Chapter 6:
Digital Media for
Work and Leisure
Succeeding with Technology:
Second Edition
Objectives
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Understand the uses of digital audio and today’s
digital music technologies
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Describe the many uses of 2D and 3D digital
graphics and the technologies behind them
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Explain the technologies available to acquire, edit,
distribute, and print digital photos, and list new
advances in video technologies and distribution
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Discuss how interactive media is used to educate
and entertain
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Digital Music and Audio
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Digital audio
 Any type of sound recorded and stored digitally as
a series of 1s and 0s
Digital music
 Subcategory of digital audio that involves recording
and storing music
Digitization of music and audio
 Has created new challenges to the creative and
intellectual property rights of artists
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Digitizing Music and Audio
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Sound
 The displacement of air particles caused by
vibration and sensed by the eardrum
Analog
 Signals that vary continuously
Sampling
 Used to encode sound wave as binary numbers
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Digital Sound for Professionals
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Digital voice recorders
 Used to capture dialog for future reference
Digital sound in scientific research
 Have used digital audio to study various natural
phenomena
Digital sound in law enforcement
 Uses digital processing to denoise, enhance, edit,
and detect sounds
Digital sound in entertainment and communication
 Uses a wide variety of audio hardware and software
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Digital Music and Audio Production
– Professional Music Production
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Multitrack recording devices
 Treat each instrument or microphone as a separate
input, or track
Synthesizer
 Electronically produces sounds designed to be
similar to the sounds of real instruments
Sampler
 Digitally records real musical instrument sounds
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Digital Music and Audio Production
(continued)
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Sequencer
 Allows musicians to create multitrack recordings
Musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) protocol
 Implemented in 1983
 Provides a standard language for digital music
devices to use in communicating with each other
Integrated digital studios
 Package many digital recording devices in one unit
for convenient home recording
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Digital Music and Audio Formats,
Storage Media, Players, and Software
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Digital music and audio file formats
 Most often distributed on CDs
 Increasing trend towards distribution over Internet
Digital music and audio storage media
 Burned to CD in special format designed for audio
CDs
Digital music, audio players, and software
 Media player software (iTunes)
 Portable MP3 players
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Digital Music and Audio
Distribution
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Illegal downloading and copying
 Said to have cost music industry $6 billion between
1998 and 2003
 Caused a loss of 22 percent of the entire music
market
Apple’s iTunes
 First service to capture attention of music
downloaders
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Digital Music and Audio
Distribution (continued)
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Big four online music services
 iTunes, MSN Music, Napster, and Rhapsody
Streaming audio
 Internet technology that plays audio files as they are
being delivered
Digital rights management (DRM)
 Technology invented to protect intellectual property
in digital files
Satellite radio
 Digital radio that uses satellite communications
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Digital Graphics
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Computer-based media applications that support
 Creating, editing, and viewing 2D and 3D images
and animation
Not the exclusive domain of artists
Artistic and nonartistic people
 Are finding themselves called upon or inspired to
create digital artwork
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Digitizing Graphics
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Pixels
 A grid of small points
Bit-mapped graphics or raster graphics
 Representing an image using bytes
 Ideal for representing photorealistic images
Pixilation or fuzziness
 Occurs when bit-mapped images are made larger
than the size at which they are captured
Vector graphics
 Use bytes to store geometric descriptions
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Graphics File Formats
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Standards
 Windows bitmap (.bmp)
 Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
 Joint Photographic Experts Group (.jpg or .jpeg)
 Portable Network Graphics (.png)
 Tagged Image File Format (.tiff or .tif)
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Graphics File Formats (continued)
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Lossless compression
 Allows the original data to be reconstructed without
loss
Lossy compression
 Accepts some loss of data to achieve higher rates of
compression
File sizes and image quality
 Can be controlled by adjusting the color depth
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Uses of Digital Graphics
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Digital art
 Uses computer software as the brush and the
computer display as the canvas
Scientific visualization
 Uses computer graphics to provide visual
representations that improve our understanding of
some phenomenon
Computer-assisted design (CAD) software
 Assists designers, engineers, and architects in
designing three dimensional objects
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Vector Graphics Software
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Provides tools to create, arrange, and layer
graphical objects on the screen
Vector graphics
 Uses object-oriented approach that recognizes
pictures as being made up of layers of multiple
objects
Primary benefit of object-oriented approach of vector
graphics
 Objects in the picture can be manipulated
independently
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Three-Dimensional Modeling
Software
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3D modeling software
 Provides graphics tools that allow artists to create
pictures of realistic 3D models
Three-dimensional modeling
 Takes the object oriented approach of vector
graphics to the next level
Ray tracing
 Three-dimensional modeling
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Computer Animation
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Digital graphics animation
 Involves displaying digital images in rapid
succession to provide the illusion of motion
Animated graphics
 Employ either 2D or 3D objects
Animated GIF
 The most basic form of animation
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Digital Photography and Video –
Digital Photography
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Digital photos
 Created, or acquired, using a digital camera
Digital cameras
 Ranked by the amount of megapixels they can
capture
Memory cards that come with digital cameras
 Often have limited capacity
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Digital Photography (continued)
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Photo-editing software allows you to
 Alter the hue and saturation of the colors in the
photograph
 Smooth surfaces or remove flaws in surfaces.
 Remove “red eye”
 Smooth edges and sharpen focus
 Crop and realign photos
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Digital Video
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Is becoming increasingly accessible for personal
enjoyment as well as professional use
Used to review the movement of athletes and
determine how to perfect their abilities
Used to study pedestrian and traffic patterns
Forensic graphics
 Used to create animations and exhibits to use in
courts of law
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Digital Video (continued)
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Video-editing software
 Allows professional and amateur videographers to
edit bad footage out and rearrange the good footage
Storyline
 Allows videographer to arrange video scenes
sequentially and
 Specify the transition effects between each scene
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Interactive Media
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Digital media presentations that involve user
interaction for education, training, or entertainment
Typically combines digital audio and digital video for
a full digital media experience
Virtual reality
 Occurs when interactive media incorporates 3D
graphic animation
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Education and Training
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Interactive media is being used in many education
environments
 In the traditional classroom setting
 In distance learning
 In museums
 In skills training
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Commercial Applications of
Interactive Media
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Role of interactive media
 In Web-based e-commerce
 Provides fundamental technology for 3D product
viewing
 Used to provide product support and customer
training
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Interactive Video Games
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Video game consoles
 High-powered multiprocessor computers designed
to support 3D interactive multimedia
Video game development requires a team effort
from specialists in a variety of areas
 Game designers
 Artists, sound designers
 Programmers, and testers
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Interactive TV
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A digital television service that includes one or more
of the following
 Video on demand
 Personal video recorder
 Local information on TV
 Purchase over TV
 Internet access over TV
 Video games over TV
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Summary
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Digital audio
 Includes both digital music and digital sound
Sound wave
 Can be represented with numbers, digitally, through
a process called analog-to digital conversion (ADC)
Digital graphics
 Computer-based media applications that support
 Creating, editing, and viewing 2D and 3D images
and animation
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Summary (continued)
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Digital photos
 Acquired from a digital camera or scanner
Photo-editing software
 Provides editing tools for manipulating, enhancing,
and repairing digital photographs
Interactive media
 Multimedia presentations that involve user
interaction for education, training, or entertainment
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