Chapter - 2: Customizing and EmbeddingMultimedia Components in Web PagesLearning ObjectivesAfter studying this unit the students will be able to: Understand the definition of Multimedia and what it means to use it. Its format. Discover the kinds of media used in multimedia and understand how to combine them.Learn about formats of Multimedia. Describe the different methods of defining images, video and flash on Web pages.IntroductionMultimedia is many things rolled into one. What do you think of when you hear the wordMultimedia? Is it merely a mash up of media elements? Or is it everything we see, hear, read,and touch in websites, video games, phone, phone apps, retail kiosks, and bank ATMs? Thereare all forms of multimedia, and the list of uses grows daily. We are drawn into multimedia atevery run, whether we like it or not. The goal of this content is to demystify the meaning andprocess of creating digital multimedia.Multimedia has become an inevitable part of any presentation. It has found a variety ofapplications right from entertainment to education. The evolution of internet has also increasedthe demand for multimedia content.Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of information content and informationprocessing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain theuser. Multimedia also refers to the use of electronic media to store and experience multimediacontent. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope.The term “rich media” is synonymous for interactive multimedia.Resource RequirementHardware: A computer systemSoftware: Simple web pages does not required any software.2.1 Customizing and Embedding Multimedia Components in Web PagesIntroduction: Multimedia comes in many different formats. It can be almost anything youcan hear or see.Examples: Pictures, music, sound, videos, records, films, animations, and more.31Modern Web pages have often embedded multimedia elements, and modern browsershave support for various multimedia formats.Multimedia elements (like sounds or videos) are stored in media files.The most common way to discover the type of a file, is to look at the file extension. Whena browser sees the file extension .htm or .html, it will treat the file as an HTML file. The.xml extension indicates an XML file, and the .css extension indicates a style sheet file.Pictures are recognized by extensions like .gif, .png and .jpg.Multimedia files also have their own formats with different extensions like: .swf, .wav,.mp3, and .mp4.Advantages & Disadvantages of Using Multimedia on Web Pages:Since the introduction of the Mosaic Web browser in 1993, Web designers have addedmultimedia elements to Web pages. What started as the simple addition of a few imagesexpanded to include different types of multimedia and immersive environments. However,usability experts like Dr. Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group have expressedconcerns about the negative impact of multimedia on the Web.Advantages: Greater Immersion: Adding multimedia elements to a Web page make it easier todraw in viewers. While video is the most popular multimedia addition, sites also addaudio and interactive content to attract and hold the attention of the viewers. Enhanced Page Rankings for SEO: While the value of multimedia remainscontroversial in the search engine optimization world, surveys conducted by ForresterResearch indicate that video content, done correctly, is a major benefit to a site'soverall SEO strategy. The company discovered in 2010 that websites with videos were53 times more likely than text-based websites to appear on the first page of searchengine results. Better Branding: While HTML 5 text-based sites are more elaborate than websites ofthe past, they are still limited in many ways. It is hard to represent a brand's imagewithout including audio or video content to support it. As such, multimedia sites arefrequently preferred by marketing departments because of their ability to completelypresent branding.Disadvantages: Potential Damage to Search Engine Rankings: While video content can help a sitewith search engines, images that are not handled correctly can damage a sitesranking. Sites lacking links an automated "spider" program can follow end up beingignored by search engines. Creators of multimedia content who do not keyword-32optimize the content negate any SEO work on the non multimedia portion of the site.As a result, the site appears lower in search results, which affects its overall trafficflow. Loading Times: While the days of measuring page load times on a slow, dial-upmodem are over, multimedia content still takes longer to load than static content.Presenting a user who visits a site with a screen that says "Please Wait. Loading"frequently results in a viewer clicking away to a different page. Compatibility: Every browser can display at least some subset of HTML. Multimediaelements not as widely supported. The best example of this is the absence of Flashmultimedia on Apple's mobile devices. As of the middle of 2012, the devices still didnot support Flash, causing sites that depend upon Flash to display incorrectly on iPadsand iPhones. This problem applies to other types of multimedia, as well. A site thatuses the Windows Media format for its multimedia content will frequently not workcorrectly for users on computers that lack a plug-in for Windows Media.