http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Multimedia A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Multimedia in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Multimedia http://tc.eserver.org/35766.html http://tc.eserver.org/35766.html Recently I looked at how Adobe is reworking Flash in preparation for the coming battle with Microsoft over the Rich Internet Application (RIA) space and, with it, the likely future of computer-based design. In this article we finally get to see just what forces Microsoft has assembled – and its three staged launches at the MIX 07 conference in Las Vegas effectively amounted to a declaration of all-out war. http://tc.eserver.org/35768.html http://tc.eserver.org/35768.html Windows Presentation Foundation is a cross-browser cross-platform cross-device implementation of .NET for building and delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/35568.html http://tc.eserver.org/35568.html Adobe AIR has grown immensely popular over the past months. With its popularity, many new applications have been released. During this period, the following 10 issues have been the mistakes I have seen most often among developers. Hopefully, this list can help you avoid the same mistakes when building your next AIR application. http://tc.eserver.org/35569.html http://tc.eserver.org/35569.html I get to see and play with a lot of really cool AIR applications (even when they’re still being developed). Every now and then I come across an app that totally ignores any best practices or usability rules. AIR provides developers with a lot of features that could potentially annoy users if not used wisely. I thought it was a good idea to write this article. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these features, I just want you to think about them before you add them to your application. http://tc.eserver.org/35262.html http://tc.eserver.org/35262.html This article will demonstrate how the notion of ‘phatic communion’ has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices. Through a consideration of the new media objects of blogs, social networking profiles and microblogs, along with their associated practices, I will argue, that the social contexts of ‘individualization’ and ‘network sociality’, alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and ‘connected presence’ has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications. That is, communications which have purely social (networking) and not informational or dialogic intents. I conclude with a discussion of the potential nihilistic consequences of such a culture. http://tc.eserver.org/35084.html http://tc.eserver.org/35084.html New media should be accessible to everyone, not just marketing, public relations and web professionals. Here, I aim to help all people navigate the new media landscape. http://tc.eserver.org/34673.html http://tc.eserver.org/34673.html The 'video' element is brand new in HTML 5 and allows you to, get this, play a movie in your website! The data of this element is supposed to be video but it might also have audio or images associated with it. Of course, this will only work in a few browsers: Safari 3.1+, Firefox 3.5+, and latest builds of Opera (oh, and potentially the next release of Chrome). http://tc.eserver.org/34587.html http://tc.eserver.org/34587.html Although there will always be a need for people to explain technical material non-technical people, Ellis Pratt said, others may be doing it instead, through the formats users prefer. To survive, technical writers may need to morph into content strategists, managing the information in a systematic way rather than merely creating it. http://tc.eserver.org/33676.html http://tc.eserver.org/33676.html I am starting to believe that despite all the hype around online video, text remains King of the Web. Why text? There are at least five reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/33532.html http://tc.eserver.org/33532.html One of the coolest new features in Adobe Encore CS4 is the ability to insert pop-up menus over video in Blu-ray Disc projects, a feature unique among authoring programs in Encore’s class. In this tutorial, I’ll describe how to implement that feature, as I did in a simple project I produced in early fall. http://tc.eserver.org/32338.html http://tc.eserver.org/32338.html This paper will address the direction chosen by the Audiovisual Department of the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF) in order to maintain access to a comprehensive collection of multimedia and electronic documents. It will describe several experimental technical solutions for preservation, emphasizing the consequences of a requirement for future users to be able to use these documents for research purposes. These result in the use of emulation solutions as well as new practices of collection development policy with regard to the specific structure of information within a multimedia context. http://tc.eserver.org/31679.html http://tc.eserver.org/31679.html This article is meant to inspire creators much more talented than ourselves to take the risk and dive in head-first with the idea of bringing their Flash animation work to industry-quality DVD. The efforts and obstacles involved in bringing Broken Saints out as a four-disc collectors' edition were overwhelming, and if we can give you some insights, save you some steps, keep you from making the same mistakes we did, or even inspire you to experience Broken Saints on your spiffy new home theatre, then it all will have been worth it. http://tc.eserver.org/31138.html http://tc.eserver.org/31138.html Once you have successfully captured your video clips, you will want to edit and arrange them to create you movie. It is very rare to flawlessly capture exactly what you need, with the exact in and out points that you want. You will need to trim unwanted frames and footage from your clips. http://tc.eserver.org/31139.html http://tc.eserver.org/31139.html You have this great project that you've just finished, and you need to bring it into another program, display it on your web site, or turn it in on CD or DVD. To do this, you will need to export your movie. iMovie has several 'built-in' configurations that take much of the guesswork out of compressing your video for optimal playback on one of those media types. I often find, however, that the standard choices are not quite what I want or need. This is when the Expert options come into play. http://tc.eserver.org/31137.html http://tc.eserver.org/31137.html This is one in a series which will take you through the act of capturing, editing, and exporting a video using Apple iMovie. http://tc.eserver.org/30862.html