One of the most important pieces of hardware in the development and delivery of Multimedia these days is the PC. Having a powerful PC allows the user to create Multimedia with ease and speed.

There are two types of Personal Computer’s; Microsoft Windows and the Apple Mac. Both of these computers are highly contested, however at the moment are currently the same with each equally performing certain tasks better than the other. The different types of hardware that makes a PC suitable for the use of Multimedia Development would include; RAM memory, and a Processor. In short, RAM is the memory that is used to run your application, so the more memory you have the faster your application will be able to store new information. A Processor is the brains of your computer transferring the information from your input at the keyboard (or other such input), to the memory banks and storage devices on your computer, which in turn makes your experience faster or slower depending on the speed of your processor.

Other pieces of important hardware for Multimedia can be split up into 4 categories; Storage Devices, Input Devices, Output Devices, Communication Devices.

• Storage Devices – Hard Drive, External Hard Drive, Portable Hard Drives (Memory Sticks such as a Micro M2 or USB Flash drive), Optical disks, CDs, DVDs, and Blu Ray Disks.

• Input Devices – Keyboard, Mouse, Scanner, Video Camera, Digital Camera, Microphone, Digital Tablet, and Webcams.

• Output Devices – Monitor, Speakers, Printer, LCD Projector, Television, Mobile Phones, IPods, and MP3 players.

• Communication Devices – SCSI, USB, Midi, Firewire, and HDMI.

• Flatbed Scanners – This type of scanner is quite bulky and will take up a certain amount of your desk space although it can be used to do a wide variety of different things. The flatbed scanner can be used to scan larger items such as books or newspaper articles. It can also be used to copy photographs losing only a minimum amount of detail. The price range of these scanners is relatively cheap considering, and is favoured by most as a first choice.

• Photo Scanners – Are far more expensive and specialize in digitizing film negatives or slides. This type of scanner is not multi purpose like the flatbed scanner, however is a far better selection if you professionalize in photography.

• Sheetfed Scanners – Like the flatbed scanner the sheetfed scanner has its multi-purpose benefits, however is a bit more restricted. The sheetfed scanner is smaller this means it cannot scan larger items such as books. Resolution is also lost meaning scanning photographs would not be ideal. This leaves documents as its main priority where it excels. With a flatbed scanner you are only able to scan one page at a time. With the sheetfed scanner you can scan multiple documents consecutively. Although this added bonus makes it ideal for office work it is still three times more expensive than a flatbed scanner.

• Portable Scanners – This type of scanner is more of a gadget. They can be as small and slim line as a pen, making it a useful thing if you are on the move. It will not scan in high resolution this limits its usage a great deal only scanning documents line by line. As its price bracket is still not as low as the flatbed scanner the portable scanners are mainly used by the likes of students, researchers, or ID scans.

The acronym LCD stands for ‘Liquid Crystal Display’. The projector is made up using three LCD panels which surround a light. The different types of bulbs used are UHP, metal halide, or halogen. These bulbs are used because they project a very strong white light. As this light heats up the crystals in the panels expand which allows more light to filter through. The higher the temperature the bulb reaches the lighter the tone it projects, the cooler temperatures create darker tones. The images from the media device are projected onto a special screen inside the projector that is coated with phosphor. This image is then broken down into its colour components of RGB and using the voltage to control the heat of the crystal panels subtle tones are created allowing a large amount of different colours to be created in one projection.

• Interchangeable-Lens Full system Digital SLR – You are able to remove the lens and replace it with another for example, ultra wide angle, or super telephoto.
• Fixed-Lens Digital SLR – You are not able to change the lens, however on some of the more expensive fixed lens cameras you are able to use an LCD for composing.
• SLR-Style – This is not an SLR camera as it does not have a pentaprism. Most of these cameras have long zoom lenses and an LCD.
• Interchangeable Lens Cameras – This is a hybrid camera using the same technology as a point and shoot camera with the added bonus of an interchangeable lens mount.

