by Paul Cassel Multimedia means the simultaneous use of more than one delivery medium. For example, radio uses only sound as a content-delivery medium. Television and movies use two: sound and moving pictures. Thus, television and movies are multimedia, while radio isn't. Although a static screen display is technically a way to deliver content, for most purposes, multimedia excludes static displays other than when used in presentations such as those made using Freelance or PowerPoint. To paraphrase a Supreme Court justice's comment, multimedia might be hard to define, but you'll know it when you see it.
Back in the old MS-DOS-only days, PCs could barely use any media. There were no real animations, and the only sounds made by those pre-1990 (roughly) computers were squeaks, pops, and burpy noises. Windows 3.0 (to a very small extent) and then Windows 3.1 (to a greater extent) added the ability to show animations, play or record decent sound, and generally enter the arena most would call multimedia. However, competitors such as Macintosh and to some extent Amiga were openly contemptuous of where Windows was in terms of multimedia.
Then Windows 95 roared onto the scene, giving PC users the multimedia equality they yearned for when compared to the Mac and even the now long obsolete Amiga. More importantly, the setup for multimedia devices in Windows 95 became something reasonable for most users, where it clearly wasn't under previous versions of Windows. Windows 98 continues the Microsoft march to multimedia mastery started by Windows 95.
Some of the salient features of Windows 98 multimedia over other--even other Microsoft--operating systems, are
The central applet for control of multimedia is the Multimedia applet in the Control Panel. Figure 6.1 shows this applet.
The tabs on the dialog box are
FIGURE 6.1. The Multimedia applet has the familiar tabbed format.
FIGURE 6.2. The Devices tab enables you to adjust the hardware settings for multimedia devices.
Windows 98 has a versatile multimedia player program. Although it can play many types of multimedia files, it can't edit any. Some third-party player tools, such as those distributed with sound or video hardware, can both play and edit these files. The Windows 98 player program determines the type of multimedia file based on the extension of the file and then configures itself to play or display it.
You can use the Media Player either by opening it using the menu choices Start | Programs | Accessories | Multimedia | Media Player or by opening a multimedia file. Table 6.1 lists some multimedia file extensions and types.
| Extension | Description |
| .fl(x) | AutoDesk Animator |
| .avi, .m3d, .prp, .lit, .cam, | Windows video |
| .mpg, .mpeg, .au(x), .aifc | |
| .m1v | ActiveX or DirectX animations |
| .wav, .snd | Windows digitized sound files |
| .asf, .asx | Streaming active media |
| .cda | CD audio track |
| .idf | MIDI instrument identification |
| .sbk, .sf2 | Sound fonts |
| .qt, .mov | QuickTime movie |
| .rmi, .mid | MIDI sound (music) files |
Table 6.1 contains a partial list. As the multimedia capacity of Windows 98 expands through the efforts of Microsoft as well as third-party vendors, the complete list will grow. Microsoft openly publishes the hooks that programmers need to create multimedia applications for Windows 98. This costs Microsoft some control over the multimedia process but also makes for a very vigorous market in these applications. There is nothing preventing a vendor from creating a file standard, extension, and application program on its own.
The Media Player will also play CD music selections, although you'll probably want to use the CD Player that is part of Windows 98 instead. In many cases, your sound card or CD reader will come with excellent software programs superior to the Media Player or CD Player. As with other programs, Microsoft supplies bare-bones applets with the operating system that are often best replaced with more feature-filled programs offered by third-party suppliers.
Figure 6.3 shows the Media Player playing a small .avi file while the CD Player plays a music CD. To start the CD Player, choose Start | Programs | Accessories | Multimedia | CD Player. In this example, the CD Player is playing the music from the movie Sleepless in Seattle (tough to hear in the book) while the Media Player shows a clip from the old Star Trek TV series. This effectively has Sleepless as the background music to Star Trek.
FIGURE 6.3. Multimedia means mixing and combining media types; this can lead to some interesting combinations.
As with other Windows 98 files, the file extension of multimedia files indicates what the file contains and what application to associate it with for opening or playing. The associations for multimedia files are the usual type found on the File Types tab in Windows Explorer under View | Folder Options. These associations are handled automatically by Windows 98 or the installation programs for various multimedia applications. You can modify the associations, but do so with caution because multimedia is a complex topic. Unwise edits to multimedia file associations will have unintended and often confusing results.
