Page 202 - DCAP406_DCAP_207_Computer Networks

Unit 12: Application Layer

introduced faster system capable of handling graphics, audio, animation and video. And the Notes
entire world was taken aback by the power of multimedia.
Multimedia is the holy grail of networking. It brings immense technical challenges in providing
(interactive) video on demand to every home and equally immense profits out of it.
Literally, multimedia is just two or more media. Generally, the term of multimedia means the
combination of two or more continuous media. In practice, the two media are normally audio
and video.

12.4.1 Multimedia Elements

There are many types of multimedia components. These are audio, video, pictures, animations,
etc.
1. Text: Inclusion of textual information in multimedia is the basic step towards development
of multimedia software. Text can be of any type, may be a word, a single line, or a
paragraph. The textual data for multimedia can be developed using any text editor.
However to give special effects, one needs graphics software which supports this kind of
job. Even one can use any of the most popular word processing software to create textual
data for inclusion in multimedia. The text can have different type, size, color and style to
suit the professional requirement of the multimedia software.
2. Graphics: Another interesting element in multimedia is graphics. As a matter of fact,
taking into consideration the human nature, a subject is more explained with some sort of
pictorial/graphical representation, rather than as a large chunk of text. This also helps to
develop a clean multimedia screen, whereas use of large amount of text in a screen make
it dull in presentation.

Notes There are several graphics packages available to develop excellent images and also
to compress them so that they take lesser disk-space but use higher resolution and more
colours. Packages like Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator, PaintShop Pro etc. are excellent
graphics packages. There are Graphics gallery available in CD’s (Compact Disk) with
readymade images to suit almost every requirement. These images can directly be
incorporated into multimedia development.
3. Animation: Moving images have an overpowering effect on the human peripheral vision.
Followings are few points for its popularity.
(a) Animation is a set of static state, related to each other with transition.
(b) Indicates dimensionality in transitions
(c) Illustrates change over time

(d) Multiplexes the display
(e) Enriches graphical representations
(f) visualizing three-dimensional structures
4. Audio: The representation, processing, storage and transmission of audio signals are a
major part of the study of multimedia systems. The frequency range of the human ear runs
from 20 Hz to 20K Hz. The ear is very sensitive to sound variations lasting only a few
milliseconds. The eye, in contrast, does not notice changes in light level lasting only a few

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