Brief Overview
Over the last century, the media industry has changed dramatically, moving forwards in leaps and bounds as technology has too but only in the past 30 years has video become so readily available to the average consumer at home. This new way of actually owning a film or TV program for personal viewing was first brought into the public eye in the late 70's in the form of VHS or Video Home System. This paved the way for media product ownership and interactive media as we know it today. By allowing the general public to essentially 'own' entire films and television episodes which they could watch in the comfort of their own home it brought about a revolution in which consumers were now less likely to go to the cinema and in a sense demanded more and more freedom to watch what they wanted, where they wanted regardless of if it was scheduled on a TV channel or available at the cinema.
By the late 1990's the invention of the internet and DVDs further increased the public's ability to consume media in a variety of different ways. DVDs provided consumers with some of the first real interactive in the form of various Special Features and menus to choose from and in the last 10 years the popularity of various media sharing sites such as Youtube and Google video have provided the general public with a platform and tool with which to show and watch other peoples videos at any time of the day 24/7 every day of the year.
With Youtube came the ability to stream and download anything from short films to television programs to feature length Hollywood films. It is now easier than ever before to view, produce and present video and music to an audience of over 1.67 billion users all over the world. As media students, we must be aware of the various forms of media outlets and platforms with which we can view and show media products so as to better understand the means of producing and displaying our own work as well as analysing the work of others.
Media Platforms in Interactive Media.
Media Platforms are programmes or products which can be used to view and interact with video.
The Internet is possibly the most well know and successful media platform to date. Within it there is the ability for consumers all over the world to access various websites such as Youtube, iPlayer, Demand 5, 4oD and ITV Catch Up. iPlayer, 4oD, Demand 5 and ITV Catch Up can be used to watch the latest TV shows from the country's main TV channels online from the past week. These platforms have grown in popularity since their release and have even become a substitute for normal television in some homes as people choose to get rid of televisions in favour of iPlayer in order to cut out the TV license fee's and simply for easy of use and the ability to choose what to watch, when they want to watch it. Rather than being apprehensive about the sudden popularity of these online players, television companies have encouraged it as it has been proven to add to their viewing numbers rather than detract from them as well as providing them with a good idea of what the general public is actually watching and is interested in not only through viewer numbers, which can be checked only by the companies to see how many views a certain video has, but also by providing viewers with online surveys which they can use to provide a better programme schedule.
Youtube is also one of the leading media platforms in terms of uploading and viewing user content. Youtube gives the general public the opportunity to present videos of themselves doing just about anything, from short films to music performances. Youtube is an amazing tool which has enabled aspiring film directors, actors and musicians to present themselves to the public and to gain feedback on their work. An example of this is the song “Here It Goes Again” By OK Go which was an instant hit when they released the music video on Youtube, causing the song to skyrocket into the top 40 UK singles chart and making it one of the most watched videos, with over 50 million views.
Another example would be that of Andy McKee who gained much interest after posting various videos of him playing guitar on Youtube. Through this he was offered a record deal and now has his first album for sale online. However, amongst the good stuff that has happened through Youtube and Myspace there have also been cases where bands and artists have been given negative comments and abuse, causing the artists to just stop altogether. This is caused by one of the main reasons why Youtube is so successful and that is the freedom for anyone to post practically anything short of adult material in an almost risk free environment.
Through the evolution of the internet in terms of vastness, accessibility and speed it is now common place to share Music and Video between two computers anywhere in the world by the use of email attachments. This could be for personal friendship use, such as showing a grandparent a video of their grandchild or it can be used for spam and advertising products.
In recent years DVDs have become the normal platform for watching video and film. Through this medium consumers are able to watch their favourite films and television shows in a variety of different languages, with or without subtitles usually as well as change the format of the sound from the normal Stereo format to the other high end formats such as Dolby Digital 5.1 which provides full surround sound for home cinema systems which have become increasingly popular in recent years due to the availability of high quality projector and screens as well as the means to play DVDs and even hook them up to computers. DVD also took over from VHS because of its ability to store other info other than the actual film, such as menus, special features, extra content and so on as VHS is only able to play the film in one language, usually without subtitles unless they come as a standard and without the added quality and extra features. However, DVDs are slowly being phased out by the recent popularity of Blu-ray discs which can hold even more content than DVDs, where just one Blu-ray disc can hold a staggering 50 GB of information while a DVD can only hold up to 8.5 GB. With Blu-ray its possible to get practically the sharpest picture available and the best sound quality too on a good set up. This new fad have caused the re-release of many classic films that were once available on DVD. Through this we can see that media platforms, as well as the industry itself is forever changing and growing and that consumers will actively pay for the same product over and over just to keep up with the latest “BEST SOUND AND VIDEO QUALITY EVER!” fad.
