Getting to Know Mic

For a presenter, a high-quality microphone, combined with the right sound system, will give your voice a rich sound that can be heard throughout a room. Here are some things to consider if you want to add a microphone to the company conference room or your presentation traveling kit. The basics A microphone is essentially an energy converter that takes in sound waves and converts them into electrical energy. Two main types of microphones are available: condenser and dynamic. A condenser mic uses a power supply to provide a charge that works with a thin diaphragm inside the unit to create a signal. A dynamic mic creates a signal when the sound pressure moves a coil or ribbon across a magnet. Because they usually produce a richer sound, condenser mics are the more popular of the two; however, they require batteries or a power supply and are more expensive and more fragile than dynamic models. Dynamic mics are usually considered less accurate in sound quality, but they are generally more rugged and can withstand varying temperatures, humidity levels and a lot of abuse. These qualities make dynamic mics ideal for use outdoors or on the road.

Hill, Julie. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Audio

Graphical Design in TCO: Video and Animation  

This report is intended to give an overview of graphical design in the technical communication field as it pertains to the areas of video and animation. The purpose of this report is to a) establish core knowledge areas, b) provide information to both students and professionals in TCO, c) demonstrate excellence in TCO at Mercer University, and d) help students decide on what internships and jobs they wish to pursue. This report includes a summary and background of the video and animation field, the methods by which the information was obtained, an organized presentation of the collected information, and a series of recommendations for those going into this field.

Davis, Marjorie T. and William H. Harris II. Mercer University (2002). Careers>Multimedia>Graphic Design

Graphics, Images, and Multimedia  

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.

Usability.gov (2006). Design>Web Design>Multimedia

Guidelines for Designing Usable DVD Menus  

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.

Költringer, Thomas, Martin Tomitsch, Karin Kappel and Thomas Grechenig. University of Vienna (2006). Design>User Interface>Multimedia>DVD

Guidelines for Multimedia on the Web

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.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1995). Design>Multimedia>Web Design

Guidelines for Producing a CD-ROM Interface  

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.

Feinberg, Susan G. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

Harry Miller on Multimedia Documentation

Miller, a technical editor at Microsoft interested in multimedia documentation, talks about why multimedia documentation is a growing trend and how writers can get started. He discusses Microsoft's Channel 9 and the human element with instructional screen demos.

Miller, Harry and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>Multimedia

Help! Tips for Working in Flash MX

Before starting work in Flash, sketch out basic screen layouts, a full storyboard, and make notes about any interactivity you want to include. Knowing everything you want to do and how you want it to look before starting to make your movie will save time and frustration.

Agena, Kate. Purdue University (2003). Articles>Multimedia>Software>Flash

How Genre Choices Effect Learning in a Digital Environment    

Makes the argument that research into the impact of media on learning often misses the impact of genre choices on learning. The article presents a series of studies that imply that genre choices are more important than media choices.

Hailey, Christine E. and David E. Hailey. Journal of Engineering Educators (2003). Academic>Education>Multimedia>Bandwidth

How to Change Interlaced Video Into Progressive Video

CGM DVE Vol. 3+ contains a tool which changes interlaced video into progressive video, making your footage look more like 35mm film.

Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video

How Would You Like to Have 150,000 Space Shuttle Photos of the Earth at Your Fingertips?  

Explore the Earth on laser videodisc. All the astronaut photographs of the Earth taken on the first 57 missions of the Space Shuttle are now available on two laser videodiscs. Disc 2 also contains selected photos from the earlier NASA missions— Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. With the accompanying data records and software like the program we will demonstrate, you can choose global views of environmental change, graphic illustrations of scientific processes, or simply dramatic scenes to help your manuals communicate.

McKay, Mary Fae, Kathryn D. Sullivan, and Kimberly J. Willis. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Multimedia>Scientific Communication

HTML+TIME Transitions in Internet Explorer 6

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.

Kennedy, Tim. Streaming Media World (2001). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>SMIL

Humanising Technology: the Studio Lab and Innovation

The central thesis of the report is that in the emerging digitally networked society, the creative arts and cultural institutions are mutating by forming a constellation of productive relationships with the science and technology research system, industry, humanistic and social science scholarship, and with emerging new structures of civil society. This apparently rising density of communication suggests the need to rethink some aspects of the relationship between cultural support policy, innovation and research policy, and the still nascent but interconnected set of concerns about the requirements for widespread creative participation in a 'techno-sphere' increasingly shaped by fast-changing digital media technologies.

Century, Michael. AHDS Performing Arts (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Multimedia

Hypermedia, Multimedia, and Reader Cognition: An Empirical Study    

In this article, we present the results of five tests done in a two-year project examining usability and instructional capabilities of modules developed in hypermedia and multimedia formats. Based on the results of these tests, we reinforce arguments that digitized media may be preferred by learners over traditional media and that learners tend to prefer a graphical user interface metaphor that is personally meaningful over the page metaphor typically used in computer based training. We also reinforce the argument that multimedia does no harm when used to replace more traditional approaches to instruction. On the other hand, we have determined that in some cases hypermedia and hypertext may be counterproductive as instructional media. In brief, we have determined that within the context of this study a majority of students have more difficulty learning in a hypermedia/hypertext environment than in an otherwise identical linear digital environment. In fact, in this study only the very best students were able

Hailey, David E. and Christine E. Hailey. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Education>Multimedia

Impact of Multimedia on Online Documentation  

Multimedia is commonplace in entertainment and the Internet is proliferating the use of multimedia in electronic materials. Online documentation has traditionally been composed of text and some graphics. The proliferation of Intranets and online documentation is pushing the acceptance of multimedia in reference and procedural materials like Help. However, there is little research on the value of multimedia in online documentation nor its effective use.This paper describes an exploratory study done for a Master of Information Science thesis to determine the impact of multimedia on online documentation.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Multimedia

The Impact of the Internet and Digital Technologies on Teaching and Research in Technical Communication    

Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering.