http://tc.eserver.org/30862.html Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media: Computer software, Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a result, the DVD menu structure is getting more and more baroque, less and less usable, less pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs some discipline some attention to the User Experience, and some standardization of control and display formats. http://tc.eserver.org/30692.html http://tc.eserver.org/30692.html Given that many doctoral programs do not provide extensive training on how to present course information in the classroom, the current paper looks to educational psychology theory and research for guidance. Richard Mayer and others' copious empirical work on effective and ineffective instructional design, along with relevant research findings in cognitive science, are summarized and adapted to the management education context. The goal of this article is to enhance instructors' ability to effectively relay course material and to offer specific advice for how instructors can implement prior research findings. http://tc.eserver.org/30663.html http://tc.eserver.org/30663.html With the advent of widely available broadband, media, movies, images, and sound drive the Web 2.0 revolution. Learn to combine media with technologies such as PHP and Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) to create a compelling experience for your customers. http://tc.eserver.org/30636.html http://tc.eserver.org/30636.html Ajax and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) have revolutionized the way users interact with Web sites. However, documenting the design of any page that uses Ajax is a challenge, because the page--and, more importantly, components on the page--can have different states, depending on how users interact with the page's components. http://tc.eserver.org/30603.html http://tc.eserver.org/30603.html Use of online video has grown faster than the use of accessibility in online video. Though bandwidth costs for video files can still be high compared to ordinary text-and-graphics Web pages, it is nonetheless easy to digitize video and post it online. It's easier to broadcast your video to the world via the Internet than it is to get the same video on television. Online multimedia are a useful and valid new medium of communication - for most people. http://tc.eserver.org/30419.html http://tc.eserver.org/30419.html There are three parts to the process for creating a multimedia CD-ROM, and each part contains a number of steps. The first part, PLANNING, defines the goal, audience, budget, equipment, team members, theme, reviewers, schedule, and outline. The second part, PRODUCTION, develops, com- bines, and tests the multimedia elements: the script, story board, and audio and visual elements. The final part, PACKAGING, creates the printed infor- mation, the label, and the text and control files that go onto and ship with the CD-ROM. http://tc.eserver.org/30409.html http://tc.eserver.org/30409.html Moving from High Definition (HD) to FLV means a loss of quality. It is similar to moving a Photoshop high-resolution TIFF image to the JPG format--the loss in quality can't be avoided. http://tc.eserver.org/30049.html http://tc.eserver.org/30049.html Animated characters have been a popular research theme, but the respective desktop applications have not been well-received by end-users. The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of an animated character for presenting information and navigating music videos within an interactive television (ITV) application. Information was displayed over music video clips with two alternative user interfaces: 1) semi-transparent information overlays, 2) an animated character. For this purpose, the differences between ITV and desktop computing motivated the adaptation of the traditional usability evaluation techniques. The evaluation revealed that users reported higher affective quality with the animated character user interface. Although the success of animated characters in desktop productivity applications has been limited, there is growing evidence that animated characters might be viable in a domestic environment for leisure activities, such as interactive TV. http://tc.eserver.org/30033.html http://tc.eserver.org/30033.html Watching DVDs can be a frustrating experience, because DVD menus often miss out on usability and are complex and difficult to navigate through. Similar to the early years of web development, there is a lack of design standards. In this paper, we show the development of user interface guidelines for DVD menus. These guidelines can be used to design and evaluate DVD menus. We built a prototype according to the guidelines, conducted usability tests with the prototype and evaluated other movie DVDs using the guidelines to show the applicability, utility and usability of the guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/30036.html http://tc.eserver.org/30036.html DVD menus often suffer from serious usability problems, which has a negative impact on the user experience. The reason for this is that there is a lack of design standards. In this paper we describe the development of user interface guidelines for DVD menus and present the final guidelines. In order to obtain usable and applicable guidelines we went through three phases, which included among other usability-engineering methods an expert walkthrough, a ua prototype, and validating and improving the guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/30035.html http://tc.eserver.org/30035.html DVD menus often miss out on usability and are complex and difficult to navigate through. One of the main problems is the lack of design standards. By conducting an expert walkthrough we identified typical usability issues of DVD menus and verified them with usability testing and a user survey. Our research goal is to develop a set of specific solutions for designing usable DVD menus to improve the overall user experience. As a first step towards this goal we present an initial set of usability issues that are specifically relevant for DVD menu design. http://tc.eserver.org/29912.html http://tc.eserver.org/29912.html The medium is an integral part of the message when writing for interactive delivery systems. Interactive media requires attention to details on several dimensions for communication of the content. Writers must focus not only on words and meaning, but also on how the content is presented. We can look to other disciplines for models of how they document the translation of ideas into reality. The detailed design document or storyboard is the essential tool for describing multimedia content in all four dimensions. http://tc.eserver.org/29765.html