Digital multimedia has led to an explosion in the ways technology companies can cater to consumer demand for access to media and media creation tools and technology. Media creation and access tools now are available for a variety of devices — from desktop computers to cell phones and MP3 players — yet despite the less-powerful computing power, the demand for highly responsive applications remains.
The proliferation of media creation tools has lead to demand for applications with functionality that in the past could only be found in professional software. At the same time, the advent of devices such as the Apple iPhone has led the development of post-WIMP (window, icon, menu, pointing device) user interfaces. With the increasingly competitive market place and demanding consumer, the only applications that will survive are those that provide the greatest functionality in manner that is highly responsive and intuitive, using the full functionality of the user interface and computing hardware of the device for which it is built.
Figure 1: Success factors for Multimedia Software Design
Given the variety of aspects to be considered and limited resource available for development, the product manager of a multimedia software product must decide which tasks or software modules will garner the greatest percentage of system and development resources.
Codecs: The Crucial Hygiene Factor
In a multimedia software product, audio and video codecs provide the crucial hygiene factor that ensures the commercial success of the software in the marketplace. Codecs determine the media fidelity, resource utilization and responsiveness of the multimedia product. High-quality codecs optimized for the hardware platform for which the multimedia application is developed, allow product developers to focus on the important task of differentiating the product from competitors in an unforgiving marketplace.
Figure 2: Division of Activities for Multimedia Product Development
NEXT: Compression and Codec Standards
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