Media technologies have been around for the most part of over 100 years (the first being radio which was invented in 1830), however, due to the introduction of the internet during the 1990s, they have became a more integral part of an everyday 21st century lifestyle. By just a click of a button we can order shopping in the comfort of our own homes via a computer, access an unlimited amount of information, communicate with people all over the world, and so on. Although, there are many other platforms and devices in which we can perform such tasks on and in particular, view video interactive media products.
Platforms.
As mentioned above, the World Wide Web enables a person to carry out many different services such as online shopping and banking, listening to music and watching films/TV programmes. Television stations such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 offer catch up services (e.g. BBC I-Player), which allow audiences to view past episodes of programmes as and when they desire for up to 30 days (typically) after its initial broadcast. Besides the BBC, television stations such as have also picked up upon this method, seeing that the younger audience are choosing to watch programmes over the internet rather than when they are first broadcast over the television. This helps to increase the number of viewers of the particular programme. Social networking websites such as MySpace also enable unsigned bands and artists to display their music videos online with the hope of gaining a fan base, and ultimately, getting noticed by a record company.
Email attachments are another platform for videos to be embedded on to. These attachments can be sent to anyone, whether it's simply sending a clip to a friend, or a company sending spam advertising to a large group of people. Most of the time, this spam advertising is unwanted by its receiver, and sometimes they may even delete it straight away due to email attachments having the reputation of containing harmful computer viruses.
DVDs have become a popular platform, taking over the VHS. DVDs not only show the main film/show itself, but also may have other special features such as “The Making Of” reels, bloopers, deleted scenes and games. They are also easier to operate in the sense of going back or forwards to a certain part of the film as you can “Scene Select”, which takes you to the particular part that you were up to, then when the film is over, it will go back to the title screen ready to be watched another time. Whereas on a VHS, you had to make sure the tape was already re-wound prior watching. Furthermore, DVDs have the ability to present subtitles, or even change the language. However, Blu-Ray discs are now gradually becoming more and more common, and with their considerably higher quality than that of a DVD, they are set to become more popular than the DVD. Although at present, not many people own a device which can play them, resulting in sales not being higher than the DVD.
CD-ROMs are mainly used for educational purposes within schools and colleges to allow students to learn/study a topic using interactive media, rather than the average lesson taken by a teacher or out of a text book. These discs normally contain activities such as video clips, or scenario type games whereby the user has to answer questions/select a certain option using the information gained from other areas of the CD-ROM. This platform allows children to become more independent with their learning, but depending on the individual's learning style, it may not help them as much as when a teacher physically explaining something to them would.
Recently, information points known as kiosks have been placed around various places within popular towns and cities, as a source of both information and entertainment. Useful for tourists in particular, they hold access to road maps, cinema times, transportation times, and even games. Video clips of adverts advertising relevant products and services also appear on these interactive kiosk pages.
Presentations, whether for an important meeting or just sharing information in a classroom, are able to contain video clips, images and audio as well as the basic text displayed onto the individual slides. PowerPoint being the most popular program is highly used to create these slideshows, as it is simple and very clear to people who may view the presentation. Notes can be taken from it quickly, as all of the interactive media will be within the same set of slides, meaning they do not have to keep accessing different sources to gain all of the information.
Some TV channels have the feature of having an interactive "Red Button" service. Each channel and programme varies on what is available with this, but on shows which feature music, an option to have the lyrics to song appear on screen is a popular activity. Furthermore, whilst a sporting event such as the Olympics is occurring, a viewer has the option to press the red button and watch whichever event they wish too, an alternative to what is being shown on the actual channel. Other services include: playing interactive games, being able to place a vote on a "talent" competition such as X-Factor, and even catching up on past shows, similar to the I-Player. Some services within this "Red Button" platform require you to pay a charge, which sometimes causes people to not use them.
Everyday small devices such as mobile phones and games consoles offer a range of video interactive media to appeal to different people with different needs. For instance, a businessman would find having a video function on a mobile phone useful for communication with various people around the world of whom he needs to get in contact with. Similarly, it would also be ideal for them to be able to check bank accounts and such on the go. Whereas if we look at a teenager boy, they would perhaps find videos created by their friends posted on a social networking website which they can view on their phones or even MP3 player more appealing.
Uses.
Videos can be produced and distributed in different ways, on different places, for a different purpose. Short films are normally produced by aspiring film makers who want people to view their work. The films are usually between 5 and 30 minutes long, and have a low budget. This is either due to lack of funds or intentional so that the film has a more realistic tone to it. Because of them not being very long, the video has to hold some form of memorable element, whether it be shocking, and/or having a powerful meaning.
I found this video to be very interesting, as it has a vey simple storyline, but is made effective by simple touches such as it appearing in black and white, and there being no spoken communication between the characters. When it comes to short films however, it is a very competitive industry meaning that it is hard to get your own film noticed amongst the millions of others available. Although on the positive side, if the video is successful, they do make audiences want to watch the whole thing, and maybe even recommend it to someone else, resulting in many people seeing your work.
