UNIT V
What are the Internet and the World Wide Web
?
The Internet is a vast
communications system linking computers around the world. When two or more
computers are linked together, it is called a network. Networks are often
configured with a more powerful computer, called a server, that controls the
network and provides a large storage capacity. The other computers on the
network, called clients, allow users at remote locations to access the programs
and data on the server. Businesses, government agencies, schools, and other
organizations have been using networks for decades. Networks allow individuals
within organizations to communicate and share information. The Internet is a
network of networks. It was originally developed by the U.S government and
educational research institutions. The Defense Department, was interest in
having a communications system that would link together different types of
computers and allow government sponsored research to be shared. Universities
were interested in having a communications system that would assist in collaboration
on research projects and dissemination of research findings.
First was the development of
two computer features; a visual interface that, with a browser, allowed the
user to easily search for information; and a formatting standard specifically
designed for the Internet, called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Initially
internet was text based. There were no photographs, sounds, animations or
video. In 1993 a program called Mosaic was developed and became the first
popular visual interface that could be used to display web pages. Web pages are
documents that are written in HTML and form the basis for the World Wide Web.
HTML allows multimedia to be incorporated into the Internet by providing
Hyperlinking and the ability to use sound, animation, video and graphics on a
web page.
When a new opportunity such
as the WWW draws the attention of business, there is an enormous amount of
money directed toward creating. The following are just some of the unique job
descriptions and industries that arose as a result of the commercialization of
the Internet:
Software developers: The
development of software included creating browsers such as Netscape and
Microsoft Internet Explorer; which are used to interpret and display HTML
documents; creating development tools such as PageMill and Front Page, which
are used to create HTML documents and manage web sites; and creating utilities
to allow current applications to run over the Internet, for example, Shockwave,
which allows Macromedia Director movies to be delivered via the web.
Service Providers: These
companies provide individuals as well as businesses and organizations access to
the Internet and its World Wide Web components.
Communications companies: This
industry focuses on establishing the infrastructure necessary to provide
Internet access throughout the world and to increase the speed of the network.
Web specialists: These people
specialize in the development and support of web sites. They include
webmasters, network & technicians and multimedia developers focusing on
creating material for the web.
With very little training and
only a small monthly fee, an individual could create, place and maintain a home
page – a web page that serves as your main menu or home base on the web.
Multimedia on the World Wide Web
The world wide web part of
the Internet has multimedia capabilities. Browsers such as Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft Internet Explorer that interpret HTML documents allow graphics,
sound, movies and animation to be delivered to the user. Hypertext Markup
Language allows developers to include Hyperlinking in their web documents,
giving the user the ability to “navigate” from place to place in a document. An
important advantage to develop multimedia applications for the WWW is that web
documents are created using HTML standards. There is no standard computer
platform and no standard hardware required to run the application on the
Internet.
Limitations of the Internet
First, the transfer process
can be completed more quickly by using compression. Files are compressed before
they are sent to the user’s computer and then decompressed as they are needed.
In fact, the standard graphics file formats for the web are GIF and JPEG, which
are automatically compressed when they are created. GIF stands for Graphics
Interchange Format and is the prevalent graphics format for images on the web.
JPEG, short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the organization that created
the standard, is used to digitize still photographic images.
Second, a combination of CD
and Internet delivery would allow the user to access large files from the CD
and other information from the web. An example would be a college class in
which a CD is distributed to each student. The CD could contain video clips,
3-D animations, and other large files that are displayed more quickly from a CD
than if they were delivered over the web.
Third,
developers should consider using multimedia elements and development techniques
that minimize file sizes. Such shortcuts include using animations instead of
video clips, 2-D rather than 3-D animation and 8 bit rather than 16 bit color
and sound.
There are alternatives to using a modern
with standard phone lines that are in use or under development. These include
the following:
Cable modems: These utilize the coaxial television cable and
provide speeds up to 100 times faster than modems using telephone wires.
ISDN : short for Integrated Services and existing telephone cables to provide
speeds of up to 128 Kbps.
T1 lines: These are leased telephone lines that provide speeds at 1.5 Mbps.
T3 lines: These leased telephone lines provide speeds of 44.7 Mbps.
All of these techniques can
provide faster transfer of data, and companies and organizations use them to
connect their intranets as well as to connect externally to the Internet.
