tools

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Figure 9 - Audio Editor Plus (screen)

1.4. Delivery Options

Once analog audio is digitized, institutions have the option of delivering the
audio files through the Web for listening or downloading, and/or they may
want to provide delivery to on-site patrons. Institutions should consider the
needs of their user groups before deciding upon delivery options.

1.4.1. On-site Delivery

For public listening stations, think in terms of disposability: public units suffer
much wear and tear. Generally, purchasing and maintaining a computer is
more costly than using “personal” style CD or MP3 players available at
discount stores for less than $100 per unit. A good unit will come with a power
supply and headphones, and will also have a display capable of showing
some of the basic text metadata embedded into the MP3 files.

Headphones generally provide the most manageable way for patrons to listen
to the audio without interrupting other users, and patrons will need access to
a software panel to control the volume of the audio. Audio workstations
should be outfitted with these basics:

• Hardware: Each audio workstation requires a sound card, a CD-ROM drive,

a network connection of some type— for audio accessed via a local network
or the Internet— and headphones.

• Software: Each workstation should have a software audio player, such as

Windows Media Player, QuickTime, Winamp or RealPlayer etc., that is
capable of playing a wide variety of audio formats, including CD audio, MP3
files, and streaming media.

1.4.2. Online Delivery

It is important to note that the needs of users should drive the technology
decisions, and not the other way around. While it is also important to consider
the technology support that is available from institution, the needs of users
should drive format decisions. There are presently two predominant ways of
distributing audio via the Internet: streaming and downloading.

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Streaming Audio is available in a number of proprietary formats, including
Real media, Windows Media, QuickTime and others. To provide streaming
media, an authoring package, available through one of the above vendors, is
needed to prepare the audio for streaming.

Downloading the complete audio files is the simplest way of making your
audio files available over the Internet, perhaps as MP3 files. By making the
files available as a download, access is needed to a basic Web server—
either in-house or via an Internet service provider— but no other special
server hardware or software requirements are necessary.

1.4.3. Pod casting

Although downloading audio files over the Internet has been available for
years, the explosion of portable MP3 players— particularly Apple’s iPod—
that allow users to play files at their convenience, has created a demand for
online distribution of audio files. A pod cast is simply an audio recording
posted for download, and can be coupled with RSS (really simple
syndication) to allow users to subscribe to desired Web content and
automatically receive updates that are downloaded to portable music
players.5

1.5. Future Trends

New digital audio services like satellite radio, online radio, HD radio, and pod
casting with new subscription and data service business models are changing
the way consumers listen to radio. All four digital audio markets will grow
steadily — by 2010, 20.1 million households will listen to satellite radio and
12.3 million households will synchronize pod casts to their MP3 players.
Broadcasters and music labels must learn to deal with this new, fragmented
audience. The keys to success will be subscriptions, ad targeting, and
monetizing the many ways that digital audio will be consumed.6

2. Photography
Digital photography, as opposed to film photography, uses electronic devices
to record and capture the image as binary data. This facilitates storage and
editing of the images on personal computers, and also the ability to show and
delete unsuccessful images immediately on the camera or software itself.

Digital cameras now outsell film cameras and include features that are not
found in film cameras such as the ability to shoot video and record audio.
Some other devices, such as mobile phones, include digital photography
features.7

2.1 Commonly used software and hardware

2.1.1. Compact digital cameras

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The .. compact is the biggest selling class in both digital and conventional
cameras. The benefits are easy to see, the cameras are relatively small and
offer good quality images. The range is large from basic budget fixed lens
cameras to high end cameras with zoom lens and larger mega pixels (better
quality). They are characterized by great ease in operation and easy
focusing; some models allow for limited motion picture capability. They tend
to have significantly smaller zooms than DSLR cameras. They have an
extended depth of field. This allows objects at a larger range of depths to be
in focus, which accounts for much of their ease of use. It is also part of the
reason professional photographers find their images flat or artificial-looking.
They excel in landscape photography and casual use. They typically save
pictures in only the JPEG file format. All but the cheapest models have a
built-in flash.

2.1.2. Phone and PDA Cameras

Original phones with camera facilities were pretty rudimentary in terms of

quality and performance. However these have rapidly developed. They are
primarily used for quick photos where great quality is not an issue. However
you can instantly share these photographs by sending them instantaneously
to family and friends.

2.1.3. Ultra Compact Cameras

Using the camera electronics and lens from a mobile phone and putting them
in a more conventional casing gives an ultra compact camera. The bulk of
cameras of this type is the batteries. Battery technology has not caught up in
terms of miniaturization. Benefit is they are so small they can be sold on key
rings, the downside is you generally need to connect to a computer to view
and download images.8

2.1.4. Digital single lens reflex cameras

A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera

that operates on the same optical and mechanical principles as a modern
electronic auto focus 35mm film single-lens reflex camera. The key difference
is that the film is replaced with a CCD or CMOS image sensor plus
accompanying electronics, thus creating images digitally in-camera, without
the need to first chemically develop a latent image on film.9

These cameras tend to have the highest resolutions and offer the optimum in
image quality. They also allow rapid shooting than most other camera with
motor drive capability and most models allow lens interchange. They are
mainly used by professionals and serious amateur photographers and tend to
be expensive. There is a small niche in the market of SLR-style cameras that
sit between the compact and the SLR. They generally feature an electronic
viewfinder rather than an optical one and feature a fixed zoom lens. 10

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2.1.5. Digital rangefinders

A rangefinder is a focusing mechanism once widely used on film cameras,

but much less common in digital cameras. The term rangefinder alone is
often used to mean a rangefinder camera, that is, a camera equipped with a
rangefinder. These type of cameras are very useful in travel photography,
they are very quiet and discrete. The downside is that they do not use zoom
lens but a range of fixed lens, not so convenient but ensures very good
quality particularly in low light conditions.

