What is interactive multimedia?

Multimedia in its simplest form is any form of communication that uses more than one media type at a time . A book or catalog is, for example, a form of communication which using only one media – text and pictures (visual media).

The current accepted understanding of multimedia generally involves a variety of media, such as still images, video, sound, music and text.

Such multimedia material can be stored on DVDs or CD-ROMs for computer use or on DVDs for DVD player use. The best examples of such DVDs are yoga or golf instructional DVDs.

Even nowadays, most media types are only designed to be perceived by two senses, vision and hearing. Still, incredibly powerful messages can be communicated using just these two senses.

The next generation of multimedia is interactive multimedia . In this definition the delivery of the assets is dependent on decisions made by the user at the time of use.

The content of interactive multimedia lend themselves to interactivity, such as self-paced learning and game play, or data search by user setup criteria. Information which is result of such data search can be linked with other information on that media or on the Internet. Information can be printed out and every subject can be faxed or emailed. Interactive multimedia DVDs can be used both in PCs and DVD players. The best examples of such CDs or DVDs are electronics and furniture catalogs, or educational CDs.