STUDY GUIDE

CBMT2103 Introduction to Multimedia Technology

Week 5
Lesson 5: Multimedia Building Blocks (Using Sound)
Readings
Dhiraj Sharma. (2009). Multimedia and Its Applications. India: Bharathiar University.
Tay Vaughan (2004). Multimedia: Making it Work. 6th Edition. New York: Osborne/
McGraw-Hill.
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Study notes
5.1 Introduction
As mentioned in Lesson 3, sound is another multimedia building block and it
plays an important role.

5.2 Sound and Multimedia

Sound is represented in waveform, that has amplitude, frequency and pitch.
Digital sound representation converts analogue waveforms using sampling
method into a series of number.
5.2.1 Sampling Rate
Refers to the number of times per second the audio signal is measured.
It has direct effect on sound quality. Eg. CD sound is sampled at 44.1
kHz (kilo Hertz), DAT (digital audio tape) supports 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz,
while the 24 bit signals supports 96 and 192 kHz.
5.2.2 Sound Capturing and Delivery
Audio signal that is originally in analogue waveform is captured using a
microphone and later edited. Common audio file formats are .WAV,
.MP3 and .WMA.

5.3

Audio Manipulation Techniques

Digital media deals with digital data. Sometimes, audio data needs to be
processed. One of the processes is called trimming this is the process of
removing blank space from the front of a sound recording.
However, digital signal from computer needs to be converted to analog for
transmission through speakers.

5.4

Types of Sound/Audio Files

5.4.1 MIDI Files
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard connection for
computers and electronic music instruments. It has the advantage of
smaller file size as compared to other digital audio.

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STUDY GUIDE

CBMT2103 Introduction to Multimedia Technology

5.4.2 Digital Sound

Digital sound represents waveforms as a series of samples represented
by binary numbers. Sampling rate influences the quality of digital audio
the greater the sampling rate, the closer the digital audio is to the
original analogue form (but the larger file size).

5.5

Management of Audio Files in Multimedia Projects

Technology advancement and the future of each multimedia technology
5.5.1 Streaming
Streaming allows video or audio files to be loaded and played frames by
frames through the internet. As the frames are loaded, some are being
played and some are loaded. Earlier frames are discarded from
memory. User gets the impression that the whole file was loaded but
in fact only few frames are retained in memory at one time.
5.5.2 Major Audio File Formats
These are some of the common audio file formats: Advanced Audio
Coding(.aac, .m4a), Compact Disc Audio, Digital Audio Compression,
MPEG-1 Layer-3 (.mp3), Real Audio (.ra, .rm, .ram), etc.

5.6

Summary
We have seen various aspects on sound in this lesson.

Study questions
1.

Discuss the effect(s) these factors have on the development of multimedia

technology:
(a)

Price

(b)

MMX technology

(c)

DVD technology

(d)

Erasable CD

(e)

Internet

(f)

Increased computer usage

2.

Discuss the challenges and the future of multimedia technology.

3.

Add study questions here

4.

Add study questions here

Glossary of important terms

1.

Virtual environment persekitaran maya.

2.

Operating system sistem pengoperasian.

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