Information Technology and You 155video. To be capable of multimedia, a computer must be equipped with a
high-resolution monitor and a CD or DVD drive and have audio capabilities.
Because of the amount of storage that video requires, full-motion video is
somewhat difficult to accomplish on a personal computer. For it to look
smooth, video requires roughly 30 frames (pictures) per second, and each
frame requires about 500,000 characters of information. In other words, one
minute of smooth video could require as much as 900,000,000 characters of
storage. In order to manage the large amount of storage that video processing
requires, the video data is compressed. Data compression examines the data
and, using an algorithm or formula, reduces the amount of storage space
needed by eliminating redundancies in the data. Then, before the data is dis-
played, it is inf lated back to its original form with little or no loss of picture
quality.
Printers
Printer technology has stabilized in recent years, with two standards having
emerged, laser printers and inkjet printers. Laser printers offer the best qual-
ity and speed. They are, for the most part, black-and-white and offer high print
resolution. There are several speed and memory options, and models range in
price from $400 for the individual user to several thousand dollars for a fast
unit that offers printer sharing and color. Inkjet printers offer the lowest price.
Models cost as little as $100. In higher-priced inkjet printers, print quality is
excellent in black-and-white and color. Today many people are using high-end
inkjet printers to print pictures taken with digital cameras. With high-end
inkjet printers and digital cameras, the results can be virtually indistinguish-
able from prints produced from film cameras.
Laser printers are the clear choice for network sharing, whereas inkjets
have become the mainstay of the individual user. In either case Hewlett-
Packard is the market leader in the development of printers.
Monitors
The most common type of computer monitor is a cathode ray tube, or CRT,
which physically resembles a television. In recent years, however, f lat-panel or
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) have emerged. The major advantage of the f lat-
panel display is that it takes up much less space on a desktop than does the
CRT. This advantage comes at a cost roughly three times as much as a compa-
rably sized CRT. Whether CRT or f lat panel, there are significant advantages
to having a display that is as large as space and budget allow. Some of the real
power of windowing software is the ability to view several windows of data at
the same time. Small displays make such windowing much more difficult. A
17-inch display (the screen measured diagonally) is about the minimum ac-
ceptable size.