MT Assignment- Lakshmi Sekharan

5. Explain in detail about multimedia PC.

MPC refers to Multimedia PC-an industry standard identifying the hardware and
software for a multimedia platform based on the PC. MPC system software is
called MME

or Microsoft Multimedia Extensions, a set of software components and

services found in Windows 3.1. MME includes API for multimedia application
developers.

The media types supported by MME include :

Audio : MME uses flexible ‘waveform audio file format’.

Music : Supports MIDI synthesis and recording.

Image : Based on DIB format. Applications can use image formats other than
DIB. DIB format is used because of its portability.

Text and Graphics : Supports a document representation known as RTF. RTF

contains a mix of text and graphic material and information governing their
layout.

Video : Video for Windows (VfW) is a digital video framework based on MME. It
bears resemblance to QuickTime.

One possible MPC system is shown in fig:

6. Explain the features of quick time.

QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer,

capable of handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation,
music, and immersive virtual reality panoramic images. QuickTime is an
extension to the Macintosh operating system allowing the creation, playback,
compression and editing of time-based data.

The QuickTime technology has three major components:

1. The QuickTime video file format itself — openly documented and available
for anyone to use royalty-free.
 2. A media player which Apple makes available for free download on its
website and bundles with each of its computers.
3. Software development kits available for the Macintosh and Windows
platforms. These kits allow people to develop their own software to
manipulate QuickTime and other media files

15. Explain in detail about microsoft multimedia extensions.

MME includes API for multimedia application developers.

The media types supported by MME include :

Audio : MME uses flexible ‘waveform audio file format’.

Music : Supports MIDI synthesis and recording.

Image : Based on DIB format. Applications can use image formats other than
DIB. DIB format is used because of its portability.

Text and Graphics : Supports a document representation known as RTF. RTF

contains a mix of text and graphic material and information governing their
layout.

Video : Video for Windows (VfW) is a digital video framework based on MME. It
bears resemblance to QuickTime.

16. Explain in detail the principle of Digital Video Interactive technique in

detail.
A powerful compression and decompression system for digital video and audio.
DVI enables 72 minutes of full-screen, full-motion video and its audio track to be
stored on a CD-ROM. DVI technology consists of several basic components:
storage format for digital audio and video, compression and decompression
algorithms for these formats, and hardware and software allowing applications to
capture and playback data in these formats.

DVI MEDIA TYPES

Video: The DVI hardware was developed with two digital formats in mind: Real-
Time Video (RTV) and Production-Level Video(PLV).

Audio: DVI audio formats: FM, ‘mid-range’ and ‘near AM’.

Image: RGB, YUV and monochrome images, colour-mapped images and images
containing an alpha channel.

Text and Graphics: The DVI software provides functions for rendering text and
graphics data. These functions produce bitmaps, image-like data structures
which can be combined with images and other bitmaps

DVI ARCHITECTURE
 Host Bus DVI Bus

Secondary Audio

Storage Processor

CD-ROM

interface
Host

Processor

Display

Processor

Host/
DVI
Host interfac
e VRAM
Memory

Pixel

Processor
Input

Devices

Video

digitizer

Host Video Audio

adapter digitizer
5. Name different family members of CD family.
Audio CD
The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or
CD-DA) is described in a document produced in 1980 by the format's joint
creators, Sony
and Philips.

CD + Graphics
Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) is a special audio compact disc that contains
graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc.

CD + Extended Graphics
Compact Disc + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an
improved variant of the Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format.

CD-MIDI
Compact Disc MIDI or CD-MIDI is a type of audio CD where sound is recorded
in MIDI format, rather than the PCM format of Red Book audio CD.

Video CD
Video CD (aka VCD, View CD, Compact Disc digital video) is a standard
digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc.

Photo CD
Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos in a
CD.

CD Interactive
The Philips "Green Book" specifies the standard for interactive multimedia
Compact
Discs designed for CD-i players. This Compact Disc format is unusual because it
hides
the initial tracks which contains the software and data files used by CD-i players
by
omitting the tracks from the disc's Table of Contents.

Recordable CD
Recordable compact discs, CD-Rs, are injection moulded with a "blank" data
spiral. A
photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and
lacquer coated.
The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read
laser of
a standard CD player to see the data as it would an injection moulded compact
disc.

ReWritable CD
CD-RW is a re-recordable medium that uses a metallic alloy instead of a dye. The
write
laser in this case is used to heat and alter the properties (amorphous vs.
crystalline) of the
alloy, and hence change its reflectivity.

