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Chapter 1: Overview

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What is multimedia?

Multimedia is when you have too many cables. Multimedia combines audio and visual materials to

provide computerized interaction of text, sound, graphics, images, animation & video to enhance communication and to enrich its presentation.

Multimedia systems handle at least one type of “continuous media” as well as “static media”.

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Multimedia applications

Videodisc applications A laser disc (LD) can store about 1 hour of video (per

side), or 100,000 video frames. A DVD can hold 2-8 hrs of high-quality video

Electronic games Each game is a highly interactive multimedia application

that presents layered-2D/3D animation with synchronized sound effects and music.

New generation of computer games usually use optical disks (CD/DVD/GD-ROM) to store game data.

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Multimedia applications

Web browsers A hyper-document is a document composed of

multiple media types. Multimedia presentation systems

An “engine” that displays, synchronizes, provides interaction with, and generally manipulates multimedia material (e.g., Macromedia Director).

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Multimedia applications

Multimedia mail systems Handle electronic messages containing audio, graphics, and other

media. 3 components: Composition, Transmission, Presentation.

Teleconferencing A computer equipped with microphone, speakers, and a video

camera, and placed on a multimedia network, can establish audio and video connections between other, similarly equipped, machines.

Multi-user tools, such as group editors. A group editor allows conference participants to share documents, and to edit the documents simultaneously.

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Multimedia applications

Multimedia services Interactive TV Interactive shopping Education Medical services (telemedicine) Video-on-demand

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Analog vs. Digital

Two ways to process information: analog and digital

Examples: LP vs. CD radio vs. web-radio slide-rule vs. calculator

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Analog recording

Sound is caused by a variation of air pressure – a sound wave

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Analog recording

An audio tape records an analog signal that represents the sound wave.

An analog signal is continuous – there are an infinite number of points (values) and each value has an infinite precision.

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Digital recording

To record an analog signal by a computer, we need to perform analog-to-digital conversion (ADC): Sampling Quantization Coding

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ADC

Consider an analog signal

time

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Sampling

convert continuous signal into discrete values by taking samples

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Sampling

The original signal can be approximated by interpolation using the sampled values.

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Sampling

More samples more accurate approximation

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Quantization

A computer cannot record the values with infinite precision. A value has to be quantized.

a quantizationlevel

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Quantization

A computer cannot record the values with infinite precision. A value has to be quantized.

a coarserquantization

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Quantization

Each value is replaced by the nominal value of its quantization level.

a sample value

a nominalvalue

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Quantization

Each value is replaced by the nominal value of its quantization level.

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Quantization

The difference between a sample value and its quantization value is called the quantization error.

quantization error

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Quantization

More quantization levels gives a more accurate representation.

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Quantization

More quantization levels gives a more accurate representation.

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Quantization

More quantization levels gives a more accurate representation.

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Quantization

Note that quantization does not necessarily have to be uniform or linear.

widerquantizationlevel

narrowerquantizationlevel

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Coding

assign a codeword to each quantization level.

00001000

1101

1001

0101010000110010

0001

101010111100

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Coding

An analog signal could then be represented digitally by a string of 0’s and 1’s 0010 0011 0011 0000 1010 1011 … …

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Why digital?

ADC introduces error the waveform constructed by interpolating samples is not a verbatim

copy of the original quantization introduces quantization error

so … Why digital representation? What should be the sampling frequency? How many quantization levels (or bits/sample) shall we use?

Example: for CD-DA: sampling frequency: 44,100 samples per second 16 bits per sample (i.e., 65,536 quantization levels)

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Why digital?

easy integration & sharing of resources (storage, transmission network).

can be processed by a computer, e.g., encryption, watermarking, compression, digital effects, etc.

more “reliable” storage and transmission (error-correction). can be used and copied many times without losing quality.

channel channel analog signal transmission

channel reconstruct digital signal transmission

original

“blurred”

“pixelated”

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Media types

Non-temporal (Discrete) – do not have a time dimension, and their contents & meanings do not depend on the presentation time. Text Image Graphics

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Media types

Temporal (Continuous, Isochronous) – have a time dimension. They convey meanings only if “displayed” at a specific rate. Video Digital Audio Music

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Text

not visually exciting conveys essential and precise information text representation: e.g., ASCII storage “friendly” sometimes, certain information is too

abstract to be captured by words

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Digital images

To digitize a photo, we again perform ADC

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Digital images

sampling

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Digital images

pick a sample value from each “box” to record

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Digital images

finer sampling gives a clearer image

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Digital images

finer sampling yet

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Digital cameras

A Charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera has a 2-dimensional array of photosites that convert the amount of light intensities into equivalent electrical charges.

Each photosite is covered by a color filter (red, green, or blue).