CDs were once the height of technology but are now confined to just holding music and educational software when they were once used for practically all computer software. However, they still do their job by enabling companies to use a low cost, low capacity medium to transport media. In terms of educational software they allow schools to provide students with an alternate platform for them to further their learning capabilities. Its been proven as a great way for people to learn because of it being a completely engrossing, interactive and independent medium. However, this form of teaching may not be as successful as a trained teacher instructing the student in person.
In the last few years interactive media has made its way onto the streets of major towns and cities over the world in the form of “Kiosks”. These Kiosks enable the general public to gain useful information on just about anything within the city, from maps to cinema times, bus routes and other general tourist information. The information can even be streamed to a mobile phone or sent to an email address for easy access on the go. It overs quick and easy access to public information without the need to find a tourist information centre and wait in line.
Another advancement in the line of interactive media is that of Presentations. From as early on as 1987 businesses have been able to perform presentations using Microsoft's own Powerpoint software. With Powerpoint presentations anyone was able to make sophisticated presentations with the ability to use text, video, images and audio to others by using the software to present easily made slides for just about anything. Before the software it was only possible to do presentations with a projector and hand made slides but now days we can insert video and just about anything into a slide show for ease of access and enabling us to easily show and share information within presentations instead of giving out instructions for people to do so in their own time.
Starting with the television company 'Sky' came the innovation which was 'Red Button'. Through the Red button, viewers were able to truly interact with what they were watching. People were able to vote on such shows as Pop Idol and X Factor and even catch up on previous shows on a certain channel. Other uses include choosing certain events to watch during the Olympics as well as different cameras to view in the Big Brother house. This service was a great way to get the viewer involved and getting them to pay a little extra for such services as voting as well as other things. Such payment needs has, however, reduced the number of people willing to use this media platform.
With the release of the iPhone it is now easier than ever for people to surf the net, play games, stream movies and music from the net and so on. Even before the iPhone made it truly popular various phones were able to do such things, allowing people to interact with a wide variety of media products at one time practically anywhere at any time, even on the go. This boosted the popularity of was already the number one truly essential device for everyday life. The ability to view and even share content via blue-tooth just further increased its usefulness and made it even easier to share media products across a variety of platforms.
Uses of Video in Interactive Media
There are many types of videos that are displayed on Interactive media and good reasons for the use of each type.
Firstly, Short films. Short films are the main medium for aspiring directors to show off their work to the general public and to get recognition and feedback. Through sites such as Youtube and Newgrounds people are able to upload and have their short films viewed by just about anyone with an internet connection and to receive instant feedback on their work through comments. These are extremely useful at promoting aspiring directors due to the fact that the films are short in nature, usually being between 5 – 20 minutes long. While negative comments and 'Trolls' (People who purposely down cry people just for the fun of it) are always a problem, constructive criticism is often offered and is generally helpful.
Below is an example of a short film I found amusing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAw5cdwrhaQ
Promotional advertisements are also a great way to promote products within practically any area of industry. Advertisements and promotional material is usually used to sell a product or gain popularity for a film or band. A good example of this in recent years would be the “Here it goes again” music video by OK Go which quickly became one of the most viewed videos on Youtube and a viral marketing success in the sense that almost anyone who had seen it instantly went to show it to someone else and so on.
Here is a link to said video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI&feature=related
Another marketing type would be Film trailers which are mainly used within the film industry to give the general public a brief idea of the look and feel of the film before they go to see it. Through trailers, directors can even gain feedback from the public and can go back and tweak sections of the film before its release. Feedback can be given through message boards or comments on the video itself.