6. What is a multimedia PC ? Compare its performance with ordinary PC.

MPC refers to Multimedia PC-an industry standard identifying the hardware and
software for a multimedia platform based on the PC. MPC system software is
called MME

or Microsoft Multimedia Extensions, a set of software components and

services found in Windows 3.1. MME includes API for multimedia application
developers.

The media types supported by MME include :

Audio : MME uses flexible ‘waveform audio file format’.

Music : Supports MIDI synthesis and recording.

Image : Based on DIB format. Applications can use image formats other than
DIB. DIB format is used because of its portability.

Text and Graphics : Supports a document representation known as RTF. RTF

contains a mix of text and graphic material and information governing their
layout.

Video : Video for Windows (VfW) is a digital video framework based on MME. It
bears resemblance to QuickTime.

One possible MPC system is shown in fig: Here the components one would
expect in a conventional PC appear towards the left-hand side while the
multimedia extensions appear on the right.
15. What is digital video interaction techniques. Explain with an example.

Video Compression: The first and most exciting component of DVI is advanced video data
compression. Extremely good compression, especially of video, is necessary because an
uncompressed video image takes up large amounts of memory. DVI addresses this problem
by providing extremely efficient compression and fast decompression of video information.
Since the greater part of a video image doesn't change from frame to frame, only the
differences between successive frames are recorded. The compression algorithms take into
account the fact that only decompression must be done in real time, shifting as much of the
computational burden as possible to the device that compresses the video. The final result is
more than an hour of full screen motion video and multichannels audio on a single CD-ROM
disc all of which can be played back in real time.

Audio compression: The compression of audio information poses different, but equally
challenging problems. Audio doesn't exhibit as much regularity as video, so it's not as easy to
interpolate future wave forms from earlier ones. Also, audio must be contiguous. Most of us
are used to video sequences that jump from take to take, but discontinuity in an audio signal
can be jarring.

DVI provides audio compression via an ADPCM (for adaptive differential pulse code
modulation) algorithm and uses special buffering techniques to prevent discontinuities in the
sound, even during the long step times of CD-ROM heads. Typically, the compressed audio
will take from 4k to 16k bytes per second (more if there are more tracks).

Synthetic Video: Along with the ability to reproduce compressed video sequences, DVI
multimedia engines create computer-generated images in real time. The hardware supports
both bit-mapped graphics and "structured" graphics, and there are facilities for bit mapped
( and, potentially, stroked) text fronts. Further, DVI uses special hardware to perform the
warp algorithm, which very quickly maps a pattern or texture onto a simulated two
dimensional or three dimensional surface. The sample application called Design and Decorate
(DD) demonstrates this feature by, for example, allowing you to "reupholster" sofas and
chairs with different fabric patterns in a fraction of a second, then arrange them in a simulated
room to see how they will look in real life. The DVI hardware and software generate realistic
shadows

16. Define and explain Quick time. Give different features of it.

QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer,

capable of handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation,
music, and immersive virtual reality panoramic images.

The QuickTime technology has three major components:

1. The QuickTime video file format itself — openly documented and available
for anyone to use royalty-free.
2. A media player which Apple makes available for free download on its
website and bundles with each of its computers.
3. Software development kits available for the Macintosh and Windows
platforms. These kits allow people to develop their own software to
manipulate QuickTime and other media files
QuickTime is integral to Mac OS X, as it was with earlier versions of Mac OS. All
Apple
systems ship with QuickTime already installed, as it represents the core media
framework
for Mac OS X. QuickTime is optional for Windows systems, although many
software
applications require it. Apple bundles it with each iTunes for Windows download,
but it
is also available as a stand-alone installation.

QuickTime players

QuickTime is distributed free of charge, and includes the QuickTime Player

application.
Some other free player applications that rely on the QuickTime framework
provide
features not available in the basic QuickTime Player. For example:

• iTunes can export audio in WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless.
• In Mac OS X, a simple AppleScript can be used to play a movie in full-
screen
mode. However, since version 7.13 the QuickTime Player now also supports for
full screen viewing in the non-pro version.

