Multimedia

The holistic combination of graphics, audio, video, 3D, interaction, data, state and delivery. It feels like such a dated term now. Still, it represents a harmony of disciplines, design language and technical optimisations that we have all become accustomed to in our everyday lives, and most of us now consume it daily.

Modern streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube are multimedia services that have grown up, investing in the infrastructure required to deliver to the “smart” TVs and streaming machines in our living rooms.

Beyond linear media consumption, gaming keeps pushing forward state-of-the-art multimedia; the latest AAA game titles still use the same multimedia paradigms established in the early days of CD-ROM — menu screens, loading screens, cut scenes, seamless music and audio landscapes.

Beyond the living room

We’re seeing ‘multimedia’ tech pushed to extremes today: virtual production sets used to create the latest movies and TV series, and the substantial digital staging used at live shows — hardware that can push trillions of pixels every few milliseconds, combined with new display tech, VR, robotics and live motion control, all running in real time on racks of CPUs and GPUs.

What has always been true is that it’s a product of the latest technology. Initially, only the fastest PCs, augmented with audio and video cards, could play even basic audio and video off fixed CD media. Today, the latest well-equipped PCs can stream 8K video and hi-def audio and showcase what is possible with photo-realistic real-time rendering — the PCMR. Along the way, the current state of the art has been extracted into ‘consumer’ tech — CD-Plus, DVD, Blu-ray, PlayStation, Xbox, etc.

Creating the experience

Behind these products and experiences lies a particular design approach to user experience, media production and delivery infrastructure, often requiring a digital sleight-of-hand to make it all feel seamless and effortless. As the cliché goes, when it’s done right, it’s like nothing is being done at all.

Being multi-skilled and experienced across all media classes gives me a unique perspective on visualising, designing, managing and creating for any media production in the digital domain — from the web to the largest shows and most high-tech implementations, whether that’s shaving off bytes to save money at scale, to pushing out multiple petabytes across distribution networks.

Key to this is my talent for ‘feeling’ how a system is performing, combined with analytics and measurement, and being able to target particular areas for improvement.