Gurak, Laura J. and Ann Hill Duin. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>TC>Multimedia>Online

Implications for Designing the User Experience of DVD Menus

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.

Koltringer, Thomas, Martin Tomitsch, Karin Kappel, Daniel Kalbeck and Thomas Grechenig. ACM SIGCHI (2005). Design>User Experience>Multimedia>DVD

Incorporating Film Into the Research Paper    

Teachers face two serious difficulties when assigning research papers. The first appears to be an issue of motivation but is really one of mental disposition. Many students are so deeply influenced by contemporary visual culture--especially by film--that they lack familiarity with close reasoning. They are accustomed to absorbing entertaining, but loosely connected, streams of images in an impressionistic way and are uneasy and anxious when given a major assignment in an exclusively written medium. Inexperienced in the systematic compilation and analysis of information, they often perform poorly. These students may appear to be unenthusiastic about their topics; in fact, they do badly because they are methodologically disoriented. They run aground while sailing in the unfamiliar seas of organized, sequential, linear logic. This problem often shows itself in the frequent, and frequently gratuitous, use of illustrations in research papers. Instructors often comment that 'students love pictures.' It would be more accurate to say that students understand pictures and are comfortable with them. The second difficulty is a by-product of the Web. Plagiarism has become so widespread that it poses a real threat to the academic enterprise. Yet its detection is both difficult and time-consuming, and an instructor must be on absolutely solid ground before bringing a student up on such serious charges. Furthermore, even if available, an expensive counter-plagiarism program such as Turnitin cannot always deliver conclusive evidence. Plagiarism must be addressed, but today, articles that existed previously only in print can be optically scanned, free essays are available online, and papers can be purchased and downloaded from numerous commercial outlets. We have addressed both of these problems by strategically using appropriate motion pictures as entrees into the subject matter and as points of comparison to help organize research papers. We first provide our students with a list of films that bear on relevant topics.

Fontenot, Michael J. and Karen A. Fontenot. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Research>Multimedia

Infrastructure for Academic Podcasting

Podcasting involves three activities: capturing content, producing it, and distributing it. Tim Poe and Ben Rogers from the Office of Information Technology at Duke University's Multimedia group talk about the technology initiatives undertaken, and make their audience aware of the plethora of tools available to perform these activities easily.

Poe, Tim and Ben Rogers. Podcast Academy (2006). Articles>Multimedia>Streaming>Podcasting

Integrating Video in a Flash Movie

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.

Cashman, Cyndy. Layers Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Flash

Intellectual Property Law Primer for Multimedia Developers

This primer will help you understand the legal issues in developing and distributing multimedia works. It is based on the Multimedia Law Handbook from Ladera Press, which has been endorsed by the Interactive Multimedia Association. This summary of the law should not be viewed as 'answering' most questions (the Multimedia Law Handbook discusses these issues in more detail in 340 pages and includes eighteen sample agreements to show how these issues are dealt within actual transactions; you can order the book by calling 800-523-3721). Legal matters in multimedia are frequently complex and you should not rely on the information in this primer alone. You should consult with experienced counsel before making any final decisions. Multimedia products require a knowledge of the four major forms of intellectual property as well as the laws governing rights of publicity, defamation and libel.

Brinson, J. Dianne and Mark F. Radcliffe. Timestream (1994). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Multimedia

The Interactive Development Process

This is a very simple introduction to a development process that has been developed over years of work at vivid studios. It started out as a book, developed for Apple Computer's Multimedia Developer's Program, entitled, Multimedia Demystified. This book covers the general development process in some detail. As both the process itself and our application of it to online media have evolved, we have refined this process to what you see above. This, of course, is a fairly shallow explanation of it.

Shedroff, Nathan. nathan.com (1997). Design>Web Design>Multimedia

Interactive Media to Communicate Environmental Research Findings  

An emerging body of research suggests that interactive multimedia presentation technologies offer unique advantages for technology transfer and training programs. A research and development team is evaluating this claim by developing and testing an interactive multimedia tutorial on a complex environmental research topic: in-situ capping of contaminated sediments. A World Wide Web site has been created using text and animations to illustrate basic processes about capping technology. The tutorial’s effectiveness will be tested through evaluations of subject-matter experts and end users. Supplemental technical information will be added before the site is promoted widely.

Hodges, Mark H. and William Evans. STC Proceedings (1996). Presentations>Scientific Communication>Environmental>Multimedia

Interactive Multimedia: Communications of the Future  

This paper provides an introduction to interactive multimedia. It provides an overview of the emerging technology that combines video and audio with digital processing. It discusses the role that technical communicators are likely to play in the creation of multimedia titles and the potential for highly effective communication techniques. A typical multimedia production team that describes the role of each contributor is presented.

Schneider, Livingston S. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Multimedia>Interactive

Internet Explorer SMILes

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.

Kennedy, Tim. Streaming Media World (2001). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>SMIL