Fundamentally, multimedia is a mixture of digital or computer-based images, text, audio, video, and animation that can take many forms. Here, we will cover the basic technical concepts that are essential to understanding multimedia and how it works.
The media elements used in multimedia projects need to be digital (computer-ready) or digitized (converted into a digital format) to be used on a computer. The word digital stems from the term binary digits or bits, which is a combination of the two words. These binary or double digits pertain to the value of zeros (0s) and ones (1s) that make up all computer data.
Inside every computer are electronic components that are triggered either by preset commands (what your operating system tells your computer to do) or by input commands (what you are telling your computer to do when you click something or type on the keyboard). The presence of a 0 indicates when the electrical switch is off, and 1 means it is on.
Bits are also related to units of memory, whereby information is stored in a computer. Computing memory has many bits, which are organized into groups of eight, called bytes (a byte is 8 consecutive bits). Units include kilobytes (1KB = 1,024 bytes), megabytes (1MB = 1,024 kilobytes), and so on. For instance, a single text character is 1 byte, so the letter A is represented in computer storage (or memory) as the following eight binary digits: 01000001. Table 1-2 shows the approximate file size required for various multimedia elements.
So, the pictures, text, and sounds used in multimedia are essentially just a bunch of numerical digits. Depending on the combination of electronic switches and quantity of 0s and 1s, the results are unlimited as long as there is enough memory to handle all the multimedia components. When referring to memory in relation to computers, two types are available: active memory, called random-access memory (RAM), and memory needed for the software that starts up the computer, called read-only memory (ROM). Computers also have internal storage, which is required to save programs and
files on the hard drive. Computers are manufactured with memory chips installed, and more can be added to accommodate an increase in software and data requirements.