Below is the trailer for Twilight:New Moon which was, as of 27th March 2010, viewed 9,771,203 times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnyDdfVgqnQ
User Generated content is various material produced by users of the website rather than the owners themselves. Youtube is currently the largest repository of User Generated Content on the Internet as many of its videos are produced by its users due to its quick and easy way of enabling users to upload content they have created and the ability to gain feedback on said content.
Viral Marketing is a form of marketing used by companies on various sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Youtube will host a video advertisement which will influence the users of the site to buy their products. This is a great way of advertising because it basically does all the work itself, in the sense that once its displayed on a website the user base will spread it themselves, be it through word of mouth, email attachments or links on personal blogs for example, the advert will literally spread itself, almost like a virus (hence the word, viral) around the web.
Below is an example of viral marketing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KORLA42hgyY&feature=related
Advertising isn't just prominent in the television industry. It is also used all over the internet. It can be displayed as a video, such as with viral marketing, A pop-up or even a flash player animation embedded into a website. These can appear when entering a website to catch your attention, usually in an annoying way, or even at the start of certain videos before the main feature actually plays. However, this isn't always successful as more users tend to either block pop-ups or just ignore adverts all together.
Virtual reality tours are a relatively new invention with which users can interactive with computer software in a simulated environment which is usually used to convey real world locations or ones of the artists imagination. This technology is mostly used for virtual museum tours but is also being more popular in the estate agent industry with the ability of proving a virtual tour of a home, sometimes with a added voice over to explain specific features and so on.
Video games are also being used as extras on DVD's so that the consumer can interact with the characters within the movie or television program. These games are usually used to unlock bonus features on the DVD and are very crude and simplistic in nature. They are meant to encourage the consumer to get involved with the DVD and in a sense “work” for the bonus content. This feature is usually just outright ignored by many consumers due to the shear extent of its crudeness when compared to modern games on consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS 3.
Finally, E-learning is a tool which is being used in colleges and schools across the world to provide students with interactive and easily accessible learning wherever they may be. It is particularly useful for revision and students studying for long distance learning courses. However, it is no where near the level of complexity to overtake traditional teaching methods, due to its inability to answer and questions raised by the student using it. It is unlikely that it will take over traditional learning anytime soon unless a way is implemented so that students can ask a variety of questions and the program will respond, which isn't likely with modern technology.
Video in Interactive Media Technologies
The media industry contains many complex technologies which are overlooked by the average consumer.
Video compression is a technique used to compress the size of a video file. This is so it may be uploaded to Youtube or embedded into a blog or other website. While it does make it easier to steam and download it usually detracts from the overall quality of the video, causing bad sound, pixilation and even causing synchronisation problems between the sound and video altogether.
Streaming is the process of actively watching a media product without the need to fully transfer and download the data from one computer to another. The data is stored on the website's main server and can be accessed by just about anyone who visits the site. Through streaming, the user is able to watch the video faster due to the fact that they don't have to fully download the video and can watch it as they download it or even watch webcams as live. However, this technique has problems such as long load times, especially if a lot of people are watching at the same time, as well as syncing problems.
Overall there are four main types of video formats in interactive videos. These are MPEG, AVI, MOV and WMV.
MPEG is a popular universal file format which can be viewed on both Windows and Mac operating systems. They are usually small sized and of quite high quality.
AVI is probably the most well know universal file format to be used for video. Created by Microsoft it is able to be used on Windows and Macs alike.
MOV is the main format used by quick-time player to play music and video. It can also be used by both Windows and Mac.
WMV or Windows Media Video is a file format used solely on Windows Media Player and is popular to use with Windows Movie Maker.
All these file types can play a variety of video's of differing content and quality. However, some are encoded differently to others, meaning that codecs must be downloaded and installed in order to decode and view them.
Data Transfer Rates are how fast your internet connection can receive information. The size of the file usually denotes how fast your connection can download the file with higher speeds and smaller file sizes having the quickest rates.
Frame rates are the amount of individual frames shown each second. In video this is usually 25 frames a second. This is the minimum amount of frames needed for the human eye to recognise the video as a continuous sequence rather than just a series of still images placed together and played at high speeds. At this frame rate the eye will not notice any skips or breaks in the action played.
