Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.
Multimedia is usually recorded and played, displayed or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance. Multimedia (as an adjective) also describes electronic media devices used to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is distinguished from mixed media in fine; by including audio, for example, it has a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.
There are different types of Multimedia. Multimedia marketing is a marketing draw near with the aim of uses media other than the in black and white word to communicate a marketing message. Examples of multimedia formats include audio, capture on tape, and the function of photography or sideshows. Multimedia could be deployed in a variety of ways as well as both off-line and online. With the growth of the Internet, the function of multimedia as a marketing vehicle will go on with to grow by the side of an arithmetical rate. The record extensions commonly used to lay up multimedia documentation: MOV, MP4, FLV, M4A, 3GP, TORRENT, WMV, etc.
Besides that, multimedia finds its application in various areas including, advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, and scientific research. Multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use multimedia features. In the Arts, there are multimedia artists, whose minds are able to blend techniques using different media that in some way incorporates interaction with the viewer. In Education, they are useful for recorded or broadcast lectures, bringing in an expert speaker from a distant location, demonstrating processes that learners may not otherwise have the opportunity to see (such as a rare surgical technique), demonstrating techniques that learners will have to try themselves later (such as setting up laboratory equipment), recording students' performances to enable feedback and promote reflection, bringing the real world into the classroom. Multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses and reference books like encyclopaedia and almanacs. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment. Besides that, Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers.
In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, superiors and co-workers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technologies. In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.
Why use multimedia? Nowadays, video, audio and multimedia offer powerful means of communication. They are very good for showing what things look like, how they move and how they change, keeping an audience's interest, establishing personal contact, establishing the identity and academic credibility of a speaker, communicating the speaker's enthusiasm for the subject. Moving pictures are excellent for showing how things change or how something is done, for establishing a context for information (such as a landscape or a working environment) to make it easier for an audience to relate to what you are saying.
