Multimedia Authoring

This page is a developing tutorial on how to place images and other multimedia resources into World Wide Web documents. For now it contains some background reading, a review of major design issues, examples of web multimedia print, audio and video and links to multimedia tools and resources.

To begin with, read Multimedia Directions, an introductory essay to the concepts and directions of networked multimedia computer systems.

Multimedia Examples

One way to begin to understand the multimedia potential of the web is to examine the work that has been completed by others. The links below will head you in the right direction. When you have explored at least one site in the topics of image, sound and video, you may be ready to work on your own designs that incorporate multimedia. Click on multimedia design, to examine a number of issues in designing Web pages with multimedia.

To avoid any and all issues of copyright, where ever possible, shoot or produce your own images. To learn how to do this, see Digitizing Images from Videotape or a camcorder. This link takes you through the process of using the Video Monitor software that comes with each PowerMac AV or Quadra AV computer.

Experiments with Multimedia

The example of an inline image of Antarctica above comes from the Multimedia Exposition site, located in Holland. Or you might explore the Ms. Metaverse contest, with a $10,000 grant prize. Another multimedia expression is the Grateful Dead home page and Grateful Dead Almanac. Most of today's web sites take multimedia no further than analogs of today's magazines. That is, they mix text and images or graphics.

Web Journal/Magazines

Click here for a list of online magazines that exploit this web capability and resources for mixing text and image.

Image Archives

Brad Brace's Photos, an FTP site of over 5,000 originals in JPEG or GIF formats.

For other examples of inline art that can be copied and inserted into web pages, explore a great graphics site for borders and icons. Another strong icon site is Icons.

Scanning is an excellent way to produce images that can be used in Web pages. Scanning FAQs, covers a wide range of topics for producing better scans whether the end results are intended for the Web or not.

Desktop Publishing

Desktop publishing represents the beginning of multimedia development on the computer, even if it was only the merging of images and text for a printer. These sites still represent excellent sources of clipart images. The Internet DTP Jumplist, covers three major areas: desktop publishing issues; graphics and clip art; and fonts and typography.

Inline Image Tricks

Remember that you must always determine the copyright status of an image before you use it. Assuming that you have resolved that issue to your satisfaction, the comand to Save Next Link As... does not retrieve inline images. To do so, turn to the source code for the file that uses the inline image of interest. Find the line in the source code that captures the relevant image. Rewrite that line. Strip out the code img src and insert in its place the A HREF="http://file address" code that will make this a direct link to the image. Then copy this line to the URL window at the top of your screen. Activate the Save Next Link As... command then press the return key, and it will ask you where to store your image!

Sound

For audio examples, listen to a Radio Show on Broadening Net Access, 12 minutes long, that I found on the FreeNet in Ontario, Canada. For further links to radio and audio activity, see my Web Radio. To stay current in audio developments, periodically search the Web search engines for these terms: radio, music, sound.

Video

For links to video development on the Web, try my Web TV page.

Copyright Notice - Dr. Robert S. Houghton, Copyright, 1994.

Thank you for accessing this server. You are encouraged to make links from this server to your Web browser. These are copyrighted expressions. Copying of this server's files for use in any media is not given without my formal written approval. If you wish to have copies of any files from this server and run them on your own server, you must have my express written permission to do so. Permission to do so will depend in turn on the degree of my access to your server's log. My research requires that I document the frequency of access to these ideas and the pattern of this access and that I collect feedback from users. Further, this copyright notice must be readily visible or available. I am willing to work with you to modify this model's files to meet local needs and use local resources. You can contact me at:

Houghton@wcuvax1.wcu.edu

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