http://tc.eserver.org/29765.html This article discusses the use of activity theory, visual literacy, and sound theory in the design of digital media. It defines each of these in the context of literacy and how literacy is viewed and changing in today's culture. It then goes on to describe two phases of a case study underway that shows the lifecycle of content development for literacy purposes. It begins with phase one which is development and testing of the content information model and continues with an overview of phase two, currently underway, which is a description of the testing and evaluation of the mediating artifacts that were created in phase one. It ends with a brief explanation of how this research can help technical communications in expanding multidisciplinary efforts and instructional support within the field of education. http://tc.eserver.org/29776.html http://tc.eserver.org/29776.html This paper discusses tips and techniques that you may want to use in your multimedia tasks. Initially, it discusses the technical aspects of the skill and then discusses key areas of the process. Last, it concludes with a brief discussion of resources. http://tc.eserver.org/29734.html http://tc.eserver.org/29734.html Use interactive multimedia with text-based online documentation to achieve the minimalist model pioneered by instructional design guru John Carroll. Non-linear modules of 'real' tasks help users get started fast, and quickly learn from any errors. http://tc.eserver.org/29196.html http://tc.eserver.org/29196.html NBMA is an open community of new media professionals. Since 1992, it's been a meeting ground to explore the present and future of new media; a place to exchange ideas, learn about new techniques and technologies, be inspired, and find business support in a friendly and productive atmosphere. http://tc.eserver.org/28855.html http://tc.eserver.org/28855.html Gerald McCobb continues his introduction to the forthcoming W3C Multimodal Architecture with a survey of the many XML languages that you can use to author multimodal applications. He then shows how several specifications -- SCXML, XHTML, REX, and XML Events -- could work together in a complete multimodal application. http://tc.eserver.org/28708.html http://tc.eserver.org/28708.html 'How can you best embed Flash content?' It should be a simple question, but is likely to evoke a lot of different opinions and arguments, as each of the many available embedding techniques have their own pros and cons. In this article, I will look into the complexities and subtleties of embedding Flash content and examine the most popular embedding methods to see how good they really are. http://tc.eserver.org/28706.html http://tc.eserver.org/28706.html There's a belief within the web standards community that Flash is part of a different world. While all approaches have limitations and drawbacks, Flash has been scorned to the point that many refuse to acknowledge its benefits. Ultimately, this has led to the creation of a virtual separation among web designers; those who use Flash use it exclusively (leading to a saturation of full-screen, 'Skip Intro'-rich Flash sites on the web) and those who don't ever give it a second thought. Although the brilliant option of the hybrid (part Flash, part HTML) site had always existed, it's never really made it far past the typical Flash intro on a corporate homepage. Throughout the history of Flash on the web, the technology has always been intended to be embedded within HTML. Yet it has often seemed a foreign concept to use the two technologies to complement one another. http://tc.eserver.org/28484.html http://tc.eserver.org/28484.html Rich Internet Applications is the new buzz-phrase for Web 2.0, and a key component of the substance behind Web 2.0 is Adobe Flash. Learn how to integrate Flash movies into your application and generate Flash movies dynamically using the Ming library. http://tc.eserver.org/28340.html http://tc.eserver.org/28340.html Graphics are used on many, if not most, Web pages. When used appropriately, graphics can facilitate learning. An important image to show on most pages of a site is the organization's logo. When used appropriately, images, animation, video, and audio can add tremendous value to a Web site. When animation is used appropriately, it is a good idea to introduce the animation before it begins. http://tc.eserver.org/27931.html http://tc.eserver.org/27931.html Break the chains of EMBED and live free. Elizabeth Casto explains how to embed movies without using invalid markup. http://tc.eserver.org/27686.html http://tc.eserver.org/27686.html Shadow Fighter is a PowerPoint Movie. An animated show or movie done in PowerPoint mimicking the style of Arcade Fighting games. Shadow Fighter Series will show you how PowerPoint can do extreme complex animations similar to Macromedia Flash! http://tc.eserver.org/27648.html http://tc.eserver.org/27648.html Tools like Captivate, Camtasia, and TurboDemo make it possible for teachers and communicators to create effective software simulations--without programming. Even simple presentation tools, such as PowerPoint can create truly interactive simulations. http://tc.eserver.org/26932.html http://tc.eserver.org/26932.html The Studio for New Media is an interdisciplinary research institute organized to support, further, and coordinate work with digital media. http://tc.eserver.org/26890.html http://tc.eserver.org/26890.html There are many ways to link to non-XML content within XML, including binary content. Sometimes you need to roll all such external content directly into the XML. Data scheme URIs are one way to specify a full resource within a URI, which you can then use in XML constructs. In this tip, Uche Ogbuji shows how to use this to bundle related media into a single file. http://tc.eserver.org/26669.html http://tc.eserver.org/26669.html This research shows some potentiality of Digital TV, and chiefly DTT, for promoting e-inclusion activities and granting accessible entertainment and t-government services. http://tc.eserver.org/26574.html http://tc.eserver.org/26574.html Learning no longer has to depend solely on text resources when learners have access to multimedia resources and developing technologies. The lecture is now encapsulated and available for replay and, like a novel, provides the user with direction not just destination. This paper highlights how technology adds value to the academic learning experience/environment for business communication with a focus upon televised courses, streaming videos, instant messaging and Web-based resources. Implications for the learning experience are: (1) oral and written language use become more dynamic; (2) learner outcomes are audience- and