Sound – Audio files and
streams play a major role in some multimedia systems. Audio files appear as
part of application content and also to aid interaction. When they appear
within Web applications and sites, audio files sometimes need to be deployed
using plug-in media players. When developers include audio within a website,
they will generally use a compressed format to minimize on download times. Web
services can also stream audio, so that users can begin playback before the
entire file is downloaded.
Animation - Animated
components are common within both Web and desktop multimedia applications.
Animations can also include interactive effects, allowing users to engage with
the animation action using their mouse and keyboard. The most common tool for
creating animations on the Web is Adobe Flash, which also facilitates desktop
applications. Using Flash, developers can author FLV files, exporting them as
SWF movies for deployment to users. Flash also uses ActionScript code to
achieve animated and interactive effects.
Still
Images – Digital photographs can display application content or be used to form
part of a user interface. Interactive elements such as buttons often use custom images created by the designers and
developers involved in an application. Graphic
design software programs such as Photoshop allow developers to create visual
effects with digital images.
Moving Images - Digital video appears in many multimedia applications, particularly
on the Web. As with audio, websites can stream digital video to increase the
speed and availability of playback. Common digital video formats include Flash,
MPEG, AVI, WMV and QuickTime. Most digital video requires use of browser
plug-ins to play within Web pages, but in many cases the user's browser will
already have the required resources installed.
Text – Text is the most common type of media
type. Text can express specific information or act as reinforcement for the
information another media type presents.
My multimedia product will be a squad page
for Manchester United, including videos of highlights, stats for each player and
will include sounds in each of the videos. The purpose of the product is to
inform people about each of the players in the Manchester United first team and
introduce the younger or newer players in the team. This product will probably
have a young audience who are more interested in in learning about the team
than older fans, I would put the age of the audience at 12-18. The gender of the
audience will be predominantly male as they are more likely to be football fans
and also more interested in finding out about the players. They would've been brought up in a sporting background and are within the range of lower to middle
class.
It is important to use promotion and advertising in order for the
product to become more popular and therefore more successful this can be done
in the form of digital posters or adverts on different web pages. The objective
of the product is to allow people to become more familiar with the players in
the Manchester United team and the different types of multimedia will let this
happen. Text will be the most important as this will show the stats of the players,
still images will show people what the players look like which is also
important. The videos will show each player in action and therefore showing how
each member of the team plays. Animation will allow the transition between
pages to be easier and make the product more interactive for the user.
