Lights, Camera, Action! The Role of Multimedia in Web Applications Leading Multimedia Formats in Use Today What You Need to Know to Include Them in Your WebApp Server Applications Speaker: Randall Rutherford, Product Marketing Manager, WebApp Server Software Suite

“Multimedia” “The use of computers to present text, graphics, video, animation and sound in an integrated way.” From webopedia.internet.com

Types of Web Multimedia Text Images Audio Video Streaming Media

The Role of Multimedia Deliver Content Entertainment News Training Enhance Usability Navigation Instruction

Usability What is Good Design? Design Supports the Purpose of Site Shockwave vs. Credit Card Application User should be able to complete an application quickly and successfully without making mistakes. Ideally, User should also feel engaged by the experience.

Multimedia Techniques Animations Audio Video Streaming Media Flash/Shockwave SVG SMIL DHTML

Animation Animated GIFs Adobe ImageReady (Photoshop) Macromedia Fireworks Jasc Paint Shop Pro & Animation Shop Flash / Shockwave Dynamic HTML

Macromedia Flash (.swf)

Authoring SWF Files Macromedia Flash ( Macromedia Director ( Swish ( Adobe LiveMotion (

… Authoring SWF Files 2D Animation tools that export SWF Adobe Illustrator Macromedia Freehand Adobe Streamline can import bitmaps & convert to vectors 3D Animation Tools that export SWF 3D Studio Max Vecta3D Swift 3D

Flash / Shockwave

Director or Flash? Use Director to create interactive multimedia productions Use Flash to create resizable and extremely compact web site components

Macromedia Generator “Generator is a high-performance, scalable solution for delivering real-time, visual content to audiences who require fast, time-sensitive and personalized Web sites.”

Macromedia Generator What's the difference between Generator and Flash? Both can be used to deliver customized visual content to a browser Flash customization occurs on the client browser, using the Macromedia Flash Player Generator customization occurs on the server, and is delivered to the client in a variety of formats

Macromedia Generator … What's the difference between Generator and Flash? Generator delivers content in a variety of formats: GIF, JPG, PNG, QuickTime and.swf The main delivery method for Flash is a Macromedia Flash movie (.swf). Integrate differently with databases and application servers

Macromedia Generator

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) An open-standard vector graphics language Based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) High-resolution graphics for Web sites

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)

Audio Web pages are by no means limited to text and graphics… … but few mainstream Web sites include sound CD-standard audio hogs up about 10 megabytes of bandwidth per minute

Audio MP3 Wave MIDI Streaming Audio

Video MPEG Quicktime (.mov) AVI

Adding Video to a Web Page GODZILLA® 2000 <EMBED src="godzilla2000_trailer320.mov" width=320 height=255 BORDER="0" AUTOPLAY="TRUE" LOOP="FALSE" CONTROLLER="TRUE">

Streaming Media The media file begins playing while it is still downloading RealPlayer, Flash and Shockwave also incorporate streaming audio Creating RealAudio files is easy Must have a dedicated streaming media server to deliver content

Streaming versus Downloading Streaming video has the advantage of realtime download and playback At slow internet speeds quality may suffer Downloading video offers high quality playback Must download entire file before it can be viewed

Streaming Media RealNetworks RealPlayer Microsoft Windows Media Player Apple Quicktime

Emblaze

Thin Client Multimedia Streaming Video for Phones Released June, 2000 Media Player for Palm Released July, 2000 Streaming Video for Palm Released September, 2000

SMIL Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Enables the division of multimedia content into separate files and streams (audio, video, text, and images), Sends streams to a user's computer individually Displays streams together as if they were a single multimedia stream

Integrating Multimedia with WebApp WebApp Server in no way interferes with deploying any multimedia components in a web application Multimedia delivery to cell phones, PDAs, other thin clients still not practical Bandwidth available to user is critical in decision to deploy Must serve the purpose of the WebApp