message-centered; and, (3) content instruction is analytical. http://tc.eserver.org/26378.html http://tc.eserver.org/26378.html Design can be more than meets the eyes. Denise Gonzales Crisp opens her ears to unfamiliar territory. http://tc.eserver.org/26380.html http://tc.eserver.org/26380.html When you think about sound in regard to the internet, what comes to mind? Dutch design firm LUST explores the sound of the internet with this original project. http://tc.eserver.org/26270.html http://tc.eserver.org/26270.html I think podcasting is powerful because it gives us the opportunity to reach people in ways we cannot with blogs and websites. Don't get me wrong, blogs and sites have their place. But let's face it, people have information overload! It's often a choice between reading your blog and the 15 other things they need to read. But with podcasts, people tell me that they listen via their iPods while in the gym. They burn them to CD and listen in their car during their commute. They listen on their computer with a headset or speakers. http://tc.eserver.org/26009.html http://tc.eserver.org/26009.html Because of the size of the pictures not being close to a T.V. 4:3 aspect ratio the pictures have black side bars when viewing them. I was wondering if anyone knows a way to resize the background wider to match the 4:3 ratio? http://tc.eserver.org/25969.html http://tc.eserver.org/25969.html This article discusses the various types of captions, when to use captions, as well as the various types of audio descriptions. http://tc.eserver.org/25980.html http://tc.eserver.org/25980.html The maturation of digital asset management technology and products has enabled on-demand DAM services to emerge as an attractive alternative to on-premises installation. Organizations facing a variety of problems and constraints, such as speed to market and scalability, are finding software services models to be the most cost effective approach to digital asset management. This paper identifies the four key factors in making the decision between a services model and on-premises installation. It also argues that the decision should be analyzed in terms of discounted cash flows and presents examples of such calculations. http://tc.eserver.org/25962.html http://tc.eserver.org/25962.html Want to integrate video in your Flash movie? You have two choices. You can embed the video in your Flash document, or keep progressively download it into a SWF file using from a FLV (Flash Video) file. In this tutorial you’ll learn to use the Media Playback Component to display a FLV file in a Flash movie. http://tc.eserver.org/25910.html http://tc.eserver.org/25910.html TV and video are full of text screens used to fill space where there's no footage. It's something we're all stuck with, and we have an obligation to keep them well designed. http://tc.eserver.org/25951.html http://tc.eserver.org/25951.html Some web designers will try to convince you that your website has to have the latest multimedia technology to be successful. Is it true? http://tc.eserver.org/25911.html http://tc.eserver.org/25911.html The effect where titles spread out and then blur away to nothing has become a popular way to make 'plain old text' look more interesting. It's really not that complex: What we do is 'expand' the text by animating the tracking (the space between the letters). http://tc.eserver.org/25908.html http://tc.eserver.org/25908.html CGM DVE Vol. 3+ contains a tool which changes interlaced video into progressive video, making your footage look more like 35mm film. http://tc.eserver.org/25912.html http://tc.eserver.org/25912.html Creating an interesting title sequence can involve many different techniques. But here's one simple trick that can be used for almost any type of project--Offset. Used in conjunction with the Displacement Map fi lter, it can also add much reality to a shot. http://tc.eserver.org/25909.html http://tc.eserver.org/25909.html You'll probably recognize this color effect used by a certain department store that plays on the colors in its logo. The effect essentially reduces the image to three colors--a white background, red image content, and a darker red for some depth; but you can choose any color combination or mix any number of colors for a solarized or false color effect. http://tc.eserver.org/25914.html http://tc.eserver.org/25914.html The Wiggler is great when you need random keyframes applied to a layer's property. Scale, opacity, movement, even a plug-in's values can be 'wigglered.'This feature will save you from having to create dozens if not hundreds of keyframes if you're trying, for instance, to make a layer move randomly or flicker. http://tc.eserver.org/25913.html http://tc.eserver.org/25913.html Creating visual depth in a project can really catapult an animation from boring to captivating. After Effects does 3D very well, but there's more to it than simply moving layers or objects around in 3D space. http://tc.eserver.org/25550.html http://tc.eserver.org/25550.html If Flash is indeed a cancer on the Web, how come so many artists (and viewers) adore it? The much-maligned multimedia plug-in bites back, with help from Flash artist Peter Balogh. http://tc.eserver.org/25425.html http://tc.eserver.org/25425.html Have a character you want to animate? Let Jose show you how to use your Illustrator art to create SWF animations. http://tc.eserver.org/25359.html http://tc.eserver.org/25359.html Many Websites that use Flash could be optimized to load much more quickly than they currently do. By breaking up one large .swf into multiple smaller .swf files, you can decrease the time it takes your site to load, while at the same time making the site easier to manage. This article will look at how to break your Website into multiple .swf files, and discuss why it's a good idea. http://tc.eserver.org/25358.html http://tc.eserver.org/25358.html In this article we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of one of the most controversial products in the web development world, Macromedia Flash. We will take a close look at what Flash can do and what Flash can't or shouldn't do. And while in the process we will be comparing Flash to its counterparts HTML and CSS. http://tc.eserver.org/25202.html http://tc.eserver.org/25202.html This guide provides an introduction to Flash Video, including information on how to create and publish Flash Video. http://tc.eserver.org/25060.html http://tc.eserver.org/25060.html Time constraints prevented our team from rewriting our user's guide for online use. Early user testing and off-the-shelf electronic tools were key elements that ensured our success in enhancing usability to cancel the deadening effect of data dumping. We added menus and