Page 279 - Advanced Course

KNX ADVANCED COURSE

1 General

1.1 Foreword

Multimedia technology has rapidly developed over the last years, and multimedia
systems have improved to such a level that they can offer excellent quality of audio or
video to all sectors of daily life. Many residential buildings have an intercom system to
enable inhabitants to communicate with others inside or outside of the building, e.g. a
door phone system.
Moreover, commercial buildings include video and/or audio applications in order to
provide to visitors useful information, e.g. airports have screens in order to provide
information about flights, but they also use speakers to announce any flight incidents.
So, it is obvious that multimedia systems are nowadays becoming an integral part of
building systems, and they thus should be controllable via the installed Building
Management System.

1.2 Definitions of multimedia and multimedia system

The term ‘multimedia’ describes a medium that contains several content formats. It
can include a combination of audio, video, still images, text or even animation.
Moreover, a ‘multimedia system’ is defined by a combination of several multimedia
components that constitute a functional system, which in most cases can record, play,
or even display the multimedia content.

2 Types of multimedia systems

2.1 Audio systems

An audio system generally consists of electronic equipment for recording or
reproducing sound. In order to be clear, we are going to distinguish audio systems in
two categories. These are: ‘Typical audio system’ and ‘Extended audio system’.

2.1.1 Typical audio system

A typical audio system contains one audio source and one audio output, e.g. an MP3
player with a connected headset. This is the simplest format of an audio system.

Figure 1- Digital MP3 player

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