Intranets are internal organization networks that look and function like the
Internet. Companies set up an intranet for a number of reasons:
To provide a way for
employees to collaborate on projects
To provide access to company
information such as sales or new product data
To announced new policies or
company events
To deliver multimedia
training materials
Developing Multimedia for the World Wide Web
HTML is used to format the
appearance of a document and to create links that allow the user to navigate
throughout the document. Formatting, such as centering a heading or underlining
a word, is done through the use of tags.
Creating hyperlinks using
HTML requires identifying the element that is to be linked and the destination
for the link. When the user clicks on the word, the linked document is
displayed. HTML also allows a developer to easily insert graphics into a
document. Creating an HTML document is as easy as using a word processor to
type the text with the formatting codes or using an HTML editor to insert the
codes automatically. HTML has limited capabilities, however, and required a
programming language like Java to produce sophisticated features such as
creating animations and search a database. Java, developed by Sun Microsystems,
has become popular for programming web related applications. It is a powerful
language and is used to extend the functionality of HTML. Java could be used to
Create an
application that tracks stock prices and periodically displays them on a web
page. Such programs, called applets, are developed for one specific purpose and
like template can be used in more than one application.
Another consideration when
programming for the web is the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), a coding
standard that allows programmers to write applications in various languages for
the web. CGI programs run on the server and provide a way for server based
programs to obtain information from a user and return information to the user.
A typical application is one that allows the user to search a database.
Using the Web as a source of Multimedia
Material
The World Wide Web is an
excellent source of clip art, sound and video clips, and photographs that can
be used in a multimedia title. Virtually every company that provides these
elements has a web site and offers the ability to search its database for the
desired material, pay for it, and often download it from the web. PhotoDisc
website has more than 50,000 digital images in categories such as People and
Lifestyles, Science, Technology and Medicine, Nature, Wildlife, and the
Environment and Business and Occupations. You can search and download images as
well as order from the CD-ROM collection and obtain a company catalog.
An example of a website for
music and sound clips is the Multi Media Music site (www.wavenet.com) developed
by Partners in Thyme. The site provides high quality audio for computer
presentations and multimedia projects and includes sound utilities for the PC,
sound effects, and music loops.
An example of a website with
video clips is Four Palms (www.fourpalms.com). This site has royalty free video
clips in AVI, QuickTime and MPEG formats.
Another way to locate
multimedia materials is to search the web using one or more of the search
engines. Whenever the web is used to obtain material such as sound clips or
graphics images, care should be taken to ensure that copyright laws have not
been violated.
Viewing Multimedia on the Web
When developing multimedia
for the web, you need to understand how multimedia elements are viewed when
delivered via the Internet. If you develop a multimedia title with sound,
animation and video, for example, place the tile on a CD, you could specify the
configuration need by the user (MP3 PC). Web pages, however, are viewed with
web browsers, which are limited in their ability to automatically display
certain files, including various image types as well as animations, video and
sound clips. Macromedia Director is a popular program for
creating animations. A Director “movie” can be saved in a format that allows it
to be played directly from a CD. In order to play a Director movie from the
web, an additional program – shockwave needs to be installed on the user’s
computer.
There are two types of
programs that are used to view elements not viewable with a browser alone:
helper applications and plug-ins.
Helper applications display
an element (such as a video clip) in a separate window on the user’s monitor. A
plug-in (such as Shockwaves) displays an element as though it were part of the
browser. Because helper applications run independently, the user must download
the application onto a hard drive and then configure the browser to use the
application whenever a particular kind of file is encountered.
Animation on the Web
Incorporating animation is an
excellent way to increase the appeal of a website and help ensure return
visits. Animations can be as simple as blinking text, marquee like scrolling
headlines, rotating logos, and 2-D action figures or as complex as 3-D virtual
reality environments with user control.
Animated text: Using the HTML <blink> tag, you can cause text
to flash on and off. To have the words YEAR END SALE blink in the webpage
document, you would include the following HTML code : <blink>YEAR END
SALE</blink>. Another way to animate text is by using a scrolling or
marquee type action to scroll text across the screen
Animated GIF: The GIF graphics file format is a standard for the
web GIFs are still images that can be combined to create an animation. A
program called GIF Builder allows you to create an animation by displaying a
series of GIF file. GIF Builder includes features for adjusting the speed of
the animation and how many times it is played.
Director movie: A Director animation can be played using the
Shockwave plug-in. This is a way to create somewhat sophisticated animations
and have them delivered via the web.