graphical navigation aids for user convenience. Interleaf provided automatic hypertext links and support throughout the project. We included an installation-and-reference guide to inform new-to-online users how to install and use the our product. http://tc.eserver.org/25035.html http://tc.eserver.org/25035.html In this class you will learn the tools and design elements of multimedia for producing instruction on CD-ROM and the Internet. http://tc.eserver.org/25012.html http://tc.eserver.org/25012.html Today, multimedia has become a popular way to present information. Many times it increases the effectiveness of the message. Many aspects of the message and its target audience need to be examined to determine if multimedia is the best media. If it is, planning becomes crucial in the process of developing a multimedia project. http://tc.eserver.org/24993.html http://tc.eserver.org/24993.html Producing multimedia requires new tasks and skills for technical communicators. Based on the authoring program of your choice, you need to make decisions regarding backgrounds, organization, audio and video, text and graphics, and navigation. You will also make decisions regarding media types such as text, graphics, images, animation, sound, and video. http://tc.eserver.org/24830.html http://tc.eserver.org/24830.html Out there in the WWW there are thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the majority sites are not in this list. Let's summarize some facts about flash usage on YOUR web site. After that it's you will have to decide: to use or not to use. http://tc.eserver.org/24495.html http://tc.eserver.org/24495.html When you're ready to deliver your Flash movie to your audience, use the Publish Settings or Export Movie option to export the Flash FLA file to a format for the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/24489.html http://tc.eserver.org/24489.html Flash provides a way to create a projector file—a self-executable application that doesn’t require the Flash player. http://tc.eserver.org/24483.html http://tc.eserver.org/24483.html Use the Sound Object to control sounds that are stored in the Flash Library as well as load sounds that reside outside the Flash movie. Controlling sounds includes starting and stopping the sound, adjusting the volume or the right and left balance while a sound is playing. http://tc.eserver.org/24486.html http://tc.eserver.org/24486.html Transitions are a very popular technique used in Flash, and they're typically used to let your audience know that a change in content or scenery is coming. They're usually displayed using fading effects and dissolves, and there are two ways to implement this type of effect: an alpha tween and a brightness tween. Let's take a look at both of these techniques. http://tc.eserver.org/24488.html http://tc.eserver.org/24488.html Flash movies stream, so when the Flash movie contains several frames or scenes, the movie should be preloaded so that it will play back smoothly. Let's set up the animation that will play while the main movie (the presentation from a previous lesson) is loading behind the scenes. We'll create a movie clip for the preloader animation. http://tc.eserver.org/24490.html http://tc.eserver.org/24490.html Want to load one movie at a time into a main movie? With Flash MX, you can load a SWF or JPEG file into the Flash Player while the original movie is playing. The loadMovie action lets you display several movies at once and switch between movies without loading another HTML document or a separate Flash movie. http://tc.eserver.org/24485.html http://tc.eserver.org/24485.html Flash is a two-dimensional program. Using a gradient in Flash can give a two-dimensional object a third dimension. In this example, let's create a series of circular outlines, then add one of Flash's preset gradients to give the outlines a three-dimensional appearance. http://tc.eserver.org/24376.html http://tc.eserver.org/24376.html In this all-day seminar we'll explore the basic concepts in the grammar and syntax of kinetic sight-and-sound media: film, video, and multimedia (motion media). We'll not discuss how to write scipts. Rather we'll concentrate on learning how to encode information into kinetic visual images using filmic design techniques. Throughout this seminar we'll view and critique award-wining films and videos, and explore a multimedia flowchart to see how others have applied suchfilmic techniques to solve specific communication problems. http://tc.eserver.org/24355.html http://tc.eserver.org/24355.html While multimedia is a very popular tool today, simple animation and sound no longer have the pull they did. Effective use of multimedia technology depends on matching it to your overall purpose. Depending on the combination of media, you can reduce the cost of localization and speed-up information delivery. In this presentation, I will introduce two multimediarelated projects for considering the possibilities and limitations of multimedia. http://tc.eserver.org/24321.html http://tc.eserver.org/24321.html This article describes how to quickly add an interactive interface to any collection of Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. It demonstrates how one document author put on three hats - DTPer, Designer and “Programmer” - to deliver a quick and inexpensive solution to providing interactive, serverbased access to company policies and procedures. http://tc.eserver.org/24086.html http://tc.eserver.org/24086.html There's a lot of confusion about what MPEG-4 is and isn't, just as there are many questions as to what it's going to be used for. http://tc.eserver.org/23955.html http://tc.eserver.org/23955.html Il est devenu de bon ton de parler de contenus 'dynamiques'. Que veut-on dire par là au juste? En fait, la notion de 'contenus dynamiques' peut couvrir plusieurs acceptions. http://tc.eserver.org/23954.html http://tc.eserver.org/23954.html Basé quasiment exclusivement sur le texte à ses débuts, Internet est devenu aujourd'hui un moyen d'expression multimédia, permettant d'intégrer tout autant des textes que des images, des vidéos, des sons , des animations, des programmes interactifs, etc. Ecrire pour Internet, c'est donc exploiter plusieurs supports d'expression. http://tc.eserver.org/23467.html http://tc.eserver.org/23467.html It is not very helpful if we reject any responsibility, even if it would be covered by some laws dealing with product safety and product liability. http://tc.eserver.org/23061.html http://tc.eserver.org/23061.html Some new, cutting-edge applications have demonstrated Flash's potential to surpass the power of traditional software applications. These web applications leverage the strengths of Flash to help users make better sense of large amounts of data, presenting information in an easily accessible, graphical visual representation. In this white paper, we will explore how Flash can help developers easily build the next generation of web applications. We will also look at several new applications that have recently appeared on the scene and talk about how they leverage the benefits of Flash. http://tc.eserver.org/22988.html http://tc.eserver.org/22988.html There are two methods for adding captions in QuickTime. