Faculty of Information Science and Technology

(FIST)

PIM 0245
Introduction to Multimedia Technology

Foundation in Information Technology

ONLINE NOTES

Topic 2

Multimedia System and Development

FIST, MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY (436821-T)

Tel: 606 - 2523551 / 3485 Fax: 606 - 2318840
URL: http://fist.mmu.edu.my
PIM0245 Multimedia Systems and Development

MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS AND DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. To discuss the components of multimedia system

2. To describe the stages in a multimedia project
3. To determine the multimedia team

MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

Multimedia System refer to a system which capable of processing multimedia data

and applications.

Characteristics of a multimedia system are control by computer, integrated, digital

information and interactive interface.

COMPONENTS OF MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

To make a multimedia, we need hardware, software and intangibles elements such

as good ideas. Talent and skills needed to get a good multimedia.

The Intangible Elements

(Creativity, Organization and Communication Skills)

Class Discussion 1

Discuss how the intangible elements influence in creating a good multimedia

presentation.

Hardware

Hardware is the most common limiting factor for multimedia development because it
is a very hardware demanding process. Hardware interprets your instructions into
computer activity.

The hardware requirement needed is not just for your multimedia production but also
what the end user is expected to have or the type of hardware platform the
application is to be deployed.

Below are the types of hardware components that you need to take into
consideration:

a. Platforms
b. Connections
c. Memory and Storage Devices
d. Input Devices
e. Output Devices

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PIM0015 Multimedia Systems and Development

Class Discussion 2

You have been assigned to develop a complex multimedia kiosk for an auto club that
will allow users with an account to enter a start point and an ending point, and have a
map printed out. What input devices could be used to identify the user? What input
devices could be used to enter a start and end locations? Could one device do both
functions? What about printing out the maps?

Software

There are a lot of choices of software available for creating multimedia content.
Some software are cheap but have all the basic features that you need to create a
good content. More expensive software offer advance powerful features and require
higher skill. There are also software that can save you time and help you organize a
project.

There are several types of software such as project management software,

multimedia authoring software, graphic and sound editing software that you can
decide to use depending on your budget.

a. Text Editing and Word Processing Tool

b. OCR Software
c. Painting and Drawing Tools
d. 3D Modeling and 2D Animation Tools
e. Image Editing Tools
f. Sound Editing Tools

MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Multimedia products take a long time to be produced. Therefore, there should be a

careful planning before you start putting your ideas into a product. There are a lot of
process and consideration involved during multimedia development.

Basically, there a four stages in multimedia development process:

a. Planning and Costing

b. Designing and Producing
c. Testing
d. Delivering

Stage 1: Planning and Costing

Plan how to fulfill the expectation of the audience is the main objective for stage 1.
Planning is important to fulfill the expectation of your audience and it should start with
an idea analysis. The easiest way to generate an idea is to get a group of people
together and have a brainstorming session. During brainstorming session, we can
gather as many ideas as possible.

Ideas from brainstorming session need to analyze because during brainstorming

session we only look for the quantity not the quality. The idea can be wild or may
sound foolish.

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Idea management software such as dotProject, kForge, OpenProj or GanttProject

can be used to manage your ideas and consider the paper napkin to put your ideas
on paper.

Below are the steps to start a multimedia project

a. Define the objective and scope

The first thing you need to ask yourself is the purpose of creating the project is.
By setting your objective, it will affect the entire development process where
everything you do is to achieve the objective.

Then define the scope or boundary of your project. It useful to have a scope in
addition to the objective you have set to balance your idea. For example, you
need to consider how much time do you have to develop this project? What
knowledge and skills needed? How can you organize your project?

b. Target Audience

The target audience is the application users or information recipient. You should
know whom you create this project for. You should do some background research
about the target audience because this will affect the complexity of your design.

Class Discussion 3

Discuss the factors that need to be consider for the target audience.

c. Content

The content or information that you want to present will determine the size of your
project. The content is related to the cost and time to develop your project. So it is
important that you know what and how much information you going to present.
Content production is also depending on the availability of your existing
resources or the need to create new materials.

Below are some considerations before you determine your content:

 Obtaining rights to use existing resources.
 Digitizing pictures, audio, and video.
 Produce your own materials including text, graphics, audio effects and
animation

The amount of information you have to decide must be based on what your
audience expectation.

d. Estimating Cost

In production or manufacturing industries, it is relatively simple matter to estimate

costs and effort. In contrast to multimedia production, each new project is
somewhat different from the last, and each may require a different tools and
application.

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PIM0015 Multimedia Systems and Development

As a general rule, there are three elements that can vary in project estimates:
time, money and people. If you decrease any of these elements, you’ll generally
increase one or both of the others.