3-D environments: The computer language used to create 3-D environments
on the web that allow the user to move through a space or explore an object is
called Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). VRML technology is especially
useful in creating games and educational titles. You need a browser that
supports VRML or a plug-in to display VRML applications.
1. COPYRIGHT
ISSUES :
The laws of copyright are
designed to protect intellectual property rights and provide potential monetary
rewards for inventiveness and hard work. In this way they foster creativity.
However, the ease with which material can be copies, digitized, manipulated,
incorporated into a title, and delivered to a mass market has prompted concern
about the adequacy of existing copyright laws as they apply to the multimedia
industry. Consider the following:
Videotapes and videodiscs can
be rented and played on a VCR or videodisc player linked to a computer,
allowing the images to be captures and digitized.
TV programs can be captured
from a television connected to a computer. Scanners are used to digitize
printed material, photographs, and slides.
Computers equipped with audio
cards can capture and digitize music and other sounds from CDs and
audiocassettes.
Once in digital form, any
number of changes can be made to images and sounds, The Mona Lisa can be given
blue eyes, a Kenny G sound clip could be synchronized with Mickey Mouse playing
the saxophone. All this can be done from the desktop.
Business models providing
licensing agreements and royalty fees have been in place of many years to
provide protection and payment to those in the music, movie and publishing
industries. Copyright holders are leery of how multimedia developers can s
easily manipulate digitized material and how quickly and widely it can be distributed,
especially over the Internet.
There are several options
available to a multimedia developer for obtaining content, including acquiring
rights to copyrighted material, utilizing non-copyrighted or public domain
material, creating the material in house, or contracting for original material.
Acquiring Rights to Copyrighted Material
Simply purchasing a videotape
or music CD does not authorize the buyer to copy a video or sound clip. No
rights beyond personal use are provided. In order to use copyrighted material,
a developer must determine which rights are needed. This can be complicated.
For example, obtaining the right to use a video clip does not necessarily mean
you have the right to use the music or a particular character in the video, nor
does it necessarily mean that you can use the video clip in both a CD-ROM and
on the Internet. These may require separate licensing
agreements. In addition, there may be restrictions on granting permission to
use copyrighted material, such as for nonprofit applications only.
After determining which
rights are needed, the developer must identify who has the ability to convey
them. In the music industry, a song writer may hold the copyright, but it is
usually administered by a music publisher, who in turn may employ an agency to
negotiate and collect license fees. Despite these organizations it is sometimes
necessary to locate an individual who holds the copyright (author, artist,
singer or photographer) and negotiate the desired rights.
Using Material in the Public Domain
Materials that have no
copyright are said to be in the public domain and can be sued without
permission. Either no copyright was issued, the copyright has expired or it was
not renewed. There may be legal considerations when using public domain
materials, especially those related to derivative works, trademarks, and
people.
Derivative works are based on
an original work, such as translations, abridgements, adaptations, or
dramatizations. A trademark is a name, symbol or other device identifying a
product; it is officially registered with the U.S. government, and its use is
legally restricted to its owner or manufacturer.
Trademark protection covers
the title of a publishable work and, in the case of fiction, often the name of its
characters. The rights of individuals include what’s known as the Right of
Publicity; this is a legal basis for requiring permission and payment for using
a person’s name, image, or persons.
2. PRIVACY
ISSUES
In 1994 a CD-ROM was
distributed that contained more than 2 million Oregon driver’s license records,
including each person’s vital statistics and Social Security number. Marketing
departments from any number of companies would be interested in obtaining
information provided on a driver’s license, such as name, address, birth date,
and gender. Although this may not be a technical violation of privacy laws, it
does point out how easily personal data can be obtained and distributed.
Laws dealing with privacy
include two issues that are important to multimedia developers. First,
revealing embarrassing facts about an individual that would be considered
offensive to a reasonable person and where there is no sufficient cause for the
disclosure may violate privacy laws. For example, revealing that an individual
had a substance abuse problem 20 years earlier may constitute an invasion of
privacy.
Second, placing a person in a
false light which causes undue stress on the individual could also constitute a
violation of privacy. For example, showing a video clip of a woman walking in
front of an adults – only theater on a dark, deserted street may imply she is a
prostitute, when in fact she may have merely lost her way in an unfamiliar
city.