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. The first allows you to maintain a single file, making the captioned video easier to distribute. The second approach allows you to easily deliver a captioned and non-captioned version of your movie, but requires an understanding of SMIL (it's not too hard). http://tc.eserver.org/22990.html http://tc.eserver.org/22990.html RealPlayer uses SMIL to combine media content with a RealText (.rt) file. The .rt file contains the captions themselves and information about how and when they should appear. The SMIL file is really just a pointer file. It contains information about where and how your captions and media content should display. http://tc.eserver.org/22989.html http://tc.eserver.org/22989.html Windows Media Player adds captions using Microsoft's Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI). SAMI, like SMIL, which is used by Quicktime and RealPlayer, is an XML-based text language. A SAMI file contains the captions and definitions for how and when the captions should display. http://tc.eserver.org/22991.html http://tc.eserver.org/22991.html When delivering multimedia content for the three major media players (Windows Media Player, Quicktime and RealMedia Player), the developer must choose whether to have the viewer access the content through a player embedded in a Web page or through a standalone player. Both methods have their advantages. Embedding the player in a Web page allows the user to access the content without another application opening. The standalone players usually have more control options. http://tc.eserver.org/22841.html http://tc.eserver.org/22841.html In this all-day seminar we'll explore the basic concepts in the grammars and syntax of kinetic sight-and sound media: film, video, and multimedia. We'll not discuss how to write scipts. Rather we'll concentrate on learning how to encode information into kinetic visual images using filmic design techniques. Throughout this seminar we'll view and critique award-winning j%ns and videos, and explore a multimedia flowchart to see how others have applied such filmic techniques to solve specific communication problems. http://tc.eserver.org/22561.html http://tc.eserver.org/22561.html Many organizations are hesitant to deploy streaming media on their sites due to the fact they don’t want to deal with the performance or support issues that may crop up. But those downsides need to be weighed against the true business benefits that accrue from streaming media deployments. In a recent primer, Adobe offered these top five business benefits of streaming media. http://tc.eserver.org/22425.html http://tc.eserver.org/22425.html The inline transitions that Internet Explorer 6 supports are based on the latest SMIL 2.0 specification. In the HTML+TIME world, they are implemented with the use of a t:transitionfilter element. The implementation is a bit early and the browser is in beta so things can always change. But this introductory set of transitions will add a bit more punch to the HTML+TIME framework. http://tc.eserver.org/22428.html http://tc.eserver.org/22428.html Some day, Internet historians will ponder the developments of the year 2000. They will look back and argue who won and who lost the battles of the multimedia browser war. http://tc.eserver.org/22430.html http://tc.eserver.org/22430.html On this website are some examples of SMIL, a language like HTML, where with a simple text editor, anybody in the world can communicate their ideas as effectively as a Television commercial. SMIL 1.0 allows you to create the areas for media objects and then determine when to play them. SMIL 2.0 adds interactivity, transitions. XHTML + SMIL give SMIL 2.0 abilities to XHTML elements. http://tc.eserver.org/22427.html http://tc.eserver.org/22427.html What if you wanted your Web page to give a visual presentation of rotating graphics and text? You could create a massive animated GIF and let it do its work. Or you could create a RealPix and RealText presentation using RealPlayer. Or, with the SMIL power of HTML+TIME, you could do the same in Microsoft Internet Explorer. http://tc.eserver.org/22424.html http://tc.eserver.org/22424.html SMIL, as more people are beginning to appreciate, can be used for a variety of applications, such as interactive video, video on demand, online training, audio, animation, and more, in ways that were previously unavailable. With SMIL, the ability to create rich media presentations is simplified and is available to any user with a computer and an Internet connection. http://tc.eserver.org/22429.html http://tc.eserver.org/22429.html This tutorial will help you learning the language and creating your first SMIL presentations, through a step-by-step training. http://tc.eserver.org/22431.html http://tc.eserver.org/22431.html This page was made to help others and myself, become more familiarized with the features under consideration, for the next version of XHTML+SMIL. http://tc.eserver.org/21838.html http://tc.eserver.org/21838.html What to keep and what to cut when making Web movies in Premiere. http://tc.eserver.org/21862.html http://tc.eserver.org/21862.html A track matte is a simple (but somewhat hidden) masking technique that you can use in Adobe Premiere and After Effects. You may be surprised to learn how versatile it is, and your audience will think you've gone p http://tc.eserver.org/21840.html http://tc.eserver.org/21840.html Hundreds of filmmakers, huge audiences, instant reviews, and a door to Hollywood - the cinema comes to the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/21352.html http://tc.eserver.org/21352.html Part of me feels for Jakob Nielsen for the grief he’s taken over deciding to work with Macromedia after declaring 'Flash 99 percent bad.' After all, the pressures and temptations to provide simple answers to complex issues are ones we all face in our professional practices. http://tc.eserver.org/21295.html http://tc.eserver.org/21295.html Hillman Curtis' minimalist approach to design also appears to be his approach to writing. In just a few words he captures the essence of what it means to be a New Media designer and what it takes to push into unknown territory. http://tc.eserver.org/21258.html