SYSS ICT Ch4 Multimedia Elements and Digitization Page 1 of 7

1. Analogue Data and Digital Data

1.1 What are analogue data and digital data?

● Analog data
○ A continuous representation, analogous to the actual information it represents.
○ Computers cannot work with analog information directly
● Digital data
○ A discrete representation, breaking the information up into separate elements.
○ By breaking the analog information into pieces and representing those pieces using
binary digits.
● [A digital signal can degrade quite a bit until the information is lost, because any value over
a certain threshold is considered high value and below the threshold is considered low
value.]

1.2 Conversion between analogue data and digital data

● Digitization is the process of converting analogue data into digital data. It involves
sampling, quantization and coding.
● Sampling
○ Obtaining discrete sample data from the continuous analogue signal for every
fixed time interval.
○ Sampling rate
■ The frequency of reading analog signal.
■ Higher sampling rate => better approximation to the original signal.

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● Quantization
○ Converting continuous signal levels of each sample data into a discrete values
using a predefined scale.
○ Quantization step
■ Size of interval in the predefined scale.
■ Smaller quantization step => better approximation to original signal.

● Coding
○ Representing quantized values digitally.
○ e.g. 1 3 4 4 5 6 => 001 011 100 100 101 110

1.3 Comparing analogue data and digital data

Characteristic Analogue data Digital data

Representation Continuous. A sequence of real Discrete. A sequence of ‘0’ and ‘1’

values.

Efficiency on Low efficiency and short life-time. High efficiency and long life-time.
data storage (e.g. cassette tape, video tape) (e.g. CD-ROM, flash memory)

Efficiency on High rate of transmission error Low rate of transmission error

transmission

Accuracy of Higher accuracy depends on the Lower accuracy because not all
information sampling technique used. information is converted and recorded.

Replication Most probably with data lost. Easy for absolute replication
and error-free transmission.

Mode of data Mostly sequential access Direct access is possible, depending

access on the media used for storage.

Efficiency on Low efficiency. Difficult to search High efficiency. Efficiently processed

data analysis and analyze to produce information. by computers to generate information.

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2. Digital Multimedia Elements

2.1 Audio
● Sound is inherently analogue, which can be represented as sound wave.
● A sound card is an electronic circuit board that is responsible for converting analogue audio
signal to digital data and vice versa.
● Quality of digital audio is determined by
○ Sampling rate - number of samples taken per second, measured in Hz
○ Bit resolution - number of bits per sample
○ Channels
■ Mono audio - only one sound track.
■ Stereo audio - two streams of audio signals (left and right sound track).
■ Surround sound - use additional audio channels from speakers that
surround the listener. e.g. Full surround 5.1 (3 front + 2 rear + 1 low freq.)
Audio type Sampling rate (Hz) Bit resolution (bps) # Channels Bit rate (kb/s)

Telephone 8,025 8 Mono 64.2

AM radio 11,025 8 Mono 88.2

FM radio 22,050 16 Stereo 705.6

CD 44,100 16 Stereo 1411.2

DVD 96,000 24 Full surround (5.1) 11520.0

● Audio files in a computer are the digitized data of audio signals.

○ WAV - uncompressed audio file format.
○ MP3, WMA - lossy compressed audio in portable music players and web pages.
○ MIDI - store the notes in the song, instead of sampling the sound wave.
● Since the digital audio is an approximation of the analogue source, the audio playback
cannot be the same as the original one. However, higher sampling rate and bit resolution
can record and reproduce audio output closer to the original one.

2.2 Graphics
● Colour is our perception of the various frequencies of light. Our retinas have three types
of colour photoreceptor cone cells that respond to the colours of red, green, and blue.
● RGB (red-green-blue) value is often use to represent colour in a computer. For example:
Colour Red Green Blue RGB value (hex)

Black 0 0 0 00 00 00

White 255 255 255 FF FF FF

Yellow 255 255 0 FF FF 00

Pink 255 130 255 FF 82 FF

Brown 146 81 0 92 51 00

2.2.1 Bitmaps

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● A bitmap image is a collection of colour dots called pixels arranged in rows and columns.
● A pixel is the smallest picture element that can be shown on a computer screen.
● Colour depth
○ The number of bits used to represent a pixel.
○ Measured in bits per pixel (bpp).
○ Represent the number of possible colours in a pixel.
○ Higher colour depth => Larger number of colours can be displayed in the image.

Colour depth Bits per pixel RGB bits # colours

(bpp / bits)

8-bit colour 8 3R, 3G, 2B 256

High colour 16 4R, 4G, 4B, 4A (alpha) 4,096 colours

16 lv transparency

High colour 16 5R, 5G, 5B, 1A 32,768 colours

(e.g. mobile phone) 2 lv transparency

True colour 24 8R, 8G, 8B 16,777,216

Deep colour 30/36/48/64 16R, 16G, 16B, 16A 281 x 1012 colours
65536 lv transparency

● Resolution
○ Is the measurement of the number of pixels per unit length in a bitmap image.
○ Measured by pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi).
■ 72-96 ppi for web images and screen display.
■ 200-400 ppi for photograph printing.
○ Can also be measured by # horizontal pixels × # vertical pixels.
■ Screen resolution examples: 1024 × 768, 1366 × 798 (wide screen)
○ Higher resolution => More details of the image can be shown.