3. CENSORSHIP
ISSUES
Controversy over the content
of CD-ROM titles is essentially no different than other media. Pornography,
violence, and racism are as much a concern in multimedia as in television,
movies, and music. This is especially true of titles, such as games, that may
be directed toward children. Should censorship – the official and authoritative
examination, and possible expurgation, of material for appropriateness of
content – be applied to multimedia titles? If so, the question becomes: who
will control the content – the multimedia industry or the government? The movie
and music industries have rating systems and labeling to provide the consumer
with an indication of the appropriateness of the content for various audiences.
Potential consumers of CD-ROM titles usually have little more than the company’s
promotional material on the package to inform them of the content and its
appropriateness for a particular audience.
The issue of censorship in
multimedia will intensify as titles become more prevalent on the Internet. The
Internet provides the opportunity for developers to deliver their titles to
users without the need of a publisher, distributor, retailer, or other
intermediary. Being “socially responsible” however it is defined – will become
more and more the purview of the multimedia developers.
TRENDS IN THE MULTIMEDIA INDUSTRY
The Internet: The Internet is
having a dramatic effect on the delivery of multimedia titles. The rush to the
Internet has caused some people to predict the demise of the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM
has a limited storage capacity and its content is unchangeable, whereas the
Internet promises to provide virtually unrestricted, easily updatable
information. Even though multimedia elements can be conveyed over the Internet,
a major problem is the slow speed for delivering large files – especially
video, sound, and animation. The connection from the server containing the
title to the home or office computer does not provide enough bandwidth to
accommodate the large files. Bandwidth is the capacity of a device to process
or transmit information, the more information it can handle per second, the
greater its bandwidth. The technology to increase the
bandwidth, including cable modems and ISDN lines, is available; the problem is
the costs involved in deploying this technology.
HARDWARE
Multimedia Processor: A new
generation of processor chips that include Multimedia Extensions (MMX)
technology has been developed by Intel to increase the performance of computer
video, audio, communications, and graphics. The technology allows the processor
to work on different data elements at once, increasing the overall work the
processor can do. This results in richer colors, more vivid sounds, and
smoother animations and video. The chip will be able to handle such tasks as graphics
acceleration, sound and video decompression without add-on cards.
The processor will take
advantages of Microsoft DirectX technologies, which include DirectSound,
DirectDraw, DirectInput, Direct3D, DirectMIDI, DirectMPEG and DirectPlay. This
could improve the performance of multimedia operations by as much as 400
percent.
DVD (Digital Video Disc): The
DVD represents a major advance in CD technology. The DVD dramatically increases
the capacity of CDs from 650 MB to as much as 17 GB. This allows full length
movies with different audio tracks, and even different versions of the same
movie (PG, PG-13, R) to be available on one disc. The technology involves
increasing the data density by reducing the size of the pits and lands and
providing double layered and double sided discs. As the cost of the drives
decreases so that households can more easily afford them, the movie industry
and the multimedia game developers who required large disc capacity will
benefit as well.
CD-E (Compact Disc Erasable):
Phillips Electronics has developed the CD-E – an erasable disc that allows a
user to update information on the disc and free up disc space by deleting
unneeded data. A CD-E drive will be able to read, write and overwrite erasable
discs. In addition, these drives will be capable of reading all existing CD
formats, such as CD-ROMs and Photo CDs. Erasable CDs will be especially
beneficial in multimedia development environments, as well as to those needing
to exchange data archive large amounts of data, and back up data stored on hard
drives.
Target market: Because the
intense competition in the consumer market, the emphasis for multimedia titles
will focus more and more on the corporate market. Corporate training is a
multibillion dollar industry, and companies are realizing that multimedia
training delivered in a lab setting, through a company network to the desktop,
or to the factory floor using a kiosk can be more timely and cost effective
than classroom instruction. Corporate marketing, including CD-ROM or online
catalogs, distribution of CD-ROM promotional titles, and multimedia based
presentations, is another area that will attract developers. Every major
advertising agency and many specialized agencies have a multimedia department
eager to tap into this growing market.
Content: For those developers
who choose to focus on the consumer market, the emphasis will need to be on
quality and content. Consumers will demand that best quality graphics,
especially 3-D animation, sound and video. This will force up product
development and marketing costs. Creativity and storytelling, wherein the user
can interact by taking the perspective of different characters and influence
the story, will be more prevalent; and more titles will use live actors as the
Hollywood storytellers become more influential in the multimedia industry.
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