Category: 
Effectively developing and delivering multimedia applications requires a more powerful personal computer than one used to write a letter, prepare a budget, or answer e-mail. Because personal computers are becoming more and more powerful, most of those purchased today have built-in multimedia capabilities that allow you to deliver and display multimedia applications. However, if creation of high-end multimedia applications is your goal, you will definitely want to consider certain specifications that have been established specifically for multimedia.
|
|
| From pernak-pernik |
With the right adapters, software, and hardware, camcorders and digital video cameras can be used to capture full-motion images. Although regular camcorders store video on film, digital video cameras store images as digital data. This enables the digital images to be transferred directly into the product being created. Digital video cameras range in price from under a hundred dollars for small desktop cameras like the Connectix QuickCam, to thousands of dollars for higher-end equipment.
Digital video cameras offer an inexpensive means of getting images into your computer, however, you should be aware that the resolution is often quite low and the color is sometimes questionable.
 |
| From pernak-pernik |
Digital cameras allow you to take pictures just as you would with a regular camera, but without film developing and processing. Unlike regular cameras, photographs are not stored on film but are instead stored in a digital format on magnetic disk or internal memory. The photographs can be immediately recognized by the computer and added to any multimedia product.
 |
| From pernak-pernik |
Scanners digitize already developed images including photographs, drawings, pages of text. By converting these images to a digital format, they can be interpreted and recognized by the microprocessor of the computer. A better way of scanning larger images is to use a page or flatbed scanner. These scanners look like small photocopiers. Page scanners are either gray-scale scanners that work well with black-and-white photographs or color scanners that can record millions of colors.
A graphics tablet is similar to a digitizing tablet, however, it contains additional characters and commands. Like the digitizing tablet, each location on the graphics tablet corresponds to a specific location on the screen.
 |
| From pernak-pernik |
As is true with most equipment, all microphones are not created equal. If you are planning to use a microphone for input, you will want to purchase a superior, high-quality microphone because your recordings will depend on its quality.
Next to the original sound, the microphone is the most important factor in any sound system. The microphone is designed to pick up and amplify incoming acoustic waves or harmonics precisely and correctly and convert them to electrical signals. Depending on its sensitivity, the microphone will pick up the sound of someone’s voice, sound from a musical instrument, and any other sound that comes to it. Regardless of the quality of the other audio-system components, the true attributes of the original sound are forever lost if the microphone does not capture them,
Macintosh computers come with a built-in microphone, and more and more PCs that include Sound Blaster sound cards also include a microphone. These microphones are generally adequate for medium-quality sound recording of voiceover’s and narration. These microphones are not adequate for recording music
