Customer Reviews

Advanced Multimedia Programming

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very old book on multimedia processing. Its emphasis on Windows programming in the C programming language as that interface existed in 1994 makes several of the chapters no longer relevant. However, there is some interesting information in some of the chapters that is still worthwhile. In particular, the chapter on MIDI music has information on MIDI in general that is still worthwhile. Likewise for the information on video for Windows and the chapter on joysticks. The fun stuff this old book covers includes how to modify pre-existing WAV and MIDI files, an interactive piano tutor, and a MIDI recording studio. There are better and cleaner ways to do everything that is talked about in this book, but it is rare these days to get such a mechanical viewpoint of how multimedia works on a PC. Step-by-step instructions are included. These days, usually everything is handled at a much higher level. My three star rating has to do with the worth of the book today, if this subject interests you. The value of the book when it was published was definitely five stars. The following is the table of contents:

1 Getting started 1
2 Wave files 15
3 Windows timers - A very short chapter 91
4 Graphics 99
5 Animation, joysticks, & screen savers 223
6 MIDI music 279
7 Video for Windows 401

If you decide to get this book, make sure you are buying a copy with the CD included, because the accompanying CD-ROM includes all of the book's code, example wave files, fonts, graphics and sound bites.Otherwise your purchase will not be worth much.