The framework supports the following file types and codecs natively:
Audio
• Apple Lossless
• Audio Interchange (AIFF)
• Digital Audio: Audio CD - 16-bit (CDDA), 134-bit, 313-bit integer & floating
point, and 64-bit floating point
• MIDI
• MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio (.mp3)
• MPEG-4 AAC Audio (.m4a, .m4b, .m4p)
• Sun AU Audio
• ULAW and ALAW Audio
• Waveform Audio (WAV)

• Video
• 3GPP & 3GPP13 file formats
• AVI file format
• Bitmap (BMP) codec and file format
• DV file (DV NTSC/PAL and DVC Pro NTSC/PAL codecs)
• Flash & FlashPix files
• GIF and Animated GIF files
• H.1361, H.1363, and H.1364 codecs
• JPEG, Photo JPEG, and JPEG-13000 codecs and file formats
• MPEG-1, MPEG-13, and MPEG-4 Video file formats and associated codecs
 (such as AVC)
• QuickTime Movie (.mov) and QTVR movies
• Other video codecs: Apple Video, Cinepak, Component Video, Graphics,
and
Planar RGB
• Other still image formats: PNG, TIFF, and TGA

5. Explain how binary codes can be stored and retrieved from a CD-ROM.
A complex decoding process is necessary to convert the arcane sequence of pits
and lands into meaningful binary information. The technique of EFM is used with
CDROMs. For hard disk drives, such techniques as 2,7 RLL encoding can be used
to place a large number of bits into a limited number of flux transitions. The
same is true for CDs using EFM. User data, error-correction information, address
information, and synchronization patterns are all contained in a bit stream that is
represented by pits and lands. Magnetic media encodes bits as flux transitions—
not the discrete
orientation of any magnetic area. The same concept holds true with CD-ROMs,
where binary 1s and 0s do not correspond to pits or lands. A binary 1 is
represented wherever a transition (pit to land or land to pit) occurs. The length of
a pit or land represents the number of binary 0s. The EFM encoding technique
equates each byte (8 bits) with a 14-bit sequence (called a symbol), where each
binary 1 must be separated by at least two binary 0s. Three bits are added to
merge each 14-bit symbol
together. A CD-ROM frame is composed of 24 synchronization bits, 14 control
bits, 24 of the 14-bit data symbols you saw previously, and eight complete 14-bit
Error- Correction (EC) symbols. An additional three merge bits, bringing the total
number of bits in the frame to 588, separate each symbol. Thus, 24 bytes of data
is represented by 588 bits on a CD-ROM, expressed as a number of pits and
lands.
There are 98 frames in a data block, so each block carries (98 E24) = 2048
bytes (2352 with error
correction, synchronization, and address bytes). The basic CD-ROM can deliver
153.6KB of data (75 blocks) per second to its host controller.

Data read from CD-ROM

Data is read from the CD-ROM at a certain speed. There are two principles used
reading from a CD-ROM:
CLV
Constant Linear Velocity was used in the early generations of CD-ROM drives. It
implies that the data track must pass under the read head at the same rate,
whether in inner or outer parts of the track. This is accomplished by varying the
disk rotation speed, based on the read head's position. The closer to the center
of the disk the faster the rotation speed to deliver the same constant stream of
data.
CAV
Constant
Angular
Velocity. It is
not very
smart to
change the
rotational
speed of a
CD-ROM all
the time, as
the CLV
drives do.
Therefore, in
more
modern and
speedy
drives, the
CD-ROM rotates at a constant number of rounds per minute. This implies that the
data transfer varies; data read from the outer parts of the CD-ROM are read at
very high bit rates. Data from the inner parts are read slower.

6. Name anyone multimedia extension of Microsoft. Explain its function.

The RIFF (Resource interchange file format) format was created by Microsoft and
is used by many applications like Windows, Corel Draw etc. Using RIFF, data from
the MME media types can be bundled together in a single file. RIFF files are built
from chunks, each consisting of a four-character chunk, and then the actual
data.

RIFFs are capable of holding various types of data. The file extension for RIFFs is
dependent on its content.
Examples are:
• ANI for animated cursors
• AVI for videos
• BND file bundles
• DXR Macromedia Director Files (notice: Network byte order!)
• PAL for color palette information
• RDI for bitmaps
• RMI for MIDI
• WAV for digital audio

The price for the flexibility of holding different types of data is a file structure,
that isn't easy to understand. A RIFF is - more or less - a hierarchical structure.
The 'directory entries' are defined by chunks. Every chunk contains either data
or a list of chunks. This document will occasionally refer to the analogy of a file
system, every chunk is either a file or a subdirectory. All chunks have the same
structure:

Nam
Size Description
e
four ASCII character identifier, padded with ASCII 32 (space) if less
ID 4 byte
than 4 characters
Size 4 byte size of Data
Size
Data the 'payload'
bytes

15. Explain the recording and retrieval of multimedia information in a DVD.

DVD uses 650 nm wavelength laser diode light as opposed to 780 nm for CD.
This
permits a smaller spot on the media surface that is 1.32 μm for DVD while it was
2.11 μm for CD.

