Multimedia networks and projects conform to the basic phases of almost any other technology project. Multimedia Engineering offers many services within each phase and can contribute as a project leader or contributor to all or any of these steps towards your project's completion. Whether hardware or software based, every project begins with some kind of feasibility study. The second phase is the design phase. Fully exploring the project requirements and coming up with a "blueprint" that, like a recipe, shows all the ingredients and the order in which they are "assembled."

The hardware project then moves on to equipment procurement, initial testing of individual elements of the system, and the rough interconnectivity trials. This can be an exciting albeit frustrating time, since all the pieces are "in house" but not quite ready for prime time. System integration does not necessarily imply "gluing" two systems together (although that often is the case) but also refers to getting the preferred components of one system to all work together as per the proposed system architecture.

The software project, whether a DVD, CD, kiosk or web site advances to the phase where all existing (if any) media assets are repurposed for the new project and new media assets are acquired or developed from scratch. There are technical issues such as format conversion and non technical issues such as copyrights. Further, final distribution of the project plays a significant role as to how the project will be mastered and distributed and onto what medium will it be stored and delivered.

Now that the project is fully assembled, full functionality must be established before the final phase, delivery, can proceed. This is the last part of the development phase, and borrowing an old broadcast term "tuning and proof" of performance is truly what separates the men from the noise. With deadlines looming and tempers flaring, if every aspect of the project is not tested, you are inviting disaster. Many systems and many software projects are left unproven and limp along until eventually someone else has to come in to troubleshoot and repair the pieces that were never right to begin with.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.