Multimedia is a basic under-pinning of modern electronic business.
The course starts off with some basic signal theory, and then introduces multimedia through audio, and looks at audio hardware, computer device drivers, software, and analysis of the speech source. The video source is identified with respect to the concepts of colour, the camera and human vision, and this work includes the legacy of television systems. The principles behind compression algorithms are considered, and this work is then further built on to introduce basic audio and video compression algorithms, and standards. The latter part of the course transfers multimedia into the systems and networks area, and studies e-mail, the WWW, ISDN and Internet Multimedia. The students identify which topics a multimedia systems course might cover in order to appreciate each application.