Writing speeds for DVD were 1x, that is 1350 kB/s (1318 KiB/s), in first drives and
media models. More recent models at 18x or 20x have 18 or 20 times that
speed. Note
that for CD drives, 1x means 153.6 kB/s (150 KiB/s), 9 times slower.

16. Explain the features and working of a multimedia PC.

MPC refers to Multimedia PC-an industry standard identifying the hardware and
software for a multimedia platform based on the PC. MPC system software is
called MME
or Microsoft Multimedia Extensions, a set of software components and
services found in Windows 3.1. MME includes API for multimedia application
developers.

The media types supported by MME include :

Audio : MME uses flexible ‘waveform audio file format’.

Music : Supports MIDI synthesis and recording.

Image : Based on DIB format. Applications can use image formats other than
DIB. DIB format is used because of its portability.

Text and Graphics : Supports a document representation known as RTF. RTF

contains a mix of text and graphic material and information governing their
layout.

Video : Video for Windows (VfW) is a digital video framework based on MME. It
bears resemblance to QuickTime.

One possible MPC system is shown in fig:

5. What is the sampling rate used for CD quality audio?

Capturing a sound at a particular frequency requires a sampling rate of at least

twice that frequency (known as the Nyquist frequency). Therefore a sample rate
of 40,000 Hz is the absolute minimum necessary to reproduce sounds within the
range of human hearing, though higher rates (called over sampling) may
increase quality even further by avoiding any aliasing artefacts around the
Nyquist frequency. The sample rate used by audio CDs is 44100 Hz. Human
speech is intelligible even if frequencies above 4,000 Hz are eliminated; in fact
telephones only transmit frequencies between 200 Hz and 4,000 Hz. Therefore a
common sample rate for audio recordings is 8,000 Hz, which is sometimes
called speech quality. Note that very steep filtering (called an anti-aliasing filter)
is required above the Nyquist frequency in order to prohibit signal above this
cutoff point from being folded back into the audible range by the digital
converter, and creating the distorting artifacts of aliasing noise.

6. Explain, what do you understand by multimedia PC.

MPC refers to Multimedia PC-an industry standard identifying the hardware and
software for a multimedia platform based on the PC. MPC system software is
called MME

or Microsoft Multimedia Extensions, a set of software components and

services found in Windows 3.1.

MME includes API for multimedia application developers.

The media types supported by MME include :

Audio : MME uses flexible ‘waveform audio file format’.

Music : Supports MIDI synthesis and recording.

Image : Based on DIB format. Applications can use image formats other than
DIB. DIB format is used because of its portability.

Text and Graphics : Supports a document representation known as RTF. RTF

contains a mix of text and graphic material and information governing their
layout.

Video : Video for Windows (VfW) is a digital video framework based on MME. It
bears resemblance to QuickTime.

One possible MPC system is shown in fig:

13.(b) (i) Explain Digital Video Interactive.
A powerful compression and decompression system for digital video and audio.
DVI enables 72 minutes of full-screen, full-motion video and its audio track to be
stored on a CD-ROM. DVI technology consists of several basic components:
storage format for digital audio and video, compression and decompression
algorithms for these formats, and hardware and software allowing applications to
capture and playback data in these formats.

DVI MEDIA TYPES

Video: The DVI hardware was developed with two digital formats in mind: Real-
Time Video (RTV) and Production-Level Video(PLV).

Audio: DVI audio formats: FM, ‘mid-range’ and ‘near AM’.

Image: RGB, YUV and monochrome images, colour-mapped images and images
containing an alpha channel.

Text and Graphics: The DVI software provides functions for rendering text and
graphics data. These functions produce bitmaps, image-like data structures
which can be combined with images and other bitmaps

DVI ARCHITECTURE
 Host Bus DVI Bus

Secondary Audio

Storage Processor

CD-ROM

interface
Host

Processor

Display

Processor

Host/
DVI
Host interfac
e VRAM
Memory

Pixel

Processor
Input

Devices

Video

digitizer

Host Video Audio

adapter digitizer

(ii) Quick-time.
 QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer,
capable of handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation,
music, and immersive virtual reality panoramic images.

The QuickTime technology has three major components:

1. The QuickTime video file format itself — openly documented and available
for anyone to use royalty-free.
2. A media player which Apple makes available for free download on its
website and bundles with each of its computers.
3. Software development kits available for the Macintosh and Windows
platforms. These kits allow people to develop their own software to
manipulate QuickTime and other media files