Multimedia: images, audio, video, animation

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. A cricket highlights video has pictures, commentary, moving action and a score on screen. How does one file hold all of that? Today we will learn multimedia and its elements: text, images, audio, video and animation.

Let us start with the word itself. Multi means many, and media means the ways we share information, like words, pictures and sound. So multimedia means using two or more of these media together. We usually see it on a computer, a tablet or a mobile phone.

Multimedia is built from five elements. Text is written words, like a news headline. An image is a still picture, like your class photo. Audio is any sound, like the school bell. Video is recorded moving pictures, like a cricket match clip. Animation is movement made from drawings, like a cartoon.

Let us look closely at text, the first element. A clear font and a good size make text easy to read. Use short text for labels, titles and headings, not long paragraphs. And keep the colour different from the background, so the words stand out.

Multimedia is used almost everywhere. In education, smart classes and online lessons use videos and animations. In entertainment, films, games and music apps are full of multimedia. In business, companies make advertisements and presentations. At railway stations and airports, screens show train times with text and sound announcements.

Multimedia can be of two types. Linear multimedia plays from start to end, and the viewer cannot change the order. Non-linear multimedia is interactive, which means the user clicks or taps to choose what comes next. A film in a cinema hall is linear, but a quiz game on your phone is non-linear.

Now let us study each element, starting with images. An image is a still picture, like a photo or a drawing. On a screen, it is made of tiny coloured dots. Each dot is called a pixel, which is short for picture element. The more pixels an image has, the sharper it looks. Common image file formats are jay peg, P N G and gif.

Each image format has its own use. Jay peg is best for photos, because it keeps the file size small. P N G is good for logos and screenshots, because edges stay sharp and clear. A gif can hold a short, simple animation, but it uses only a small number of colours.

The next element is audio, which means sound. Audio can be speech, music or sound effects, like a doorbell. We record audio with a microphone and hear it through speakers or earphones. Two common audio formats are M P three and wave. An M P three file is small because it is compressed, which means squeezed. A wave file keeps full quality but is much bigger.

The third element is video. A video is really many still pictures shown very quickly, one after another. Each of these pictures is called a frame. When about twenty four to thirty frames are shown every second, our eyes see smooth movement. Common video formats are M P four and A vee eye, and M P four is the one most phones use.

The fourth element is animation. Animation makes drawings or computer models look as if they are moving. Two D animation uses flat drawings, like most television cartoons. Three D animation uses models with length, width and depth, like big animated films. Animation is used in games, cartoons, and in lessons that show how the heart pumps blood.

Students often mix up video and animation, so let us compare them. A video is recorded with a camera, while an animation is made from drawings or computer models. A video shows the real world, while an animation can show imagined things, or things we cannot film, like atoms. A match clip is a video, and a cartoon is an animation.

Pause and predict. A science app shows a moving diagram of the water cycle, with a voice explaining each step and labels on screen. Which elements are used? It uses animation, audio and text. Since it mixes more than two media, it is multimedia.

Let us revise what we learned today. Multimedia means using two or more media together. Its elements are text, images, audio, video and animation. Jay peg, P N G and gif are image formats, while M P three and wave are audio formats. A video is many frames shown fast, and M P four is a common format. Animation makes drawings or models appear to move.