Multimedia System
Multimedia System – Operating systems manage general data, such as text files, binary files, programs, word processing documents, and spreadsheets. In addition, operating systems can get the task of handling different types of data as well which comes in the multimedia category. A latest trend in technology is the inclusion of multimedia data in computer systems. The type of multimedia data consists of continuous media in the form of files audio or video data as well as conventional files to execute. Continuous media data varies according to conventional data, for example when continuous media files, such as video images or audio files, need to be delivered according to certain time restrictions.
The word multimedia represents a wide range of applications that are in popular use now-a-days. This term covers a broad category that includes audio and video files such as MP3 audio files, short video clips, movies and flash files or movie preview animations or news items that are uploaded via the Internet. The multimedia concept also includes live streaming i.e. webcasting of various events or sports. Multimedia applications should not be either audio or video; instead, a multimedia application can include a mix of both.
Multimedia data is stored in the file system just like other data. The main dissimilarity between a regular file and a multimedia file is that the multimedia files must be accessible at an exact rate, but access to a regular file does not require any particular timing. The video is usually represented by a sequence of images that is known as frames that are used to display in rapid succession. The faster images are displayed to users, the smoother the video. Most of the time, a frame rate of 24 to 30 frames per second must be required for the video to appear smooth in the eyes of humans. When data is delivered from the local file system, you can refer to this delivery as “local read”. Media files can also be stored on a remote server and delivered to a client over a network with a technique called streaming.
There are two types of streaming techniques:
- Progressive download
- Streaming in real time
With progressive download, any multimedia file having both audio and video can be downloaded and stored on the users’ local file system. Real-time streaming varies according to the progressive download in which the media file is broadcast on the client, but cannot be read and not stored / downloaded by the client. Since the media file does not store on the client system, real-time streaming is much better than incremental download for media files that may be too large to store on the system, such as long videos and radio or video programs. Internet TV.
Multimedia System’s Characteristics
The requirements of multimedia systems are nothing like the requirements of conventional applications. Most of the time, multimedia systems can have the features mentioned below:
- Media files can be relatively large. Let’s take an example; a 100-minute MPEG-1 video file uses about 1.125 GB of storage; 100 minutes of HDTV requires about 15 GB of storage.
- Continuous media may require very high data rates. Think of a digital video, in which a color video frame is displayed at a resolution of 800 x 600.
- Multimedia applications are very sensitive to time delays at some point in the reading.