http://tc.eserver.org/21258.html This workshop is designed to provide some orientation and ground rules for practitioners who are beginning to think about developing multimedia projects. The objectives of the workshop are 1) to explain the technology and theory of multimedia communication; 2) to present an overview of multimedia script development; 3) to provide strategies for developing a concept and an information map; and 4) to show approaches to multimedia scripting. Workshop participants will be involved in hands-on activities to guide them through the preliminary stages of multimedia concept and script development. http://tc.eserver.org/21166.html http://tc.eserver.org/21166.html Shared objects allow for data persistence in Flash applications, like cookies do in Web pages. Learn to leverage shared objects to create more robust apps. http://tc.eserver.org/20933.html http://tc.eserver.org/20933.html We are so accustomed to watching television that we easily overlook the limited resolution of the television screen. Compared to TV, even VGA looks good. Although both use a similar display monitor, they differ in both the way the screen is 'painted' and in how much information can be placed on the screen. To design effectively for interactive television, it is essential to understand the technical constraints of the medium. http://tc.eserver.org/20934.html http://tc.eserver.org/20934.html The technology of magazine production is well established. Editors have access to high-resolution print screens, and can use a wide variety of fonts, layout designs and graphics to create attractive and readable pages. Readers are used to seeing a lot of information on a single page - some in body text, some in sidebars or callouts. On screen, by contrast, the resolution is relatively low - 72 dpi as opposed to 2400 dpi. Readers are not yet accustomed to reading directly from the screen, and an overly cluttered screen or one with fonts which are too small can quickly become unreadable. http://tc.eserver.org/20959.html http://tc.eserver.org/20959.html Although empirical research indicates that media selection may not impact learning a great deal, results are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. We have done recent studies indicating that inconsistent results may be caused by the extent to which educational developers are modifying the genres within which they typically teach – e.g., converting lectures to essays and converting demonstrations to posted instruction sets. Typically, the instructional developers who significantly modify their educational genres do so because digital media (usually designed for dissemination on the Internet, CD-ROM, or DVD) preclude the large format heuristics we accept as necessary in our traditional classes. New technologies, available this year, seem to provide a solution for this problem. In recent studies, we have successfully placed traditional educational genres on very large, external and/or removable hard drives which we combine with Internet technology to overcome the bandwidth problems we faced in the past. Because this involves a unique, step-by-step process of examining educational materials, re-combining them into external drive technlologies, and then developing new distribution methods, we call the process 'Distributed Hard Drive Protocol.' This paper describes six new, protocols we have developed for educators, trainers, and archivers. http://tc.eserver.org/20900.html http://tc.eserver.org/20900.html Alhough Flash has some intrinsic usability problems, designers can respect user expectations about consistency, accessibility, and common sense, and therefore make better Flash websites. http://tc.eserver.org/20836.html http://tc.eserver.org/20836.html Multimedia is gaining popularity on the Web with several technologies to support use of animation, video, and audio to supplement the traditional media of text and images. These new media provide more design options but also require design discipline. Unconstrained use of multimedia results in user interfaces that confuse users and make it harder for them to understand the information. Not every webpage needs to bombard the user with the equivalent of Times Square in impressions and movement. http://tc.eserver.org/20606.html http://tc.eserver.org/20606.html Perhaps the most powerful aspect of computing technology is the ability to combine text, graphics, sounds, and moving images in meaningful ways. The promise of multimedia has been slow to reach the Web because of bandwidth limitations, but each day brings new solutions. Although there are numerous methods for creating Web multimedia, we recommend using stable technology that works for the great majority of client machines. Plug-ins that extend the capabilities of your Web pages are a mixed blessing. You risk losing your audience if you require them to jump through hoops to view your content. http://tc.eserver.org/20565.html http://tc.eserver.org/20565.html Macromedia Flash uses a movie-making metaphor in how they define their concepts and areas of their interface. The basic terms used to describe the animation are the movie, stage and motion. http://tc.eserver.org/20566.html http://tc.eserver.org/20566.html Only six years ago the web did not support graphics and CD-ROM based games asked users if they had 4Mb of memory on their computer with possible hard drive space of 20Mb to play any games. Today, oh heck, that seems archaic. http://tc.eserver.org/20563.html http://tc.eserver.org/20563.html Macromedia Flash is a popular animation application that can produce some striking special effects. In professional web sites, Flash must be used effectively instead of simply for novelty. Business applications of Flash can advertise a product or showcase a skill-set. Educational applications can use Flash to provide multimedia instruction. Entertainment applications of Flash include games and cartoons. http://tc.eserver.org/20564.html http://tc.eserver.org/20564.html The reason to use Macromedia Flash is usually to provide a solution or to satisfy the need of the Web site owner. Typically, Flash is used to create a company image through animations and special effects in the splash page or even throughout the site, establish better user understanding through demonstrations and simulated processes, and/or entertain or educate through animated cartoons and games. http://tc.eserver.org/20562.html http://tc.eserver.org/20562.html Macromedia Flash is primarily an animation development application. Its feature-set includes such things as vector-based drawing, Web animations and interactive effects. Drawing is required for animation, which in turn is part of interactive effects. http://tc.eserver.org/20567.html