In 2008 Nikon brought out the first SLR camera to incorporate HD video called the Nikon D90 capable of recording 1280 x 720 resolutions. The Nikon D90 has a 12.3 megapixel image sensor, and a live view mode that lets you compose and shoot with a high-resolution 3-inch LCD monitor. It has interchangeable NIKKOR lenses such as Wide Angle and fisheye and also has a vibration reduction option, although with its exceptional low-noise performance it hardly needs it. The accuracy, depth of field and large capabilities of this camera make it an excellent choice. It is user-friendly and extremely satisfactory for professional photographers. The price range of this camera is £780 to £850, depending on where you buy from. Due to the high price (although not for a professional camera) this means that this camera may not be suitable for someone who is looking for simple casual use.

The more affordable Fujifilm Finepix S1500fd Digital Camera is a lot more suitable for someone who wishes to use the camera for casual use and outdoor family photographs. This 10 megapixel camera is in the price bracket of £120 to £200 and is a lot more compact than the Nikon D90. It does not have interchangeable lenses though making it a lot less accurate than the D90. It has a 2.7inch LCD screen and can rely more on its automatic features, but can still be used manually with aperture and shutter priority modes.

If you are an up coming professional photographer then a Nikon D3000 Digital SLR Camera is a good starting point. It costs between £400 and £500 and has plenty of technology to help you make professional images. Intuitive in camera assistance gives the user a large amount of help when creating beautiful images. It has a 10.2 megapixel image sensor, 11 point autofocus, scene recognition system, and active D lighting that automatically adjusts the exposure.

When capturing movies a Canon HV30 High Definition Camcorder is one choice of many. On a digital camera there are two types of zoom Digital and Optical. The optical zoom maintains the pictures clarity, whereas the digital zoom only enlarges an area of the existing picture. With this Canon HV30 you have a 10 x Optical zoom along with an optical image stabilizer meaning you can zoom in and not loose a large amount of detail. It is a Mini DV camcorder that also allows you to create High definition movies. You are able to change the lenses and filters to suit your needs. With a 2.7 LCD viewing display you can view your video footage as you create it. Although this can drain your battery so a traditional view finder is also available. The Canon HV30 is priced from £750 to £1,200 and is an excellent choice for amateur film making on a budget.

For a professional videographer there is the Canon DM-XL2 Professional Mini DV Camcorder. This has a 20 x Optical Zoom L-Series lens with zoom and focus presets. To coincide with the 20 x Optical zoom there is also Super range Optical Image stabilizer this makes close-ups extremely accurate. Full manual control over a innumerable amount of variables gives you everything necessary for all your fine adjustments. It has a fully adjustable EVF, and shared 2″ LCD. The Canon DM-XL2 is Mini DV compatible and is priced at around £4000.

And if you really want to test the boundaries of what a camera can do then I would first start off by checking out the High Speed Phantom v710 which runs at 1,400,000 FPS. At full resolution “1280×800” you get an outstanding 7530fps. To watch some example videos check out http://www.visionresearch.com/

You have two different types of CD disks; CD-R or CD-RW. CD-R means Compact Disk Recordable. With this type you are only able to record once onto the same CD these are primarily used for recording audio CDs with a high compatibility with CD players. CD-RW means Compact Disk Rewrite-able and are a little less compatible with some CD players. The CD-RW allows you to record over the same CD a multiple of times making this choice a lot less expensive over time.

The different types of DVD disks are quite similar in description as the CD disks, the choices you have are; DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, you also have Double-Layer (DL) DVD and DVD-RAM.

The main difference between a CD Burner and a DVD Burner is the capacity of the disks you burn on too. A CD can hold roughly 700Mb whereas a DVD can hold up to 4.7GB (or 8.5 on a Double-Layer DVD). This means that a CD is more adequately suited for storing a large number of smaller files (for example audio files or documents), and DVDs are better suited to storing larger files (for example movies, backup data). Another added bonus to a DVD is that it can be interactive allowing the user to manipulate the program to there own requirements (e.g. a DVD menu).

The availability of the software you need can be determined by its price, can you afford to buy it, and is it worth your while to invest in it. The price of software varies in relation to its power, the more powerful software with a larger amount of tools supplied for the user, the more expensive it will be. However this does not stop a user from being able to create multimedia on a budget. There are also various freeware programs available that allow you to reach the same standards as some of the more expensive programs. One example of this would be Photoshop which you would have to pay for to use after a trial period, instead you could use a program called the GIMP which provides you with more or less the exact same tools as Photoshop with one difference of being absolutely free.

Here are a few different types of Software available:

• Image Editing: Paint shop Pro, GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Photo Pos Pro, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Fireworks.

