Multimedia is something people can see, hear, touch, and read on websites, radio, television, video games, phone applications, retail stores, cinema halls, and ATMs. Multimedia can be defined as a combination of pictures, text, sound, video, and animation. In simple terms, multimedia is the combination of more than one medium.
Multimedia is the medium that provides information to the users in the form of text, audio, video, animation, and graphics. The information is delivered to the users by digital or electronic means. When a user is allowed to control the elements of multimedia then it becomes interactive multimedia. Interactive multimedia is called hypermedia when the user is given the structure of linked elements to control it.
Multimedia is a mixture of different forms of media. This includes text, graphics, audio, video, etc. Today, multimedia is found everywhere in educational institutes, offices, airports, railway stations, journalism, creative and entertainment industries such as TV, films, radio, etc., medicine, IT industry, research, and the internet. The kinds of media components and how they are used in a multimedia program matter a lot.
Multimedia provides important information in an interactive way with the usage of images, graphics, animation, video, and audio. For this reason, it is gaining popularity as a powerful educational tool. A PowerPoint presentation involving text and graphics is a multimedia presentation.
Multimedia as the name suggests is the combination of Multi and Media that is many types of media (hardware/software) used for the communication of information.
Combining Content from Various Media
There are various components that makeup multimedia production. In a program, more than one media element is necessary to call it multimedia. Some examples of media are given below:
• Text and typography
• Colored, pictorial or graphical backgrounds
• Images and graphics such as photographs, illustrations, cartoons, diagrams, shapes arrows, lines, etc.
• 2D and 3D animation
• Audio files such as a song, sound effects, music, etc.
• Video files such as a short movie clip, advertisement, etc.
• Buttons and menu for easy navigation in a program