There's little to do with the CD Player other than play music CDs. To play a music CD, insert it into your CD-ROM drive, launch the player applet by choosing Start | Programs | Accessories | Multimedia | CD Player, and then point to the drive letter that's your CD-ROM drive. You can select the track to play from the combo box at the bottom of the player dialog box. If you have a magazine CD-ROM drive, you can also choose the CD to play.
By choosing Disc | Edit Play List, you can add or remove tracks from the selected CD. Figure 6.4 shows the CD Player: Disc Settings dialog box, which comes up when you select Edit Play List. You can similarly change your play options to Continuous Play, Random Selections, or Introduction Only (the start of each track) from the Options menu. The Preferences entry in the Options menu enables you, among other things, to set how long the introduction period is. The default is 10 seconds. By default, the CD Player will play all tracks on an inserted CD. Remember, you can set a CD to launch automatically in the Control Panel by choosing System | Device Manager | CD ROM | Properties | Settings and enabling or disabling Auto Insert Notification.
FIGURE 6.4. You can edit the tracks you want to play on any CD.
If you have a sound card installed, Windows 98 puts a Volume icon in your taskbar by default. This enables you to set the volume and balance for various sound-related devices, both input and output. This applet is also available by choosing Start | Programs | Accessories | Multimedia | Volume Control.
Many sound cards come with their own applets that have the same functions (usually a superset) as the Windows 98-supplied applets. You can use the controls that come with your sound card or the ones supplied with Windows 98. In most cases, the custom sound card controls have more features. Figure 6.5 shows the Windows 98 Volume Control at the top of the screen with a Creative Labs volume control, called a Mixer Control by the manufacturer, at the bottom of the screen.
The number and type of volume and balance controls on your sound control depend on the type of sound device you have installed. As you can see from Figure 6.5, you can adjust the overall sound and balance as well as individual settings. For example, you might want to set the .wav sound player low because this is the sound type played by Windows itself for alerts, while you make the CD sound louder for blasting away your favorite tunes as you work. Naturally, if you work in a crowded office, you will want to keep your sound at a reasonable level. Some speaker systems offer a headphone jack--a good option if you like a lot of noise and your coworkers don't.
FIGURE 6.5. Volume controls for Windows 98 and a custom sound card.
Early on, Internet futurists realized that the Internet, and specifically the Web, would be a great alternative to broadcast such as conventional radio or TV for content distribution. However, the problems of delivering streaming content--content or a show that's viewed in real-time as it's downloaded from the Internet rather than downloaded for later viewing--are substantial.
The problems revolve around the uncertain delivery speed of the Internet, the uncertainty of the recipients' acceptance speed (modem speed, for example), and the loss of packets due to switch queues between the sender and receiver.
Several startup companies addressed these problems in trying to make their proprietary systems an Internet standard for online streaming content. Perhaps the most successful was RealNetworks, the makers and distributors of the Real line of audio and video clients and servers. Client software is what you run to receive the stream, whereas server software is the sending program. RealNetworks cleverly gave away a limited version of its client software while selling the full version as well as the server-side software. The giveaway assured that the Real line became a success as the technology proved itself in the field.
Thus, prior to Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4, the Real line of streaming content delivery was in wide use for both video and audio. People tuned in through their Real-enabled browsers to view online television shows and listen to radio broadcasts as they worked or played online. Microsoft has introduced its own Internet streaming technology, NetShow, prior to and with Windows 98.
Figure 6.6 shows a TV show playing on the Windows 98 desktop under NetShow. The content providers aren't trying to make a substitute for broadcast TV, so don't expect to see the latest episode of the X-Files or King of the Hill under NetShow--although either is technically feasible. Instead, the Real line as well as NetShow providers are both trying to supply a narrowly focused special interest type of broadcast (or just 'cast) to attract targeted audiences.
This particular show is from Johns Hopkins Hospital, a teaching facility. It is broadcast weekly and covers current issues in geriatric care. The 'cast also has commercials just like ordinary TV, and it has production expenses as well. Figure 6.6 shows an ad for an adjustable bed. The ad is, contentwise, indistinguishable from the usual TV ads for this product.
FIGURE 6.6. It's not the X-Files, but this Johns Hopkins continuing medical education series has the usual commercials just the same.
