This innovative textbook presents an experiential, holistic approach to multimedia computing along with practical algorithms.

Gerald Friedland is the Director of Audio and Multimedia Research at the International Computer Science Institute, a private lab affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, where he is currently leading a group of multimedia researchers.

1. Introduction; 2. Multimedia: a definition; 3. Elements of multimedia computing; 4. Introduction to sensors; 5. Sound; 6. Light; 7. Multimedia documents; 8. Multimodal integration and synchronization; 9. Multimedia systems; 10. The human factor; 11. Fundamentals of compression; 12. Lossy compression; 13. Advanced perceptual compression; 14. Speech compression; 15. Multimedia information retrieval; 16. Signal processing primer; 17. Multimedia content analysis; 18. Content analysis systems; 19. Content and context; 20. Future topics.