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Lesson

Digital multimedia is any form of media content that is encoded in digital format.  It includes, but is not limited to, text, audio, video, animation, images, and graphics (technical and illustration).  It can be on a computer hard drive, on CD-ROM, DVD, on the internet, or any other digital storage and transport medium.  It can be be delivered in broadcast format as digital video in MPEG-2 format over digital cable or satellite

Web-based digital media can be in the form of web files, files that need to be downloaded before they can be opened (for example, avi or mpg file), and as streaming media (for example, Real Player, QuickTime, and Media Player formats).

This lesson will take a closer look at

  • digital animation
  • digital video
  • digital audio
  • media players

The latter two, in particular, are widely available to, and simple to use, for even the most neophyte computer user.  Each has an often bewildering array of hardware, software, and encoding and compression formats available. 

Digital Animation

When you think of animation, Disney style cartoons often come to mind.  Animation is, however, much more varied than that, and has become embedded in the process and product of almost all video and movie making.  Just as photo editing programs have become a mainstay of the publishing industry (for print and the web), animation has become a mainstay of the special effects process for TV and movies. 

Traditionally, animation was meant to be seen as animation.  It was not confused with the 'real thing'.  Similarly, special effects were intended to be seen as the 'real thing', a feat at which they often failed miserably.   Enter digital animation.  Digital animation has become so sophisticated that many viewers find it impossible to separate the real from the fantasy.  It is used in everything from advertising to movies. 

Forms of animation include

  • Cel animation.  Each cel of an animation is drawn and painted separately.  Traditionally done on a light table, cels were drawn on acetate.  By layering them one atop the other, it was possible to draw them so that things were in alignment.  The appearance of smooth motion is then created when they were 'flipped' - one cel per frame - in a movie at 24 frames per second.  Most cel animations are now done in software.
  • Stop-motion animation.  Stop motion animation is done by creating 3-D physical models.  Claymation is a form of stop motion.  The models are put in a pose, a single frame of film or video taken, the pose modified, a new frame taken and so on.  For video there are 30 frames per second.  For film there are 24 frames per second.  Stop motion animation using physical models is now typically recorded digitally.  In addition, software allows the creation of 3-D virtual worlds with full digital manipulation of all objects.  Physical models may still be built, but they are digitized so that they can be reproduced in the 3-D digital world.  Objects in the virtual world can be manipulated more precisely and much more quickly than in the real world
  • Morphing.  Morphing is a purely digital animation process. Initially developed as a means of manipulating two dimensional images, the process can now be applied to 3-D digital objects and to digital movies.  Morphing uses two versions of an image, a starting and ending point, and calculates a number of in-between images.  The process is often referred to as tweening.  this technique is also available in cel-animation software as a means of reducing the number of cels the animator needs to draw.

Combining these modes of digital animation with real, physical objects allows the film or video maker to produce effects indistinguishable from the 'real thing'.

Animation Software

  • Cel animation software usually includes a number of features, as illustrated in this ad for DigiCel Flipbook.  Web Painter is a less expensive cel animation program that still has a lot of features. Corel Photo Paint supports cel animation in the form of animated gifs.  Most cel animation software have morphing tools for generating cel tweens.  Professional cel animation software such as Toon Boom Studio is designed to closely parallel the processes of traditional cel animation.  In fact, the first stage is still hand done as pencil drawings, then scanned into the computer and converted to the second stage call pen drawings before being coloured and animated.
  • Stop motion software has tools for capturing single frames to the computer and for animating them.  Software includes Stop Motion Pro and the free Anasazi Stop Motion Animator.  For a long list of stop motion software and related information, check dmoz.org
  • Morphing software also includes tools used for modifying photos.  Morpheus and is a photo morphing tool.  Morphman 4.0 also morphs video. 
  • General purpose software that incorporates animation features and tools include Corel R.A.V.E (bundled with Corel Draw 10 and 11) and Macromedia Flash. These applications are difficult to classify because they provide a wide range of features.  Flash, in particular, allows development of entire multimedia applications and is an extremely popular tool for developing web-based multimedia.

Digital Video

Digital video is encoded in a number of formats

  • Widows Media formats .asf., .wmv, and .avi
  • QuickTime formats .mov, .qt
  • Real Media format .rm
  • MPEG formats are used by many video players
    • mpeg-1, used for VCD;
    • mpeg-2, used for DVD and digital satellite/cable;
    • mpeg-4, used for Divx.

Computer-based digital video can be generated  in a number of ways.  All require hardware and software. 

  • digitizing, or video capture
  • digital video transfer from digital video tape
  • direct digital video from an attached digital camera (USB or FireWire)
  • computer generated

Digitizing

Digitizing is the process of capturing recorded film or live or recorded analog video to the computer.  An analog-to-digital converter connects the analog video device to the computer. As the video is played, the ADC converts the analog signal to a digital signal, which is recorded on the hard drive.  Film needs to be projected into a device that converts it to video before it is digitized. 

Hardware tools consist of internal cards and/or external devices.  They have a combination of connectors, but most include audio, composite video and s-video.  Some also include TV tuners.  Many video cards manufacturers produce video capture cards, including two Canadian companies ATI (the All-in-Wonder series) and Matrox (the G450TV).   Dazzle makes a number of external USB (Universal Serial Bus) plug-in, video capture devices. Check Safe Harbour for comparisons of a wide variety of video capture devices.  Some of these devices also have video out (they have a DAC), usually in the form of composite video, but sometimes in the form of s-video.