Windows 98 will not install NetShow by default. If you've chosen (or had chosen for you) to install NetShow, it appears on your Start menu under Programs | Internet Explorer. If you don't see it, you can add it by choosing Add/Remove Software in the Control Panel and checking for its existence under the Windows Setup tab in the Multimedia section. Figure 6.7 shows the Multimedia dialog box.
After you have NetShow installed, launching it will bring up the player itself. Choose Go | NetShow Home Page to open up a page with various NetShow news items and links. You need to be online to use the Go menu choices.
FIGURE 6.7. The NetShow Player is an optional part of Windows 98.
When you're at the NetShow home page, you can view the various introductory videos and audio 'casts here or find the usual Internet Explorer-type links to other sites having standing or scheduled content. When you start linking to sites, you'll find many regularly scheduled or one-off 'casts for your viewing or listening enjoyment.
Internet broadcasts vary from the usual drivel to the truly interesting and educational. You'll find not only common interest type 'casts but also special interest items not generally found even on cable TV or radio. For example, Figure 6.8 shows a NetShow series teaching American Sign Language (ASL). This particular series deals with how to form certain letters in ASL.
FIGURE 6.8. A lesson in American Sign Language. This screen demonstrates how to make an
A. Configuring NetShow isn't terribly technical. The configuration dialog box is the usual tabbed type found under File | Properties. Figure 6.9 shows this dialog box open with a show running. If you choose File | Properties with no show running, the dialog box pertains to only universal properties, or defaults--a subset of what you see in the figure.
FIGURE 6.9. The NetShow Player has some properties unique to itself due to its specialized functions.
There is nothing you need to configure other than the Settings tab. Here you can adjust the size of the player screen, if the show loops, and the complexity of the controls shown. If you're configuring the player for others and you don't want them to be able to adjust the program, visit this tab and choose No Controls, as shown in Figure 6.10.
FIGURE 6.10. You can disable the control display in NetShow.
This won't stop determined fiddlers because they can always reset the controls to be displayed, but this does eliminate unintentional setting changes.
The Statistics tab primarily shows how successful your reception has been. Figure 6.9 shows this tab. As you can see, there has been only one lost packet in almost 13,000 sent, demonstrating that NetShow is running optimally. There has been roughly a 10 percent recovered packet rate, however. This is usually due to heavy server loads between the 'cast server and client.
You can always jump to the NetShow home page by choosing the entry NetShow Home Page under the Go menu. This grounds you, enabling you to download the latest drivers and see the current links to content providers.
Although the NetShow Player is mostly automatic, Microsoft has included a troubleshooter as part of its help system. If you're having problems with NetShow, you can step through this guide, shown in Figure 6.11. It works just like other Windows 98 troubleshooters.
FIGURE 6.11. Nothing is truly foolproof, including NetShow, but you can usually solve your problems using the troubleshooter.
The RealNetworks player is an alternative to the Microsoft product. You can download the player from the RealNetworks Web site (www.real.com) or link to it from Microsoft's Web site. Like NetShow, the RealPlayer plays both audio and video and can be configured by choosing View | Preferences. Figure 6.12 shows version 5 of the RealPlayer. It's playing a streaming video show about literary criticism.
FIGURE 6.12. The RealNetworks player has easily accessible channels for finding streaming content online.
The video and audio with either the RealNetworks player or the Microsoft one are roughly on a par with antenna reception of a TV or radio signal when the Internet stream's squeezed through a 28.8 modem. Faster connections such as ISDN or T1 enable much better reception. Figure 6.13 shows the Preferences dialog box for the RealNetworks player. Like NetShow, the configuration is mostly automatic and needs no user intervention in normal conditions. The Bandwidth setting on the Connection tab is what you adjust most often if you should change the speed of your Internet (or intranet or extranet) connections.
FIGURE 6.13. The RealNetworks player has user- configurable options, but most people never have to fiddle with them.
The other possible change in the RealPlayer is adjusting the quality of playback and thus the processor time used. That is, reducing the quality of the playback will free up some CPU time. Most modern machines have the excess CPU capacity to run the RealPlayer at full quality. Figure 6.14 shows the Advanced tab with the Playback Performance box circled.
FIGURE 6.14. The Advanced tab has troubleshooting and diagnostic tools on it.