• Sound Editing: WavePad Sound Editor, Adobe Sound Booth, Sound Forge, Audacity, Garage Band (Mac).

• Animation/3D Editing: ToonBoom Studios, Lightwave, Adobe Flash professional, Maya, Poser, Cinema 4D.

• Video Editing: Adobe Premiere, Media Studios Pro, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker, Camtasia, Final Cut Pro.

Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for digital imaging. The latest package Photoshop Extended CS4 has new technology that allows for 3D image wrapping where you can merge a 2D image with a 3D object. With Photoshop you are able to optimize and enhance photographic stills to give them more clarity or artistic effects. Using layers you are also able to combine multiple images into one main design, this allows the user to create beautiful art or extended depth of field images. You are able to give a dramatic feel to a basic image using Photoshop and save in different formats. The main formats used for saving in Photoshop are TIFF or JPEG. Both formats have their place. JPEG employs a loss compression achieving smaller file sizes ultimately discarding details deemed to be less visually impactful, this is better suited for images that might be published digitally (e.g. on a website) where size is a key factor. TIFF on the other hand is more adequately used for printing. TIFF can be either compressed or uncompressed using lossless compression. Unlike JPEG this means that the file sizes are a lot larger with a greater amount of detail. Photoshop is a raster based package which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image. The Extended version of Photoshop costs £953 and the standard package costs roughly £400.

GIMP (General Image Manipulation Program) is a freeware image manipulation program that allows you to create similar quality images as you can in Photoshop. There are large debates about GIMP vs. Photoshop and if the latter is better. GIMP, however is not better. It is a program created to Photoshop standards and does not quite meet them. This fact aside it is a stand alone program that should not be over looked when starting out in image manipulation. It has all the main features that allow you to modify images such as layers, shades, strokes etc. Where this program fails is in the quality of these effects. Adobe has put a lot more research and years of experience into creating Photoshop making its shades and other elements a lot smoother and accurate than what GIMP can achieve.

Adobe Illustrator allows you to create graphics and type in vector format. Vectors can be scaled easily without jeopardizing the quality of the image. This format is best suited for printing (i.e. billboards etc.) as vector graphics are not translated into bit maps until the last possible moment after all sizes and resolutions have been considered. Illustrator is mainly a drawing package giving you all the tools you would need to create stunning art work.  Illustrator is priced at £600 and is primarily used by web and interactive designers and developers, multimedia producers, motion graphics and visual effects designers, animators, and video professionals.

Adobe Fireworks is used to create websites and application interfaces and to create and optimize images. Unlike Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks is a specialized tool for prototyping vectors and bitmaps to be introduced to the web. It is a simplified version of Photoshop that allows you to slice and edit images easily without having a large user interface to confuse the user making fireworks a lot easier to learn than its counterpart Photoshop.

Audacity is an open source freeware program that allows you to edit and record sound files. With Audacity you have all the basic functions you need to mix and merge sound files together to the desired outcome. It contains major features of modern multi-track audio software including navigation controls, zoom and single track edit, project pane and XY project navigation, non-destructive and destructive effect processing, and audio file manipulation. Audacity is limited in that it lacks dynamic equalizer controls, real time effects and support for scrubbing. This can make the editing process more complicated and frustrating at times.

Adobe Soundbooth is a professional audio application and costs £178. It contains all the same major features as Audacity and many more to achieve maximum creativity. Some of the added features with Soundbooth include; volume keyframing, automatic volume correction, MP3 compression preview, looping tools, and speech search that allows you to turn spoken dialogue into text-based, timecode-accurate metadata that makes your video searchable.

Windows Movie Maker is an easy to use video editing tool that allows you to create basically transitioned movies. You are able to create an auto-movie with titles and credits or manually create using custom effects such as pixelate, grayscale, fades, ease in and out, rotate, circle transitions, and fan up or flip transitions. Windows Movie Maker is freely installed on all Windows computers.

Final Cut Pro is a professional movie editing that provides high-performance digital nonlinear editing. It supports virtually any video format. Final Cut Pro acquires HDV media via FireWire and keeps it in the original format, transferring it into the system without any generation loss. You are able to cut up footage and combine it together in a smooth flowing professional manner using a large variety of resources including a multi-camera editor which allows the user to simultaneously view and cut from multiple sources in real time.