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eZedia News
eZediaMX, the Shape of Multimedia
System Babies
March 2002
One analogy that crops up is that of a coachman controlling 6 horses, steering the carriage in a direction, delivering the traveler to his/her destination in one piece. That, my friend, is multimedia! Another, more Cronenbergian, analogy is a surgeon operating on mutant organs with instruments designed for non-mutated bodies...
That's right, we're talking David Cronenberg here. One has to be careful when mentioning Cronenberg (Toronto resident) to a Canadian, it can be viewed as a faux paux. Then perhaps "eZedia" could yield a definite positive response... eZediaMX 3.0 is a Canadian born multimedia program from eZedia Inc. that looks poised to cause outrage...
MUTANT STRAINS
For the multimedia programmer a mutation of a medium, such as Quick Time, could be met with headache and frustration rather than enthusiasm. But that's the nature of metamorphosis, it's a catalyst for stagnation or progression. Some see a beauty within destruction. Quick Time 4 is dead. Long live the new flesh, Quick Time 5. There aren't that many multimedia authoring programs outside of MacroMedia's Director that can encompass new media technology as it develops. There aren't many authoring tools that can cure the cancerous subject of expenditure. Money or a lack thereof is seen as a form of cancer to the budding multimedia developer. It used to be that the cure is too costly to obtain. On the right is MatchWare's Mediator (for the PC), on the left is Digital Workshop's Opus (also for the PC) but, until now, there has been nothing in the middle. Multimedia, beyond, Director is going in opposite directions, eZedia is going to change that forever.
CONTROL UTILITY
No one has a cure for change. It can't be stopped, so the logical progression is to try and control or utilize its properties. The aforementioned programs (Mediator & Opus) have often gone against the grain, but they are trying to turn around. It's not easy. Harder for some, easier for others. At least they are trying and show great promise. eZediaMX 3.0, on the other hand, have taken a different route. Harnessing the powers of Java (eZedia is written in Java), Quick Time and OpenGL; the result is a revolution in multimedia authoring for the PC. Here's a question: What particular strain of Quick Time technology cannot be (at the time of writing) absorbed by Mediator Pro & Opus Pro? The answer is VR, Quick Time VR. The VR stands for Virtual Reality, this technology has been in existence for over 5 years, yet eZediaMX can handle and control Quick Time VR with ease. Astonishingly, eZediaMX 3.0 is simultaneously available for MAC as well as the PC on the same disk. Therefore it is possible to author a cross-platform presentation without resorting to DHTML export, pulling your hair out and/or breaking the bank balance, weighing in at a light $239 US Dollars. Remember, this is the third incarnation. In a matter of months, who knows what eZedia is capable of achieving?
It shouldn't come as a surprise to know that eZediaMX supports a variety of multimedia components, but we are going to highlight what, in our opinion, is the most important: JPG, GIF, PNG and BMP (Graphics). MP3, WAV, CD Audio (MAC only) and AIFF (Sound). Quick Time (including VR), MPEG 1, DV and Flash.
It would have been advanced if the following were supported: CD Audio for the PC, MPEG 2 and possibly MPEG 4/DivX. However, with MP3 not having CD Audio for the PC is no great loss and Quick Time video is not to be underestimated. Quick Time delivers some of the best quality videos on the Web ever to be seen. Check out Apple.com, look up their trailers, the Spiderman preview is nothing short of spectacular!
ABUSE
Isn't it odd that, in the case of multimedia authoring environments, the more you pay the more difficult it is to use the program? Yes, we're talking programming languages/script. The main offender, so it appears, is Director's Lingo. Lingo, if you didn't know, is a powerful scripting language that allows for a deeper level of interaction than pointing and clicking. But the thing is that it's the programmer doing all the work, yet a lot of professionals seem happy to pay the price. It should be that the more you have to pay, the less you have to do to create top notch presentations/interactions. It's the same with most 'Industry Standard' software.
In use eZedia is eZ. It doesn't take long before you are putting together some interactions, creating compelling presentations. The interface environment is very much like creating a synthetic instrument by adding modular components (Objects); building blocks. A movie can be a trigger for an action, for example. Buttons are so easy to configure and duplicate for placement on another page (Frame, in the eZedia vernacular). Very easily one can create PowerPoint-style presentations using basic elements from the eZedia tool set. Given a bit of time and planning full blown multimedia applications can be authored to match or rival that of 'professional' multimedia development houses. No programming necessary!
SOCKET TECHNOLOGY
Creating cross-platform PC/MAC presentation can be a bit of a problem for PC users. Here's what eZedia's technical support, Mike Berg, had to say about that:
eZeConvert™ will actually be a plugin used to convert our file format to other file formats such as Interactive QuickTime, DHTML, etc. We are working on a feature that will allow you to create cross-platform executables with the file(s) and Player built into it.
  To the left: Mike Berg
SB: That sounds great. Do you have any idea when the eZeConvert will be available?
MB: We can't say for certain as of yet. Our focus for now is on the plugins, so you should see some announcements in that area in the next couple of months.
SB: Brilliant. I'll keep an eye on the eZedia.com site every once in a while.
See? Behind the scenes the eZedia programmers are hard at work redefining multimedia.
As it stands one would have to include a separate player for the recipient to install before they are able to participate in interactivity. The solution as mentioned above will add finesse to the finished article. It shouldn't be too long, but to be able to have an all in one PC & MAC solution it'll be worth the wait for sure. Let's hope it's not too long... Other plugins available in the not too distant future will include:
eZeCapture™
Capture everything you see in eZedia Player including mouse movements, navigation and typing and save it as a movie file. eZeCapture is useful for creating instructional and training materials. Now wouldn't it be something if there was a way to capture mouse moments of the recipient during a finished presentation?
eZeComposite™
Composite actions and events built in an eZediaMX document to a movie file. The result is the creation of a flat movie that automatically plays without the use of interaction. Just imagine how easy it now is to create video and audio sequences.
There you have it: the shape of multimedia, eZediaMX.
CONCLUSION: THERE CAN BE NO REVOLUTION WITHOUT STRUGGLE
eZediaMX is intuitive and priced within the reach of the ordinary Jo(ann) on the outside, creative colorful butterfly inside. Soon you'll be starting up your own cross-platform multimedia house producing Websites to CD ROM to DVD! There a few negative things observed: eZedia relies on Quick Time to play most of the media, you'll have to wait for QT v6 to incorporate Flash 5 animations. Secondly, the transitions are too slow at times and the playback can be a little jerky if there are more than one medium with effects and sound going on. eZediaMX also has some issues with 32 bit displays, some demos refuse to run on one of our computers in the office - playback of video and graphics card can cause the program and presentations to crash. Once these problems are ironed out then eZediaMX will inherit the score and award below. C'mon, wouldn't you hold out for cross-platform capabilty - let alone Quick Time VR? We've seen problems like these before in other multimedia programs and they do get resolved. We're prepared to stick our necks out and recommend this program on those grounds. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long. On a more positive note there are great tutorials and support on their site.
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