MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS EXAMINATION Instructions: Attempt Question one (1) and any other two Questions.

Duration: 2 Hrs QUESTION 1 i) Define the following terms as used with multimedia applications a) Multimedia Multimedia is woven combinations of text, graphic art, sound, animation, video and other kinds of elements. b) VRML stands for Virtual Reality Markup Language. It is for descripting a scene in a virtual world. [4 Marks] ii) Differentiate between the following multimedia application compressions: a) MPEG-1 - MPEG (stands for Moving Picture Experts Group) is also a joint ISO and CCITT working group for developing standards for compressing still images - It defines a basic data rate of 1.2Mbits/sec a) MPEG-2 MPEG-2 is a newer video encoding standard which builds on MPEG-1 It supports higher video quality and higher data rate (up to 80 Mbits/sec) b) JPEG JPEG (stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a joint ISO and CCITT working group for developing standards for compressing still images. JPEG can be applied to colour or grayscale images c) H 261 (p x 64) [8 Marks] iii) A bitmap image has resolution 640 x 480 pixels. Each pixel is 24bit deep. What is the size of the bitmap in bytes? Each pixel requires 3 bytes = (24/8) 640 x 480 x 3 = 921,600Bytes 900Kb 1KB = 1024 bytes, 1Mb = 1024 x 1024bytes [4 Marks] iv) Define the following sound terminologies a) Period is the interval at which a periodic signal repeats regularly. b) Pitch is a perception of sound by human beings. It measures how high is the sound as it is perceived by a listener. c) Frequency measures a physical property of a wave. It is the reciprocal value of period f=1/p

The unit is Hertz (Hz) or kilohertz (kHz). d) Amplitude is the measure of sound levels. For a digital sound, amplitude is the sample value. e) Bandwidth. is the range of frequencies a device can produce or a human can hear. [5 Marks] v) Discuss what you understand by the term Companding. Also write down the m-Law companding equation defined in the American standards. [6 Marks] vi) Explain the process of digitalization. [3 Marks] QUESTION 2 i) Discuss the following terminology in relationship to digital images a) Pixel The smallest element on a digital image b) Depth The depth of an image is the number of bits used to represent each pixel. c) Resolution Resolution measures how much detail an image can have. There are several resolutions relating to images. d) Dithering Dithering is a technique to increase the number of colours to be perceived in an image. It is based on human eyes capability for spatial integration, that is, if you look at a number of closely placed small objects from a distance, they will look like merged together. [4 Marks] ii) Normal telephony audio captures analog frequencies up to 3.5KHz and has a digital data rate of 64Kb/s. Explain how this data rate came about, and the basic principles involved, given the range of frequencies to be captured. Your answer should cover both the analog-to-digital conversion process and the final digital encoding used. [8 Marks] iii) Define the term data encoding as used in multimedia applications and outline the difference between the following data encoding techniques giving examples in each technique. a) Entropy encoding b) Source coding c) Hybrid coding [8 Marks] QUESTION 3 i) Briefly explain how the Discrete Cosine Transform Operates, and why is it so important in data compression in Multimedia applications

[5marks] ii) If we record 10 seconds of stereo music at 44.1KHz, 16 bits, what is it size in Kbytes? [5 Marks] iii) Why is data compression necessary for Multimedia activities? [5 marks] iv) Describe briefly the MIDI. - MIDI data does not encode individual samples. MIDI data encode musical events and commands to control instruments. - Common MIDI devices include electronic music synthesizers, modules, and MIDI devices in common sound cards. - MIDI data are grouped into MIDI messages. Each MIDI message represents a musical event, e.g., pressing a key, setting a switch or adjusting foot pedals. - A sequence of MIDI messages is grouped into a track. [5 Marks] QUESTION 4 i) Define the Nyquists SamplingTheorem [4 Marks] ii) There are two ways of synthesizing MIDI sounds; FM synthesis and wave-table synthesis. Discuss the two methods. FM Synthesis (Frequency Modulation) Using one sine wave to modulate another sine wave, thus generating a new wave which is rich in timbre. It consists of the two original waves, their sum and difference and harmonics. The drawbacks of FM synthesis are: the generated sound is not real; there is no exact formula for generating a particular sound. Wave-table synthesis It stores representative digital sound samples. It manipulates these sample, e.g., by changing the pitch, to create the complete range of notes. [6 Marks] ii) Define the following coding scheme. Using this coding method compress the following uncompressed data : ABBBBCCDEFG a. Run-length coding. Where data files frequently contain the same character repeated many times in a row. AB4C2DEFG b. Huffman coding is an entropy encoding algorithm used for lossless data compression. The term refers to the use of a variable-length code table for encoding a source symbol (such as a character in a file) where the variable-length code table has been derived in a particular way based on the estimated probability of occurrence for each possible value of the source symbol. A(1) B(4) C(2) D(1) E(1) F(1)

G(1) [10 Marks] QUESTION 5 i) Differentiate between a Digital Audio and MIDI - Digital sound is relatively straight forward to record complex sound. However, it is quite difficult to generate (or synthesize) complex sound. Digital Audio a) Digital representation of physical sound waves b) File size is large if without compression c) Quality is in proportion to file size d) More software available e) Play back quality less dependent on the sound sources f) Can record and play back any sound including speech MIDI a) Abstract representation of musical sounds and sound effects b) MIDI files are much more compact c) File size is independent to the quality d) Much better sound if the sound source is of high quality e) Need some music theory f) Cannot generate speech [12 Marks] ii) In a teleconferencing system, a network connection having bandwidth of 100Kbytes/sec is allocated to duplex audio link. What is the maximum sampling rate and resolution in which uncompressed audio data can be transmitted in real-time? Assume the record is mono. [8 Marks]