What is multimedia?

Multimedia is any combination of different types of content. This content can include text, images (including photos), audio, video, animation, games or interactive content forms. In most cases the content is integrated via computers to enhance a user’s understanding of the information presented. The information has the potential to be a live broadcast or previously made. Multimedia has become inherent to the websites and blogs that makeup the internet.

Evolution of the Word

Multimedia comes from the word medium, but has evolved to include “facilitating or linking communication” to assist in conveying a message. With the increase in media types and efficiency some have declared that the media chosen is as important as the content itself as Marshall McLuhan has said, “The medium is the message” and therefore affects the perception of the content.

Use as Design Elements

Multimedia can be used to contribute to the design of the webpage. Carroll cites using images to to help with the “balance, contrast and unity” of web design. This can also contribute to the scan-ability of a web page by breaking up large chunks of text. Using these elements can improve the navigation and usability of a website.

Benefits in Educational Situations

Multimedia can be used to to show “what things look like, how they move and how they change” or to demonstrate “processes that learners may not otherwise have the opportunity to see,” furthermore this can be used to “bring the real world into the classroom.”

Choosing File Types

When choosing a file format to use in a website, the web designer should be mindful of what the viewer will need to play the media. Care should be kept to avoid requiring the viewer to download software to view the media. The size of the file should also be noted, larger files take longer to download. Will the viewer stream or download the media? These all have an effect on the viewers experience.

Examples and File Types

Image

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File types include:

• .JPG
• .PNG
• .TIFF
• .RAW
• .BMP
• .GIF

Animation

File types include:

• .PNG
• .FLA
• .GIF
• .SWF

Audio

• .AAC (Advanced Audio Converting) - generally offers higher quality sound than an .mp3, while using the same or a lesser amount of disk space.

• .FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) - audio format that is compressed without any loss in quality.

• .M4A (MPEG-4 Audio) - file extension for an audio file encoded with Advanced Audio Converting. Like AAC, the quality is higher and uses less memory space than an .mp3.

• .MP3 (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3) - standard format for compressing audio into a smaller file. It is a "lossy" format (meaning that it loses some data upon compression) which causes it to not have the sound quality identical to audio file it began as.

• .OGG - Derived from the computer jargon term "ogging", is a multimedia container format developed and maintained by Xiph.Org Foundation. It provides packet framing, error detection, and periodic timestamps for seeking. It is a stream oriented container, as it can be written and read in one pass.

• .WMA (Windows Media Audio) - audio file type developed by Microsoft. It is a lossy format, thus resulting in a loss of audio fidelity.

Video

File types include:

• .FLV (Flash Video) - container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player 6-11. It can also be embedded within SWF files. It's a widely used format choice for online videos, being used by services such as YouTube and Hulu.

• .AVI (Audio Video Interleave) - container file format used by Microsoft's Video for Windows multimedia framework. It is used by some standalone DVD players and is suitable for DV formats. It's not a widely recommended container as it lacks features found in newer, developed containers like MPEG or MP4.

• .MOV
• .MP4
• .MPG
• .WMV

External Links

• Wikipedia Entry on Multimedia
  
• Webopedia Entry on Multimedia
  
• Learning Technology Wikispaces on Multimedia
  
• NNGroup Guidelines For Multimedia on the Web
  
• Scribd Multimedia Web Design Principles
  
• Webdesign Multimedia Tips for Webpages
  
• Wikipedia “The Medium is the Message
  

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