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Digital cameras

R G BB R GG B R

The amount of charge at each photosite tells the intensity ofa color component of light detected at that point.

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Digital cameras

R G BB R GG B R

red

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Digital cameras

R G BB R GG B R

green

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Digital cameras

R G BB R GG B R

blue

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Digital images

two-dimensional arrays of pixels (picture elements) of varying color and intensity.

color model: how to specify the color of a pixel? RGB: colors can be represented by a numeric triple

specifying red (R), green (G), and blue (B) intensities. YCRCB (for digital images and video) CMY(K) (for printing)

Cyan (no red) Magenta (no green) Yellow (no blue) K — black ink

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Digital images

Compression A page-sized 24-bit color image with 300 pixels per inch

takes up about 20Mbytes. Lossless and lossy compression. Many different standards: JPEG, GIF (Graphic

Interchange Format), ...Example: run-length encoding.

Image transformation and processing. E.g., morphing (one image transforms into another).

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Graphics data are represented by a geometric model + a set of graphics operations.

Geometric model A collection of 2D/3D geometric primitives

(lines, circles, polygons, curves). Transformations: rotation, translation, scaling.

Graphics

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Graphics

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3D models

taken fromPlanetArchitecture

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Graphics operations Coloring, shading, lighting, and viewing.

ambient light (from all directions)point light (inverse square law)spot light (a cone-shaped volume)

Graphics

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Graphics

Texture mapping (applying an image onto a surface)

Renderingconverts a model + shading, lighting + viewing ... into

an image.

Animation Eye-catching Good for demonstration

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Graphics

taken fromACM ComputerGraphics ‘97

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Graphics

taken fromPlanetArchitecture

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Analog video

A sequence of images called frames, “persistence of vision”.

Originally, motion pictures are shown at an (insufficient) frame rate of 16fps.

It was found that for smooth motion, 24fps is needed.

Attributes: frame rate, resolution, aspect ratio, interlacing, refresh rate

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Analog video

Formats. e.g., NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) PAL (Phase Alternation Line).

format frame rate scan lines aspect ratioNTSC 30 525 4:3PAL 25 625 4:3HDTV(US) 30 1125 16:9HDTV(EURO) 25 1250 16:9

MUSE(Japan) 30 1125 16:9

picturewidth topictureheight

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Analog video

Theoretically, most color can be produced by mixing 3 primary colors (red, green, blue). An analog video camera produces 3 distinct continuous signals, one for each color component.

black

white

horizontalblanking

scan linesignal

white

black…

vertical blanking

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Analog video

A video signal is applied to a TV (a CRT) to control the power of an electron beam that strikes on the phosphors on the inside of the CRT surface.

With the 625/50 system (PAL), for example, a frame is displayed every 1/25 seconds.

Unfortunately, the phosphors do not stay lit that long flickering

To prevent flicker, the picture has to be refreshed at least 50 times per second.

Interlacing: a frame is divided into 2 fields: odd-lines and even-lines, a field is displayed every 1/50 seconds.

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Analog video

time0 1/25

frame 1 frame 2

1/50

progressive

interlaced

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Analog video

Luminance/chrominance principle: the three primary colors can be converted into 2 parts: Luminance: information on the lightness of the image. Chrominance: information on the color of the image.

Because the human eye is not very sensitive to color information, the bandwidth of these 2 color components is reduced before transmission.

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Analog video

Video storage video tape e.g., VHS tape

about 240 scan lines resolution problem: loss of quality when copying and repeated

playback due to stretches and magnetic material wearing off.

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Digital video

A video can also be represented by a sequence of digital images.

broadcast quality video (uncompressed): 1 sec > 20 MB

For lesser quality, and a good compression technique, it is possible to achieve:

1 sec = 1.2 Mb transfer rate of (single-speed) CD-ROM VCD

Data rate of a DVD movie is about 2GB/hr. Compression: lossless and lossy.

B – byteb – bit

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Digital video

For lossy compression, we can achieve a 50:1 or higher compression ratio.

MPEG: The Moving Pictures Expert Group MPEG-1: 1.5Mbps VHS quality video MPEG-2: 4-10 Mbps (digital TV) MPEG-4: a system which allows a scene structure to be

composed of multiple different objects (video, audio, natural, synthetic)

MPEG-7: multimedia information retrieval

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Digital video formats

CCIR 601(4:2:2 chromatic subsampling) for video exchange 525/60 system: 720 x 480 (take 720 samples from each active scan

line) 625/50 system: 720 x 576

4:2:0 for video broadcast

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Digital video formats

SIF for storage 525/60 system: 360 x 240 625/50 system: 360 x 288 4:1:1 chromatic subsampling

CIF for video conferencing 360 x 288 at 30 fps using 4:1:1 chromatic subsampling

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Digital audio

Digital audio representation produced by sampling a continuous signal generated by a

sound source a process called analog-to-digital conversion (ADC)

Sampling frequency Human ear is sensitive to frequencies of up to about 20kHz

(c.f., rat: 1k – 10k Hz; cat: 100 – 60k Hz) Sampling frequency > 40kHz

audio-CD 44.1kHz, 16 bits per sample ( 96dB max. SNR) DVD audio 196kHz (max), 24 bits per sample (max) (Q: what is the throughput requirement?)