If you're having trouble with sound synch, the Settings button on the Advanced tab has a few useful options.
One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of the entire Windows family is its confusing need for different drivers for many different hardware components. The idea of drivers goes back to the very earliest days of the IBM PC.
Drivers are extensions to a basic operating system that enable nonstandard hardware. For example, there is no standard video adapter for PCs. One person might use a Matrox brand, another an ATI, another a Number Nine. Each brand has lines of adapters. Each adapter or at least adapter family must use a discrete driver custom made just for it. The driver for a Matrox card won't work with a Number Nine.
The drivers extend the operating system, in this case Windows 98, to use that card. This prevents the need for Windows 98 to be so extensive that it can accommodate all possible cards, which cuts down on its size. It also means third-party manufacturers can create cards having features never envisioned or approved by Microsoft because they can write drivers to make Windows work with their cards.
The downside of all this flexibility is the need to identify and install the correct drivers for every piece of hardware in your computer that is in any way unforeseen or unplanned by Microsoft. Windows 98 does come with a large set of installable device drivers, but because new hardware and new drivers for existing hardware appear all the time, there is no way for the distribution media to have all the drivers you need.
The two branches of Microsoft operating systems further muddy the waters. The Windows 95 family uses one model driver while the Windows NT family uses another. With Windows 98 and Windows NT 5, Microsoft has made a large step in unifying the drivers into one model.
This one-size-fits-all generic driver model is the Win32 Driver Model (WDM). A WDM will work with many different devices and within either Windows 98 or Windows NT 5 or later. This greatly simplifies administration and configuration for both systems but does so at some cost. The WDMs will drive many different devices and drive them the same in either Windows 98 or Windows NT. However, they won't necessarily drive them optimally. For example, the very popular Creative Labs SoundBlaster AWE64 card will work with the WDM, but it won't exhibit as many features as when driven by the Creative Labs brand driver specifically made for the AWE64.
Windows 98 will tend to install the WDM for any devices it can, especially when installing clean versions, or not over an existing version, of Windows 98, Windows 95, or Windows 3.1 (Windows 3.11 too). If you find your multimedia devices aren't working as you expect them to, especially if you can't see certain features, check the properties by choosing Control Panel | System | Device Manager | Properties to see the type of driver the device in question is running. If you want, you can use the Update Driver button to custom-install a driver in place of the existing driver, including the WDM.
Sometimes Windows 98 will be stubborn about replacing the WDM drivers with those of your choosing. In those cases, delete the device from the Device Manager and then restart Windows 98. The operating system will detect a new device and enable you to specify the drivers, or it will hunt up some of its own. This is the time to direct Windows 98 to use the driver of your choice rather than the WDM. This is a somewhat tedious process, but when done, it's done for good. Here is a list of the types of devices that might find themselves hooked to the WDM:
Most multimedia applications diagnose and troubleshoot themselves on installation. The more complex the software, hardware, or combination of the two, the more care the manufacturer should take when it comes to setup.
Take video editing as an example. Disk speed is extremely important when capturing (digitizing) a video stream from an analog source such as a VCR, a TV broadcast, or a Camcorder. To assure a computer is fast enough to capture input without lost frames, one video capture board manufacturer, Matrox, includes a hard disk benchmark program as part of its setup routine. Figure 6.15 shows this benchmark after a run.
FIGURE 6.15. The manufacturer of this video capture board includes a benchmarking utility as part of setup.
Matrox has determined that a hard disk needs a throughput of at least 5 megabytes/ second to run well. The benchmark tells the computer operator if the machine is up to this standard. Including this benchmark informs the user and avoids calls to technical support.
Similarly, other multimedia setup programs should evaluate the computer they're being set up on. Some programs require certain color depths or resolutions, sound cards having certain compliance standards, or lately, MMX (Intel's Multimedia Extensions standard) operation, or some other feature.
In some cases, the setup program will diagnose what's wrong but can't or won't fix it. For example, if a setup program tells you that you need a different color depth or resolution, you need to go to Control Panel and choose Display | Settings to adjust these. The setup program can't do it for you. You can also adjust the display by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Properties | Settings from the context menu.
Most if not all multimedia hardware is now PnP (Plug and Play) compliant. This should eliminate all hardware conflicts, but it doesn't. The tools to diagnose and fix hardware conflicts in Windows 98 multimedia are the same as with any hardware.