Screen Resolution is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It usually measures the amount of pixels displayed at any one time. So in terms of a 1080p resolution on a 16:9 aspect ratio there would be 1920 lines of horizontal resolution with each line containing 1080 pixels moving at a progressive rate along the screen to display the various images in a moving pattern.
Aspect Ratios are usually the size the video is viewed at. For example the traditional 4:3 television would be in a square format while today's television is filmed and usually viewed in the widescreen 16:9 format. Film makers take this into consideration when filming as 4:3 viewing hasn't be completely phased out yet and when a 16:9 video is viewed on a 4:3 format part of that video is lost due to the difference in aspect ratio. Directors must compensate for this in everything they film.
Digital Rights Management are the restrictions that producers put on their work, usually to stop internet piracy. Software and even some videos must be decoded and “Cracked” by computer programmers in order for these products to be viewed by internet pirates. The system is not fool proof but it works on inexperienced downloaders.
The five main media players at present are DVD, I-Player, Quick-time, Windows Media Player and Real Player. However, many videos aren't coded to work instantly with players such as Windows Media Player and Quick-time and other players are starting to take their place within the internet community. Three of the leading competitors are VLC player, DivX Player and Media Player Classic. DivX player and its codecs are associated with many internet film rental sites as well as movie trailer sites, however both VLC and MPC are said to be able to play just about any media file without problems.
DVDs are the main external device used to store Video and Audio content by burning it into a layer of the optical disc which can they be accessed by a similar laser, much like a vinyl record would be played using a needle and a record machine. DVDs include various other content and features other than the feature film, making them very useful in linking things like documentaries about the making of a film or even music videos of music from the film on the same media platform.
Pros
Ability to hold a large amount of high quality video and audio
Bonus content
Menus and the ability to “Skip” and select certain scenes from movies
Can be used to show trailers of other movies, either as an extra feature of at the start of the feature film.
Cons
Not able to hold as much data as Blu-ray discs
May get scratched and become unable to be played
iPlayer is a recent invention by the BBC to enable its viewers to 'catch up' on a variety of programmer that they may have missed during the week. iPlayer provides streams of content from the previous week of programs on all the major BBC channels. However, it is only for content on the website and is not able to play other files.
Pros
Gives the ability to watch past programs
Has provided the BBC with a wider audience due to availability and ease of use
Provides a place for people to give feedback, through internet surveys
Cons
Can only play files from the website itself
A good broadband speed is needed to view the content quickly and easily
Quick-time was developed by Apple as their own player to play video and audio files. Quick-time provides both Macs and Windows operating systems with a media player that can play most well known file types out there. It specialises, however, in playing .mov files.
Pros
High playback quality
Can be used on Windows and Macs
Can play .mov files
Cons
Quite a cumbersome user interface
Must be downloaded
Windows Media Player can store files in its own library as well as making playlists. Before the release of iTunes it was the leading music player on computers with the possible exception of Winamp. It is still a popular program due to it versatility and the fact that it is easy to use and comes as standard with every Windows operating system.
Pros
Easy to use
Can make playlists and store files in its library
Cons
Usually requires codec downloads and cannot play every file type
Has been known to actually reduce playback quality
Is now less popular due to the launch of iTunes
Real Player is a media player that is slightly less well know. However it plays a large range of file formats but was generally very hard to download in the first place and hard to remove once installed.
Pros
Can run a variety of file types
Cons
Less popular compared to Quick-time and other players
Problems in the past with downloading, installation and removal have damaged its reputation
VLC player is in very simplistic player which supports possibly the largest range of file formats right off the bat. It is also a useful encoder and streamer for videos. It is able to stream video and audio over networks and can be used on every operating system to date.
Pros
Supports largest number of file formats out of any player
Easy to download
Free and has a small file size
Can be used on every operating system
Generally fast and easy streaming and playback with good quality
Cons
Not as 'shiny' in terms of UI compared with Windows Media Player and Quick-time
With the popularity of blogs people have been able to 'embed' videos into their own blogs and websites. This enables people to view the video on the blog without having to physically go to the website which is hosting the video.
And with embedding came tagging. Video Tagging is a tool people can use when uploading Youtube videos to essentially annotate a video with various things such as director notes, links to an actors Facebook page and so on.
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