» Manufacturers of Multimedia Devices and Peripherals «

I remember when multimedia was cutting edge - and accordingly expensive. I seem to recall importing an 8 bit SoundBlaster card from the States and paying like £160 for it. The single speed CD-ROM was far more expensive. And £160 went a whole lot further back back... Now you get 6.1 even 7.1 surround sound built into the motherboard as standard, only adds a few cents to the manufacturing costs

The funny thing is, even after nearly two decades, the price points stay the same, only they get exponential better for the price. Creative's top of the line (SoundBlaster Audigy 2's) still retail around £160 with VAT and the single speed readers are replaced with multi-region, multi format DVD-Writers (only a lot cheaper).

In the early 90's "multimedia" meant video the size of a postage stamp and poor sound from horrendously expensive CD's. The first Encarta CD's where around £700 if I recall. Now? multimedia is a given and rarely even used as a term outside of marketing. multimedia is full screen movies streaming off the Internet, DVD's with cinema quality surround sound, or using your system as a VCR, recording films and soap's straight from the TV... Needless to say, this page will be broken up into:

CD-ROM's, DVD-ROM's, MPEG decoders, MPEG encoders, Soundcards, Speakers and TV card's

I've include a few links to Digital camera manufacturers but if you'll find these covered in far more detail in my Photography section