Money It will take longer time to

Time develop multimedia application
if team developer (people) and
money is less.
People

Money
If there is a large number of team
Time developer then time and money
(cost) to develop multimedia
application could be reduce.
People

Time Much more money (cost) can be

saved if we decreased the number of
team development and time duration
Money in multimedia application
development.
People

e. Building a multimedia team

Multimedia projects can require a broad range of skills. Team members may
come from all areas of computer technology and art. Each person has their own
specialized skills required to do specific task.

Below are the example of multimedia team members and their roles:

Project Manager
- leader of a project
- responsible for overall development and implementation of the project as well
as day to day operations
- strong in both technical and management aspect of the project

Multimedia Designer
- deals with visual aspects of the project including graphic design, illustration,
animation, interface design and image processing
- maintain the flow of the information, clear and consistent navigation

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Video specialist
- focus on the video production including shooting, capturing and editing video
as part of the multimedia project

Audio specialist
- focus on the audio production including recording sound, producing music,
voice-over narration, and sound effects

Multimedia programmer
- responsible for integrating all the multimedia elements using authoring system
or programming language to create a functioning and useful multimedia
product

Class Discussion 4

Why the multimedia projects most frequently performed by teams? Whose

responsibility is it to ensure that the team operates effectively? What can be done to
promote team effectiveness?

Stage 2: Designing and Producing

Designing part of your project is where your knowledge and skill with computers are
all focused to create the real thing. When designing the project, ideas and concepts
are moved one step closer to reality. It involved shaping, smoothing, reworking,
polishing, testing, and editing.

Note: You will learn detailed about stage 2 in topic 3.

Stage 3: Testing

Testing is an unavoidable rule in any multimedia projects. You must test or review
your project or Web site to ensure it is bug free, accurate, operationally and visually
on target, and achieving the objective or target.

Testing is not an easy process. Every feature and function must be exercised; every
button or link must be clicked. Then the same thing will be repeated again and again
with different hardware and under various conditions.

Testing can be done in two phases and they are usually known as alpha testing and
beta testing. This term is used to describe at which level of product development
when testing is done and feedback is sought.

Alpha testing

In alpha testing, your product is evaluated relatively in the early stage of the
development phase. The application may be missing part of the content or
functionality. The main interest is to review the concept, format, user interface and
the layout. The tester may be some selected users or friends, most often the team
member themselves. They should be able to provide positive criticism or feedback.

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Beta testing

The product is evaluated just before the final release. It is a fully functioning product
and should be relative bug free. The main interest is to find bugs or content errors.
The testing group should be represented by the real users and should not include the
people who have been involved in the project.

The feedbacks from these testers are very important where the errors or problems
reported by the beta testers have to include the detail description of the problem.

Class Discussion 5

List the steps a project should go through as part of the testing process and describe
their significance.

Stage 4: Delivering

Finally, the last stage of the product development is delivering or deployment. You
want to deliver your multimedia project to consumers or users, you need to know
which medium you want to use.

Delivering on CD-ROM

CD-ROM is an optical storage and considered the most common form of packaging
for multimedia products. Almost all multimedia products are in a form of CD-ROM.
CD-ROM started out as a read-only technology in which you could store data once
only and access it many times. Recent technology led to a multi-session version
where you can add to the content of a CD and even fully writable systems.

CD-ROMs are governed by a set of industry standards which include:

Red Book (ISO 10149) - Describes as the CD-DA (Compact Disk-Digital Audio) or
the music CD that you normally purchase in retail stores. This is the original CD
format used for digital audio which can play up to 74 minutes of music.

Green Book - Describes as the CD-I (Compact Disk-Interactive) developed by Philips

allowing audio, video and data tracks to be combined for complex multimedia
presentation. This format is not so popular.

Orange Book - Describes as the CD-R (Compact Disk-Recordable) as a means to

easily store large volumes of data in either write once or read-write modes of
operation.

White Book - Describes the Video-CD or formally known as Karaoke CD take

advantage of the VCD format’s implementation of MPEG-1.

Delivering on DVD
DVD is the latest format for optical storage that has the largest capacity up to 17GB.
However at the moment, DVD is increasingly popular for DVD-Video for its high
quality audio and video.

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Delivering on the World Wide Web

For web site, you can just upload to the servers and adjust some settings then it is
ready. For more complex application where installation into the user’s computer is
needed. Installation should be smooth, easy and fast so that the user can start using
your application as soon as possible. It is frustrating that after all the efforts; your
application is not usable due to installation error.

Documentation is another aspect you need to look into especially when it involves
installation process. You need to provide a clear step-by-step procedure for the users
to follow. The documentation also must include the potential problem that can occur
and how to solve it. Often a file name README.TXT is good thing to include in your
distribution CD of your project.

Class Discussion 6

Cite the two primary methods for delivering a project and discuss the benefits and
drawbacks of each method.

CSD Lecturers 7 Updated: October 2011