how digital media can be displayed
Digital media can be displayed in a variety of way. Below are some of the few ways it can be displayed.
Screen: A screen is a display surface on which visual information is shown immediately from a computer. It can display text, images, video, graphics, animation and any other digital media form that can represented in a visual format. When a user interacts with computer using a mouse, keyboard, touchscreen or using gestures using a motion sensing input device such as Leap Motion, the result is shown on the screen. The most common type of screen use with computers is a monitor. Modern screens use LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology to display imagery. It consists of an LCD panel and backlight, which is a source of light. Common backlight technologies are LED (Light Emitting Diode), and sometimes on high end screens, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode).When light passes through the LCD panel, the colour in each individual pixel in the screen is changed accordingly and we see visuals of different colours.
Screens display visual information using pixels. The space between pixels is known as dot pitch. The smaller the dot pitch, the higher the amount of pixels and therefore the clearer an image is. Another factor that affects quality is the resolution, which is the number of pixels a screen can display horizontally and vertically. A general rule of thumb would be that the higher the resolution of the screen and the visual information source, the higher the quality of the imagery displayed. The highest possible resolution that is achievable currently is known as 4K, which is 4096 x 2160 pixels.
Screens display visual information using pixels. The space between pixels is known as dot pitch. The smaller the dot pitch, the higher the amount of pixels and therefore the clearer an image is. Another factor that affects quality is the resolution, which is the number of pixels a screen can display horizontally and vertically. A general rule of thumb would be that the higher the resolution of the screen and the visual information source, the higher the quality of the imagery displayed. The highest possible resolution that is achievable currently is known as 4K, which is 4096 x 2160 pixels.
Printer: A printer is a device which takes text and images in digital format and produces a copy on paper. There are two types of printers widely used for text and graphics printing, inkjet and laser. Both print documents differently and are capable of producing high quality prints. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and can be found in many homes. They are capable of producing high quality text and images on paper and are also used for printing vivid, high-quality photos. Inkjet printers have a print head which contains hundreds of very fine nozzles. Documents are produced by spraying ink over the paper. The printer makes use of a number of nozzles to form characters or images. One major disadvantage inkjet printers have is that the speed of printing can be rather slow, and each page can take a while to print. Laser printers are the other type of widely used printer. They are usually used in offices, businesses, schools etc because of their ability to print high quality documents at high speed. A laser printer can print up to 100 pages per minute compared to 25 pages a minute for inkjet printers. They use a type of ink in powdered form, known as toner, unlike inkjet printers which use liquid ink. A laser printer works by scanning a laser beam across a revolving drum inside the printer. This causes the drum to become charged and attract toner. As the paper is fed through the printer, the drum revolves and presses down on the paper, setting the toner and forming characters and shapes.
Speaker: A speaker is a device which emits sound from a computer. It is used to listen to audio such as music, recordings etc. Computers have a dedicated chipset known as a sound card which produces high quality electrical signals which are converted to sound by the speaker. The speakers are connected to the sound card via an audio cable. Speakers can also be built into the computer, which is usually the case in portable computers such as laptops and tablets. They are tranducers (device that converts one form of energy to another) which convert electromagnetic waves into sound waves. They consist of a cone wrapped in a coil of wire, which creates an electromagnetic field and interacts with the electrical signals from the sound card. This causes the cone to move back and forth, pushing the air around it and thus, produces sound. Most speakers come in pairs, known as a stereo configuration. However speaker sets can contain more than 2 speakers. High quality speakers known as surround speakers usually contain 5-8 speakers that are placed strategically around a room which makes a person feel as if the sound is coming from all directions.
How digital media can be distributed
Digital media can distributed in many ways. Some of the common ways are:
Optical discs: They are a storage medium that is widely in use. They are a circular disc with a diameter of 12CM and a shiny, reflective surface. They use laser technology in order to read and write data. Most optical discs can be written on once, that means, if data is written on a disc, it stays there permanently and cannot be modified or deleted. However, some discs are rewritable, which means data stored on it can be modified and/or deleted. There are many types of optical disc types, with varying storage capacities but physically they appear the same in terms of shape. The three most common are CD (Compact Disc), DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) and Blu-Ray Disc. CD’s have storage capacity of about 800MB and are most commonly used to store music e.g. an album. DVD’s have a storage capacity of upto 17GB. They are most commonly used to store movies and are also used to store other data. CD’s and DVD’s use a red laser to read and write data Blu-Ray discs are the most recent type of optical disc created. They are capable of storing of upto 100GB of data. They use a laser with higher wavelength and blue colour to read and write data, and hence the name “blu-ray”. They are commonly used for storing movies, and are superseding DVD’s because of their immensely high storage capacities.
Optical discs: They are a storage medium that is widely in use. They are a circular disc with a diameter of 12CM and a shiny, reflective surface. They use laser technology in order to read and write data. Most optical discs can be written on once, that means, if data is written on a disc, it stays there permanently and cannot be modified or deleted. However, some discs are rewritable, which means data stored on it can be modified and/or deleted. There are many types of optical disc types, with varying storage capacities but physically they appear the same in terms of shape. The three most common are CD (Compact Disc), DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) and Blu-Ray Disc. CD’s have storage capacity of about 800MB and are most commonly used to store music e.g. an album. DVD’s have a storage capacity of upto 17GB. They are most commonly used to store movies and are also used to store other data. CD’s and DVD’s use a red laser to read and write data Blu-Ray discs are the most recent type of optical disc created. They are capable of storing of upto 100GB of data. They use a laser with higher wavelength and blue colour to read and write data, and hence the name “blu-ray”. They are commonly used for storing movies, and are superseding DVD’s because of their immensely high storage capacities.
Flash drive: A flash drive is a small device, about the size of a thumb, which stores data on a memory chip. It uses USB to communicate with a computer. Modern flash drives are capable of storing very large amounts of data (currently upto 256GB). They can be read only, which means data stored inside can be read, but cannot be modified or deleted. No new files can be added on the drive either. They are typically re-writable and data can written and deleted on flash drives hundreds of thousands of times. They are cheap and are able to transfer data with speeds of upto 5Gbps. An example where flash drives are used to distribute media are in tech magazines, where flash drives are provided containing various videos and trial software.
Internet: By far the most common way of distributing digital media, the internet is a global network of millions of computer interconnected on a network. Over Powerful computers known as servers store a wide range of data including digital media. Users can visit websites to access a wide range of digital media, such as videos, music, text, graphics, animation etc. It is very easy to share and access digital media over the internet and allows a large number of people to access such content. Users can also choose to download content from the internet
Streaming: Streaming is a method of transferring data over a network, typically the internet, and playing it before the entire file is downloaded. It’s a very popular method of accessing digital content. Streaming allows a user to access a file as it is being downloaded, therefore a user does not have to wait. It also makes use of bandwidth, which is the quantity of information that can be transferred over a transmission medium , efficiently as it sends data at the speed the computer can play content. Data which is streamed is temporarily stored. Streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, Spotify etc have become extremely popular as they allow users to freely stream video and music whenever they want, easily.