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Digital audio

Number of channels 2 for stereo some audio editing equipment may have 16 or 32

channels Storage

An hour of high quality stereo digital audio requires > 500MBytes of storage.

A CD-ROM can store about 650MBytes of data. A CD-DA can store about 74 minutes of audio data.

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Music

MIDI -- Musical Instrument Digital Interface Digital musical instruments send MIDI messages to a

sequencer. The sequencer composes the music according to the

messages received. The sequencer/synthesizer has a “palette” of sounds for

each type of instrument

MIDI sequencer

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Challenges

Multimedia stresses all components of a computer system (data volume & time constraints)

CPU processing power fast speed for data capturing, CODEC, data enhancement large amounts of data being processed in real-time

Storage and Memory high capacity, fast access time, high transfer rates

System architecture high bus bandwidth, efficient I/O

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Challenges

Software tools for retrieval and data management of continuous

media data

Operating systems support for new data types, real-time scheduling,

multimedia file systems, time-critical synchronization

Networks high bandwidth, low latency, low jitter

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Research areas

1. fast processors

2. high-speed networks

3. large capacity storage devices

4. video & audio compression algorithms

5. graphics systems

6. human-computer interfaces

7. real-time operating systems

8. information storage and retrieval

9. hypertext & hypermedia

10. languages for scripting

11. parallel processing methods

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Compression

Throughput and storage “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth

414 million (4-byte) words per minute,” Benny said.(or 25GBytes/hr !!!!)

What are the requirements on network data transfer rate? On disk I/O?

Compression makes it possible. 50:1 yields 0.5 GB/hr. 200:1 for HDTV. How expensive is the processing? Hardware solution?

Software solution?

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Compression

MM systems require data compression for 3 reasons: the large storage requirements of MM data. relatively slow storage devices that cannot play

MM data in real time network bandwidth that does not allow real-time

video data transmission

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Some compression standardsJPEG Digital

compression andcoding ofcontinuous-tonestill images

JointPhotographicExperts Group

15:1 (full color still-frame applications)

H.261 Videocoder/decoder foraudio-visualservices at p*64Kbps

SpecialistGroup onCoding forVisualTelephony

100:1 to 2000:1 (video-basedtelecommunications)

MPEG Coding of movingpictures andassociated audio

MovingPicturesExperts Group

200:1 Motion-intensiveapplications

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Multimedia networking

Many multimedia applications, such as video mail, video conferencing, and video-on-demand, require the support of a high performance network system.

In these applications, the multimedia objects are stored at a server and played back at the clients’ sites.

Remote retrieval of multimedia objects has stringent time constraints.

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Multimedia networking

Delay: the amount of time it takes to transmit a data unit (e.g., a video frame) from a sender to a receiver.

Jitter: delay variation.

source destination

delay

jitter

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Multimedia networking

Characteristics Data Transfer Multimedia transfer

Data rate Low High

Traffic pattern Bursty Stream-oriented

Reliabilityrequirements

No loss Some loss

Latencyrequirements

None Low, e.g., 20 ms

Mode ofcommunication

Point-to-point Multipoint

Temporalrelationship

None Synchronizedtransmission

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Multimedia information retrieval

To retrieve a text document from the Web, we use keyword search via “Alta Vista”, for example.

To retrieve a record from a relational database, such as Oracle, we use an SQL statement.

How shall we formulate a query to retrieve pictures?

What about audio? How do we describe a sound? How do we describe a song?

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Multimedia software tools

Music sequencing Cakewalk

supports general MIDIprovides several editing views (staff, piano roll, event

list) and Virtual Piano

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Multimedia software tools

Image and video editing Adobe Photoshop

allows layering of images, graphics and text includes many graphics drawing and painting tools sophisticated lighting effects, various image processing filters

Adobe Premiere provides many video and audio tracks, superimposition and

virtual clips supports various transitions, filters and motions for video clips a reasonable desktop video editing tool

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Multimedia software tools

Multimedia authoring Microsoft Power Point

building slide show sequence slides include objects of different media, e.g., sound and video limited animation ability

Macromedia Director, Flash Movie metaphor (cast of bitmapped sprites, scripts, music,

sound, and palettes) Lingo script language allows more control of the presentation

sequence. Control of devices, e.g., VCRs and disk players. ready for building interactivities using buttons, etc.