The first step is to open the Control Panel and choose System | Device Manager to examine any suspected devices for conflicts. If you find any, you can sometimes use Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Microsoft System Information Utility to find free resources (usually addresses or IRQs) and manually force one of the devices to a new, nonconflicting resource. Figure 6.16 shows the Microsoft System Information utility running, showing IRQ resources allocated.
FIGURE 6.16. Windows 98, unlike most previous releases of Windows, has a full-featured diagnostic toolset.
If you're unsure which component is causing problems, you can always disable a suspected component or components in a particular hardware profile. See Day 12, "Maintaining Your System," for information on how to do this.
A lesser-used, but extremely handy, utility within Windows 98 is MSCONFIG. This won't appear on a menu unless you take steps to put it there. To run MSCONFIG from a standard Windows 98 setup, choose Start | Run and then enter msconfig in the dialog box that appears. MSCONFIG will allow you to examine your initialization files, neatly categorized by function. To disable the loading or starting of any driver or program, just uncheck the box next to its entry; then restart Windows 98. You can also uncheck all the boxes not needed for basic Windows function and then add them back in one at a time. Figure 6.17 shows MSCONFIG displaying the SYSTEM.INI file for one Windows 98 computer.
FIGURE 6.17. MSCONFIG is a technically oriented, extremely powerful tool for diagnosing multimedia problems.
Although Windows 98 technically replaces files such as AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI, and SYSTEM.INI with the Registry, many third-party programs still use these files. Windows 98 is backwards compatible, using them in the same way as previous Windows versions. Disabling and enabling the drivers and programs within the initialization files is much easier in MSCONFIG than using an editor to remark out the lines, as you were forced to do with earlier Windows versions. MSCONFIG also leaves you with a visual record of what you've done.
One final note: Multimedia hardware and software, even the latest, aren't foolproof. There are products on the market, and there will be products coming onto the market, that you won't be able to run. This often is due to incompatible hardware installed in the same machine. In these cases, there's nothing to be done for it other than to try other hardware. Figure 6.18 shows a nonlinear video editing session on a computer. This particular computer, a standard setup, required three video capture boards and two editing programs until it found a combination that worked.
Multimedia was once the buzzword of the year. Now it's settled down to being such a common part of computing that there really aren't any computers sold today without some multimedia capacity.
FIGURE 6.18. If at first you don't succeed, diagnose, fiddle, and then try other hardware or software.
Windows 98 is as advanced a multimedia operating system as ever has been available for PCs. Arguably, it's the most capable operating system in wide distribution ever. It has built-in support for many graphics standards, from business to games to advance modeling. It supports various sound output and input devices, making it capable of being a full-featured music studio with the proper hardware, software, and most importantly, operator.
A Windows 98 computer can be an animation studio, a video editing device, a movie production studio, and a Web server and can serve many other functions.
Windows 98 is the foundation. The multimedia edifices you choose to build on it depend on your budget, your talent, and your inclinations. Such productions as movies with music, once the realm of only the most advanced and expensive workstations, are now possible using a modest PC with Windows 98 and a few hundred dollars in additional software.
To wrap up the day, you can review terms from the chapter, see the answers to some commonly asked questions, and practice what you've learned. You can find the answers to the exercises in Appendix A, "Answers."
ActiveX--A constantly emerging standard from Microsoft for distributed applications. This standard started with OLE and has moved through various iterations. Currently, Microsoft calls this family of standards DNA (Distributed Network Applications).
DirectX--A way for software to address Windows 98. Using DirectX, software programmers can get performance rivaling direct hardware addressing common in MS-DOS days--thus the name.
CD Plus--An enhanced standard that enables the encoding and playback of digital music and information at the same time. Using CD Plus, a music title can play back both the music track and textual information simultaneously.
MMX--Multimedia extensions for Intel and Intel clone processors. MMX inclusion in a processor permits the type of fast processing for matrix calculations previously requiring a separate DSP (Digital Signal Processor).
WDM--An integrated standard for driving hardware devices under Windows 98 and subsequent Microsoft operating systems.
WinToon--A special facility of Windows 98 that enables full-screen animation playback that matches, or closely matches, commercial cinema displays.
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