Software tools usually come bundled with all capture devices.  Software typically provides functions to capture video from video tape and edit video on the computer (and audio).  Most software also supports transferring video back to video tape. 

Inexpensive, consumer equipment usually captures in lower video quality and fewer frames per second.  The resulting digital signal is fine for use on a computer, but is not high enough quality to send back to video tape.

Digital video transfer

Video can be recoded digitally on digital video camcorder or tape recorder.  Since the file is in digital format, it is only necessary to copy the file to the computer.  There are a number of consumer grade digital video camera formats

  • digital8 is a Sony format that uses 8mm and Hi8 recording tape
  • MiniDV (or just DV) is a format supported by many companies, that uses a 6.35mm tape
  • MicroMV is a Sony format using a very small tape

While the first two of these camcorders all record video encoded into a digital data stream on tape, the MicroMV format encodes the video into MPEG-2 format.  New formats include those that record directly to hard drive and others that record to DVD.

All digital cameras connect directly to computers equipped with a FireWire port for direct transfer of the video and audio to the computer.  Most also support writing back to the camera from the computer.

Digital video devices are controlled through the FireWire port directly from software on the computer.  Full control of tape transport and play/record/erase is supported.

Direct digital to the computer

The camera is connected directly to a computer or a hard drive and recorded live directly on the hard drive.  Methods include

  • a digital camera (commonly referred to as a web cam) connected directly to the USB port (or FireWire).   This usually provides lower quality video and is particularly suited to making video that will be used on the web.
  • a digital video camera connected directly to FireWire or USB.  This provides higher quality video and is suited to making near broadcast quality video.  For web use, the video is usually reduced in size and frame rate.
  • a standard analog camera is connected to a video capture device.  Video quality depends on the quality of the capture device.

All these methods tether the camera to the computer creating limitations to where and when it can be used.

Computer generated

Digital video can be created directly on the computer, either by using content production software, or by using screen capture software.  Content production software includes tools like Macromedia Flash, Corel R.A.V.E., animation software, and special effects software.

Screen capture software includes tools like Camtasia Studio, Hypercam, and SuperCapture Professional.  These tools, and others like them are used to record activity on the computer screen.  They allow recording of the entire screen or rectangular portions of the screen.  Recording frame rates can be set (for example 15 frames per second), colour depth (for example 16 bit), and size (for example 640 by 480).  The recording is usually in .avi format and can be edited in video editing software.  Some programs, such as Camtasia Studio, have their own non-lossy Codec for video capture.  Screen capture tools are used, for example, to create software demonstrations.

Editing Video

Editing video is a post-production process, that is, it occurs after the video has been recorded.  Editing digital video involves a variety of processes.  They can be loosely categorized as

  • collecting/acquiring the video clips
  • editing the video clips
  • adding titles
  • adding transitions
  • producing the finished video

A list of video editing software (most are also video capture/encoding tools) includes

  • Windows Media Encoder
  • Adobe Premiere,
  • Apple Final Cut Pro,
  • Avid DS, Avid Xpress DV, Avid Xpress, Avid Media Composer, Avid Symphony,
  • Canopus RexEdit, Canopus StormEdit,
  • DPS Velocity,
  • IMC Incite,
  • In-Sync Blade, In-Sync Speed Razor,
  • Media 100 i, Media 100 iFinish, Pinnacle EditionDV,
  • Pinnacle Liquid purple, Pinnacle Liquid silver, Pinnacle Liquid blue,
  • Ulead Media Studio Pro.

Digital Audio

There are a number of audio file formats.  Some are proprietary to a company and its hardware/software.  Some are widely used by all hardware/software.  The most common formats are

  • .wav is Microsoft's wave format, which is the most widely used Windows format.  It supports a number of encoding and compression techniques, although it is frequently used for uncompressed files because of the better audio quality
  • .aif, .aiff, .aifc  are Apple QuickTime formats
  • .ra, .ram  are Real Media audio formats
  • .wma is Microsoft's streaming audio format
  • .mp3 is the Motion Pictures Expert Group non-proprietary audio format

Audio can be encoded in a number of ways

  • as part of a video stream, using any of the video encoding tools
  • as a separate audio stream captured with an audio card with input from a microphone, or any other audio source

Software used for audio digitizing and editing includes

  • Microsoft's Sound Recorder (built into Windows)
  • Windows Media Encoder (free download from Microsoft)
  • Apple's QuickTime
  • Syntrillium Software's Cool Edit
  • Sonic Foundry's Sound forge
  • Blaze Audio's Wave Creator

Media Players

Media Players tend to be tuned for one particular form of media, but they often play others as well.  Each media player, when installed, tends to want to be the default player for the computer.  The default player is the one that opens when you download, or click on a file.  Most can be set as the player for specific formats. The major proprietary media players are

  • Microsoft's Windows Media Player
  • Apple's QuickTime Player
  • Real Media's RealOne

There are a number of other Media Players, including

  • Nullsoft's Winamp
  • Sonique Media Player
  • MusicMatch Media Player (audio only)
  • Macromedia's Flash Player (flash animations only)
  • Divx Media Player (divx, mpeg and avi formats)

Finally, players (or viewers) are available for many software applications, including all of Microsoft's programs, that allow you to view the file without owning the program used to create it.

Activity

Assigned Activities

Please complete each of the following

  • Review each section of the lesson and complete the following
    • select any animation topic (format, technique, software), plus select any video topic (format, technique, software), plus select any audio topic (format, technique, software)
    • research each topic and compile a profile
  • Create a suitable entry in your course portfolio and record the results
  • Publish the entry to your course portfolio web

Test Yourself

There is no self test for this lesson.