http://tc.eserver.org/20567.html Before you start developing a Flash animation, it is a good practice to write out a plan of action. The reason is that any type of software development can be complex. Good planning helps to avoid mistakes that may be difficult to find and fix. http://tc.eserver.org/20554.html http://tc.eserver.org/20554.html Beneath the glitz and glamour of multimedia technology is the need for well-written concepts and scripts to aid in the development and production process. Many who have written primarily for printed documents, however, often having difficulty adjusting to writing for a multimedia environment. To help make the transition clear, this workshop focuses on explaining the theory, concepts, and strategies for planning and writing multimedia scripts. http://tc.eserver.org/20450.html http://tc.eserver.org/20450.html In this all-day seminar we’ll explore the basic concepts in the grammar of film, video, and multimedia; and we’ll learn some filmic design techniques. Throughout the seminar we’ll view and critique a number of films and videos to see how other producers have applied such filmic techniques to solving specific communication problems. http://tc.eserver.org/20232.html http://tc.eserver.org/20232.html Scaling, 2-D style, cycle-free motion, and heavy strokes. They’re not just web design trends any more. Join Olson on a cultural scavenger hunt as he tracks the ways Flash design techniques have crept into other media. http://tc.eserver.org/20184.html http://tc.eserver.org/20184.html This demonstration will discuss the development, maintenance, and future of the CPI Navigator application. The development of this Visual Basic application and the conversion of thousands of hardcopy documents developed on a mainframe-based processor to online help was a 3-year long process that included using databases, Word macros, and several Help prototypes. http://tc.eserver.org/20107.html http://tc.eserver.org/20107.html With the use of online multimedia communication growing daily, online technologies have dramatically changed the ways we use and present information -- so much so, that we also need to have new theories and models for understanding how technology and content are related in this new communication environment. This paper presents a theory of digital architecture and explains how SGML, HTML, and Information Architecture are related in the creation of a new online literacy and rhetoric. http://tc.eserver.org/20127.html http://tc.eserver.org/20127.html Come to our demonstration to learn how to combine media to better communicate complex concepts. We’ll show step-by-step procedures, tutorials, and games—all using multimedia to communicate hard business and technical information. http://tc.eserver.org/20044.html http://tc.eserver.org/20044.html An interactive tutorial about usable website design. http://tc.eserver.org/19974.html http://tc.eserver.org/19974.html If your company wants to reduce costs compared to a hard copy version and increase convenience, for the customer, it should consider producing a CD-ROM or selecting a CD-ROM vendor. But before proceeding with the product, designers or developers must consider three factors: the data, the user’s tasks, and the CD-ROM interface. Without this preliminary analysis, your company may produce a CD-ROM with data that is difficult for the user to access. http://tc.eserver.org/19970.html http://tc.eserver.org/19970.html Computer animation can be an effective communication tool. In this demonstration, we present an example of how we used animation to teach difficult technical concepts. We explain our rationale for selecting animation as a means of communication. We describe our process for ensuring high-quality and consistent deliverables. We also share some customer feedback. http://tc.eserver.org/19857.html http://tc.eserver.org/19857.html Thanks to the development of multimedia methodologies, increases in the power of personal computers and the rapid spread of the Internet, video manuals are growing in popularity. In addition, nonlinear video editing systems, computer graphic animation and a variety of video compression technologies have created new multimedia solutions. This presentation will introduce current technology for creating multimedia manuals, with a focus on video. It will also present some of the technical challenges of using multimedia. http://tc.eserver.org/19801.html http://tc.eserver.org/19801.html Multimedia is an exciting new technology that gives technical communicators a broad range of tools for designing information. Considerations such as: content and organization, style, installation and distribution, legal issues, and cultural issues bring new challenges for technical communicators. By following a four step process of brainstorming, reviewing technical source material, preparing an information map, and developing storyboards, technical communicators can take on the opportunities that multimedia creates. http://tc.eserver.org/19518.html http://tc.eserver.org/19518.html In today's fast-paced, 'I-want-it-all-now' society, technical communicators are challenged to deliver their messages through interactive media. However, most technical communicators don¡¯t really know how to successfully plan, produce, and manage multimedia development projects. There is a method that enables communicators to effectively deliver information that is engaging, while saving time, money, and a lot of heartache. A brief overview of this methodology follows. and the development team creates a detailed cost estimate and the project schedule. The Requirements Determination Document, project estimate, and project schedule are housed in the Project Workbook. The team refers to this workbook during production. Concept and Design. In this phase, team members define the thematic treatment used to create storyboards, scripts, technical design, and prototypes. This information is http://tc.eserver.org/19318.html http://tc.eserver.org/19318.html Amongst Internet developers, Macromedia Flash is certainly something of a hot potato. On the one hand, many designers see Flash as a powerful multimedia tool that encourages originality and dynamism on the otherwise 'static' web. Proponents of usability, on the other hand, have argued that the presence of Flash on a website is a 'usability disease', '99% bad' and have even branded it as 'evil'. They ask the obvious question: why do the biggest, most well known and profitable websites in the world decide against using Flash? However, the reality is that although Flash presents many usability issues, it is not inherently unusable. It can be used to create usable websites - but this requires designers to follow strict implementation guidelines.