Essential hardware/ sorftware required for Multimedia development and delivery part 2

CD/DVD BURNERS

The difference between DVD burners and CD burners is how they write data and what types of data they write. They take data from a computer and write it to a disc using a laser but DVD and CD burners use different methods to transfer data, CD burners write audio and text files while DVD burners write audio and video files.

EDITING SOFTWARE

Image manipulation software

Microsoft Paint is a free programme that generally comes ready installed on most Microsoft Windows computers. This program consists of some very basic tools such as Free-Form select, Erasor, Fill tool, Pencil, Brush, Airbrush, text and a very simple magnification tool with the options of  2x 6x and 8x , but due to Paints very poor image quality, created images seem very pixelated and sharp.

GIMP is a free to download image manipulation software. It mainly used as an image retouching and editing tool, but it is also capable of performing tasks such as resizing, editing, cropping photos, photo montages combining multiple images, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in the GIF format.

Corel Paint Shop Pro is a higher range image manipulation program, It costs around £50 to buy, features include photo organization, photo retouching and enhancement tools, photo tagging and more. This program isn't generally used for creating digital art like some other image manipulation programs, I is generally only used for editing Photographs.

Adobe Photoshop is by far the most widely used image manipulation program used today, It had a fantastic abundance of features and tools, It is widely used in both the creation of digital art and image editing, Photoshop has ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring which makes it a very powerful and versatile tool.


Multimedia Authoring

Windows Movie Maker is a  free piece of software that comes included in Microsoft Windows, It contains features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, time-line narration.
It also a basic audio track and image editing program. It can apply basic effects to audio tracks such as fade in or fade out. The audio tracks can then be exported in the form of a sound file instead of a video file.

Sony Vegas is a professional non-linear editing system, It costs around £250 to buy, Vegas features real-time multitrack video and audio editing on unlimited tracks, resolution-independent video sequencing, complex effects and composting tools

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and games, It costs around £300 to buy.
Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images. It supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse, keyboard, microphone, and camera. Flash contains an Object-oriented language called ActionScript.

Adobe Director is a program that allows users to build applications. It costs around £400 to buy. It can also be used for creating animation sequences, and has a powerful scripting language called Lingo. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects which makes it a very versatile tool for creating multimedia content.

Essential hardware/ sorftware required for Multimedia development and delivery part 1

The essential hardware and software that is required when developing and delivering a multimedia project can differ depending on the end product of the project.

When developing a Multimedia project you have to take into consideration what kind of outcome you want to achieve, you may only need certain types of media in the project, for example you might only need text and sound in your project, in this case the only kind of hardware and software that you might need could be:-

-Microphone - For recording sound
-Keyboard - For text input
-Speaker system - For sound playback
-Pen drive - For Transferring files between computers

But if you are attempting a more ambitious project that takes in more forms of media then the types of hardware and software that you will require will greatly differ.
 The examples that I intend to cover in this blog are:-

Scanners
LCD Projectors
Digital video and SLR cameras
CD/DVD burners
Editing software


SCANNERS

A scanner is a device that captures printed images or text for computer editing and display.
There are 5 main types of scanner

A Flatbed scanner is a type of scanner where you place an image or text document by hand face down into a glass scanning surface, While the image/document remains stationary, an automated mechanical scanning device passes underneath it, the drawbacks of the flatbed scanner is that it is a very large and bulky piece of hardware.

A Handheld scanner is a small handheld device where the user has to manually sweep the scanner over a stationary image/ document, this has many downfalls because its accuracy depends on the steadyness of the users hands .

A Sheetfed scanner works very much in the same way as a flatbed scanner but this time the scanner remains stationary and it is the Image/Document that is fed into the scanner the same way a printer does, It is also alot smaller than the Flatbed scanner. The downfall of this type of scanner is that there is a reduction in scan quality in comparison with the flatbed scanner, so sheetfed scanners are generally only used for Text documents.

A Photo scanner works the same way as the sheetfed  scanners by feeding the Image through the scanner. Most are relatively low resolution, so are limited to scanning photo prints or similar sized scans, therefore their practical applications are limited.

A Drum scanner is  the most efficient and the most expensive scanners. These are used primarily in the publishing industry to digitize the images that appear in books and magazines and are printed on high-quality printing presses.


LCD PROJECTORS

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) projectors are used for displaying video, images or computer data on a screen or other flat surface. LCD projectors basically work by passing a strong light source through a transparent LCD chip and projecting that image through a lens onto a large screen.


DIGITAL VIDEO AND SLR CAMERAS
An SLR video camera uses a moving mirror system to manipulate the light that enteres through the camera lense and focuses it onto a film or image sensor at the back of the camera. Where as a Digital video camera Instead of using film to capture the image, digital cameras use an electronic image sensor. The sensor converts the image to electrical signals and stores it into digital memory.

The Veho Muvi Micro DV  is the smallest high resolution DV camcorder in the world, and it has a
2 Mega Pixel recording quality, it has a 640x480 resolution, and this camera has no zooming capabilities. This kind of camera costs around £50.

The Toshiba Camileo S10 is a good quality lower price range camera, it has a 5 Mega Pixel recording quality, it has a 3200 x 2400 maximum resolution, it also has a 4x digital zoom.
This kind of camera costs around £100

The Toshiba Camileo H20 has an 5 Mega Pixel recording quality, it has a 3200 x 2400 maximum resolution, it also has a 4x digital zoom and a 5x optical zoom.
This kind of camera costs around £150.

The Canon LEGRIA FS37 has an 8 Mega Pixel recording quality, it has a 3200 x 2400 maximum resolution, it also boasts a large 2000x digital zoom and a 37x optical zoom.
This Kind of camera costs around £200.

The Bell and Howell DV1200HD has a 12 Mega Pixel recording quality, it can record video in full HD quality, it also has a 500x digital zoom and a 20x optical zoom.
This kind of camera costs around £250.