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● Common file formats of bitmap

○ BMP - uncompressed images
○ TIFF - lossless compressed images, highest quality format for commercial work.
○ JPEG - lossy compressed images used in digital cameras and web pages.
○ GIF, PNG, WebP - lossless compressed images for web pages.

2.2.2 Vector graphics

● Vector graphics composed of vector objects, including
○ geometrical objects defined by mathematical formulae, such as points, lines,
curves, shapes and polygon.
○ Strings of text
● A vector graphics file stores vector objects’
○ shape (e.g. points, lines, circle, rectangle, etc)
○ location (e.g. xy-coordinates of the two end points of a line)
○ properties (e.g. colour, centre, radius, thickness, stroke, fill of a circle)
● A computer software draw the vector objects to display them on a screen.
● Rescaling and modification is easy and do not affect the quality.
● Smaller file size than a bitmap image, but higher computational requirements.
● Suitable for simple charts, line arts and illustrations.
● Not suitable for complicated colour patterns.
● Common vector graphic formats
○ WMF - Windows Metafile, EPS - Postscript, SWF - Shockwave Flash
○ SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics (http://www.w3schools.com/svg/svg_examples.asp)
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1">
<defs>
<linearGradient id="grad1" x1="0%" y1="0%" x2="100%" y2="0%">
<stop offset="0%" style="stop-color:rgb(255,255,0);stop-opacity:1" />
<stop offset="100%" style="stop-color:rgb(255,0,0);stop-opacity:1" />
</linearGradient>
</defs>
<ellipse cx="200" cy="70" rx="85" ry="55" fill="url(#grad1)" />
<text fill="#ffffff" font-size="45" font-family="Verdana" x="150" y="86">SVG</text>
</svg>

2.3 Video
● A sequence of full-motion images (frames) together with sound tracks.
Factor Description Example

Frame rate Frames per second 25 fps (DVD-PAL)

60 fps (HD-NTSC)

Frame size Horizontal and vertical pixels on each 720 × 576 pixels (DVD 576p)
frame 1280 × 720 pixels (HD 720p)
1920 × 1080 pixels (HD 1080p)

Colour depth Bits per pixel DVD: 24 or 32 bits

Duration Play time of a video clip

Compression Reduce file size by changing the VCD: MPEG-1; DVD: MPEG-2
content or the way of representation. iPod and PSP: MPEG-4
Internet streaming: WMV and RMVB
● Higher frame size and frame rate => better video quality, but larger file size.
● A particular compression method has its own specification of compression ratios, frame
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sizes and frame rates.

● Different video file formats require different media players and plug-ins.
● Common video format
○ AVI - The most popular standard of uncompressed video.
○ MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 - compressed video.
○ WMV, RM, RMVB - Compressed video for streaming.
○ WebM - Compressed video for HTML5 streaming video.

2.4 Summary

Media Audio Bitmap Vector graphics Video

Represent Sound wave Light wave Light wave Sequence of images and
(Air pressure) (Intensity) (Intensity) sound tracks

Sampling Sampling rate Resolution N/A Frame rate (fps)

(Hz) (ppi / dpi / Frame size (h × w pixels)
h × w pixels) Audio sampling rate (Hz)

Quantization Bit resolution Colour depth Coordinates and Colour depth (bpp)
(bps) (bpp) properties of Audio bit resolution (bps)
primitive vector
objects

Uncompressed WAV, MIDI BMP AVI

file format

Compressed MP3, WMA TIFF, JPEG, WMF, EPS, SWF, MPEG-1, MPEG-2,
file format GIF, PNG, SVG MPEG-4, WMV,
WebP RM, RMVB, WebM

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Glossary
analogue data channel
digital data mono / stereo / surround sound
continuous signals graphics / image
discrete values pixel
digitization colour / RGB value
sampling bitmaps
sampling rate colour depth
quantization bits per pixel (bpp)
quantization step resolution
coding pixels per inch (ppi) / dot per inch (dpi)
life-time screen resolution (h × w pixels)
transmission error vector graphics
accuracy vector objects
data lost video
absolute replication frame rate (frame per second / fps)
error-free transmission frame size (h × w pixels)
sequential access duration
direct access WAV, MP3, WMA, MIDI
audio / sound BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, WebP
sampling rate (Hz) AVI, MPEG, MPEG-4, WMV, RMVB, WebM
bit resolution (bps)

References
● Lai Yiu Chi, Cheng Chi Shing, Yau Siu Hung and To Ka Wai. Information and
Communication Technology. Longman Hong Kong Education, 2009.
● Wong Tien Tsin. Lecture Notes of Multimedia (2005 spring). The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, 2005.
● Data Representation – Binary Format, ASCII EBCDIC Unicode, Digital Analog, Images
Videos Audios
http://www.computertipsfree.com/data-representation-binary-format-ascii-ebcdic-unicode-
digital-analog-images-videos-audios/
● A Few Scanning Tips - Image File Formats - JPG, TIF, PNG, GIF. Which to use?
http://www.scantips.com/basics09.html

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