2.1.6. Professional modular digital camera systems

This category includes very high end professional equipment that that can be
assembled from modular components (winders, grips, lenses, etc.) to suit
particular purposes. Common makes include Hasselblad and Mamiya. They
were developed for medium or large format film sizes, as these captured
greater detail and could be enlarged more than 35mm.

Typically these cameras are used in studios for commercial production; being
bulky and awkward to carry they are rarely used in action or nature
photography. They can often be converted into either film or digital use by
changing out the back part of the unit, hence the use of terms such as a
"digital back" or "film back." These cameras are very expensive (up to
$40,000) and are typically not seen in the hands of consumers.11

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Figure 10 - Canon PowerShot A95 with Compact Flash card loaded

Figure 11 - Canon EOS 30D (SLR)

Figure 12 - A Hasselblad 503CW with a digital camera back

Figure 13 - Samsung debuts five mega pixel camera phone with 3X

optical zoom, ISO controls

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 Figure 14 - Sony unveils Qualia - Ultra compact digital camera

2.2. Characteristics of file types and compression techniques

Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is a set of file formats specified for use
in digital cameras. This specifies the use of TIFF for the highest quality format
and JPEG as a space-saving but lower quality format. Many low-end
cameras can deliver only JPEG files. Another format, particularly found on
digital SLRs and other high-end digital cameras, is the RAW image format,
which is not standardized.

A large variety of data storage device formats are used in consumer digital
cameras:

* Secure Digital card (SD)

* Compact Flash (CF-I and CF-II)

* Memory Stick

* Multi Media Card (MMC)

* Smart Media

* xD-Picture Card (xD)

* MiniSD Card

* microSD card

* USB flash drive

Most manufacturers of digital cameras do not provide drivers and software to

allow their cameras to work with Linux or other free software. Still, many
cameras use the standard USB storage protocol, and are thus easily usable.
Other cameras are supported by the gPhoto project.12

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2.3... Applications and examples

There are endless applications for digital photography from the professional
to amateur. The majority of professional news photographers now capture
their images digitally, due to its speed.

Advertising, commercial photography, wedding photography and photo artists

also use digital to enable pictures to be manipulated either fixing the
photographs e.g. getting rid of ‘Red Eye’ to adding colour, cropping the
image, adding art effects, improving reality and photo montage using various
software packages available, e.g. Adobe Photoshop.

Figure 15 - Corel's Paint shop Pro software

Figure 16 - Mac Digital Photography software

Figure 17 - Adobe Photoshop CS2 software

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 2.4 Future Trends

Lighting, optics, sensors, processing, storage, and display and software are
all advancing. Here are a few examples.

* 3D models can be created from collections of normal images. The

resulting scene can be viewed from novel viewpoints, but creating the model
is very compute-intensive. Microsoft's Photosynth is available with models of
famous places.[9]

* High Dynamic Range cameras and displays are commercially available.

>120 decibel sensors are in development. You can create your own HDR
images, with a non-HDR camera, by combining multiple exposures.

* Motion blur can be dramatically removed by a flutter shutter (a flickering

shutter which adds a signature to the blur, which post processing can
recognize).[10] It is not yet commercially available.

* An object's specular reflection can be captured using computer controlled

lights and sensors. This is needed to create attractive images of oil paintings,
for instance. It is not yet commercially available, but is starting to be used by
museums.13

3. Digital Video
3.1 Commonly used software and hardware

Video cameras are classified as devices whose main purpose is to record

moving images.

 Professional video cameras such as those used in television and movie

production. These typically have multiple image sensors (one per color) to
enhance resolution and color gamut. Professional video cameras usually do not
have a built-in VCR or microphone.

 Camcorders used by amateurs. They generally include a microphone to record

sound, and feature a small liquid crystal display to watch the video during taping
and playback.

 Webcams are digital cameras attached to computers, used for video

conferencing or other purposes. Webcams can capture full-motion video as well,
and some models include microphones or zoom ability.

In addition, many Live-Preview Digital cameras have a "movie" mode, in

which images are continuously acquired at a frame rate sufficient for video.14

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Figure 18 - SONY DSR-570WSP Professional camera

Figure 19 - Panasonic NV-GX7 DV camera

Figure 20 - Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000

3.2. Characteristics of file types and compression techniques

Formats for video are AVI, DV, MPEG, MOV (often containing motion JPEG),
WMV, and ASF (basically the same as WMV). Recent formats include MP4,
which is based on the QuickTime format and uses newer compression
algorithms to allow longer recording times in the same space.

Other formats that are used in cameras but not for pictures are the Design
Rule for Camera Format (DCF), an ISO specification for the camera's internal
file structure and naming, Digital Print Order Format (DPOF), which dictates
what order images are to be printed in and how many copies, and the

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Exchangeable Image File Format (Exif), which uses metadata tags to
document the camera settings and date and time for image files.15

3.3 Applications and examples

3.4 Future Trends

4.0. Benefits (ROI)

5.0 References

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1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_player
2
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format"
3
http://www.atpm.com/6.04/digitalaudio.shtml
4
http://www.vtmidi.org/files/modifiedforSI06.doc
5
http://www.cdpheritage.org/digital/audio/documents/CDPDABP_1-2.pdf
6
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,36428,00.html
7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_photography
8
Mastering the Digital World by Peter Cope (Funtastic Ltd 2005)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_single-lens_reflex_camera
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Mastering the Digital World by Peter Cope (Funtastic Ltd 2005)
11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cameras
12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_photography#File_types_and_data_storage_formats
13

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera
15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera