Positive Outlook of Multimedia

Multimedia is defined as a combination of sound, animation, graphic, and video. It is also known as a subset of hypermedia in the world of computers that combines the elements of multimedia with hypertext, with which it links the information.

A multimedia application is one that uses a collection of media sources. Better known for this applications are PowerPoint, a Microsoft presentation package, and Acrobat, an Adobe document presentation product.

Multimedia nowadays is commonplace because of its speed and efficiency. It gives the user a “richer” and more interesting experience. A lot of people using multimedia for business reports, school reports, and business promotions would agree to this.

In order for a computer to cope with multimedia, it needs to fulfill certain requirements such as, needs to be powerful enough to display the presentation. Example of that is a palmtop which utilizes a powerful processor to display pictures on its screen and be able to play good quality sound. A pc needs a reasonable graphics (video) card, and a considerable amount of memory on both RAM and hard drive space.

A method of producing reasonable sound (sound card plus speakers on a pc) is needed. It is also needs an output interface if motion is to be used for example, force feedback motion on joysticks to make them shake in games. Appropriate software to run the presentation is needed. An example of that is software that will display the video and sound file properly.

In accessing multimedia files through the Internet, the computer to be used has to be fast, with enough memory space available.

If the internet connection is slow, the files may need to be downloaded onto the computer directly and then played at a later date. And if the connection is fast enough, a broadband connection for example, then the files can be run directly as they are received, and it is known as ‘streaming media’.

In order to have a multimedia presentation, a computer needs to be able to output its sound, video, motion etc. to external devices such as speaker, monitors, and joystick and of course keyboard.

Even though multimedia has a lot of use in our industry, there are still disadvantages of using it. Because it is quite expensive for the following reasons: Acquisition or rental of equipment to produce multimedia can be costly, multimedia in Web Base Training (WBT) may require a high learning curve for designers since the use of multimedia in WBT is fairly new to most trainers and instructional designers. Development may require contracting out for specialized skills.

In conclusion, we should always put in our minds that the purpose of multimedia is to provide communications or virtual communications using text, graphics, animation, and video.