Promotional material is generated to simply, promote. A good example of this is music videos. These are created to advertise a band or artist's latest track in the hope of increasing sales of their albums. Michael Jackson's music video for "Thriller", frequently dubbed as the greatest music video of all time, brought the single back to the number 1 spot even though the single had already been released beforehand. These videos are a good way of enabling a wider audience to view them, as they can be shown on not only the Internet, but on television as well. Thus the more people that view them, the more popular the band/artist may become. Another form of promotional material is film trailers. These are shortened versions of a film, which are used to advertise the film, and entice people to want to go see it. These are available to watch on a variety of platforms such as the Internet, on television and during the advertisements in the cinema (and on DVDs) prior the actual feature being shown/played. Some websites also embed them or adapt clips within the style and theme of the site, as seen here: http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/
User generated content refers to material on websites, and occasionally other media sources, that is produced by the users of the website, such as YouTube, rather than the owner and/or it’s operators. Due to these type of websites, looking at YouTube in particular, people who wouldn’t necessarily could or would have became famous, now have the ability to display their talents in videos over this website, resulting in them becoming successful. Thanks to YouTube, Susan Boyle became an overnight worldwide phenomenon as people from all over the world were able to log on and view her first audition on Britain’s Got Talent. Furthermore, Andy McKee is now signed by CandyRat Records thanks to the success his video had (the one below in particular has over 10 million views to date.)
Disregarding these success stories, this type of Interactive Media also has it’s negative points, such as after someone has posted a video, it is then viewable by pretty much anyone in the World with internet access. This could cause safety issues, as well as of course receiving criticism/abusive comments.
Adverts for various products and services appear practically everywhere. This is to generate interest towards what is being advertised; leading to the specific company gaining more money. Adverts which appear on both the internet and television are normally similar (if not the same) and can either be embedded into the webpage, or as a pop-up alongside it. Companies use the method of viral marketing to ensure that a large amount of people see their adverts in a short period of time. These are usually displayed on popular social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace, which millions of people access everyday. The adverts can also be spread via email or even by the word of mouth, especially if it is eye catching and causes impact. Companies like doing this as it has shown to be effective and is very cheap to do. However, similar to the downsides of email attachments, people are apprehensive when opening them due to thinking they may contain a virus, or just send them straight to the Junk folder.
Combinations of video footage and/or still images are now being put into sequences to create virtual reality tours of various locations. These give the viewer a sense of what the place generally looks like, however, it obviously cannot give you the full experience of physically being there. A recent adaption of this - Google Street View - is currently receiving mixed reviews. Some say it is a very interesting and helpful service, whereas others are very much against it, claiming that it is an invasion of privacy which can encourage property to be burgled.
One of the most interactive forms of media product are games, as the consumer has the ability (to a certain extent) to control the game, and through making these decisions can even effect the overall outcome. Some games are now incorporating video clips within them, especially if it is linked to a movie. This can compliment the narrative, or even move along the game-play. Similarly, games are now being a regular bonus feature on DVDs whereby the consumer can interact with the characters from the film in a short game, which sometimes even leads to deleted scenes or another form of extra content; encouraging them to use this form of interactive media.
E-learning is growing in use throughout educational environments such as schools, colleges and Universities. Rather than physically attending classes, students are able to log on to a computer at home and learn from there, in ways such as interactive games, video blogs explaining the specific topic, or even virtual lectures broadcast via a webcam. This allows them to learn as and when they can, it also means that they do not have to travel to the classroom to learn, which for some students who live far away is a high advantage. However, this method of learning is mainly carried out by the individual rather than having a teacher beside them whenever they need help or does not understand something.
Technologies.
Various technologies are a vital role in processing, presenting and viewing video in interactive media. For instance, a compressor is used to reduce the size of video files so that they can be uploaded/embedded on to various websites and blogs. It also means that sharing the video is easier, increasing the amount of people who view it, but once compressed, the quality of the video appears to be reduced and sometimes it becomes pixelated. A codec compresses to file to a certain format, so that it can only be watched in a player that shares the same codec specifications i.e. an AVI video will only play on a Real player.
Streaming video is a sequence of "moving images" that are sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer as they arrive, accompanied with sound. With streaming video/media, the user does not have to wait to download a large file before seeing the video, as the media is sent in a continuous stream and played as it arrives. It can sometimes be a tedious way of viewing videos as if the file is initially large, it takes a while to load and play without pausing. Whereas when a user downloads a video file, it is taken from a website or torrent and then stored into their own system. This service is sometimes free, but some do come with a charge, which a large majority of people choose to ignore and illegally download these files. Furthermore, when downloading, the user must be careful as some files come with viruses which could harm their computer.
There are four main types of interactive video formats:
- MPEG - (Moving Picture Experts Group) is a popular format for audio files. Its codec enables this type of video file to play on both Windows and MAC software, as long as the particular system has the relevant player downloaded to it.
- AVI – created by Microsoft, this format is for video files. And similar to the MPEG, as long as the system has the relevant player, these files can be viewed on both Windows and MAC software.
- MOV – this file format is used on both audio and video files played via the QuickTime player.
- WMV – (Windows Media Video) these video files can only be played on Windows Media Player.
Data transfer rate is the speed that files take to upload or download onto your own system, which depends on the size of your bandwidth. The higher the bandwidth that is on your system, the quicker the download or upload will take; thus having a low bandwidth is not ideal, as it can take a long time to view the specific video.
Frame rates are the number of frames that appear in a video per second. Normally, it is 24 fps, but this number can vary. The higher in which the frame rate is, the clearer the images will be. Similarly, the screen resolution is how many pixels appear in the dimensions of the video player, and the more pixels there are, the greater the quality of the video.
The picture (aspect) ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. The most commonly used ratios appear to be 4:3 and 16:9; the latter being more so in recent times due to the rise in wide screen televisions.
Digital Rights Management is the restriction rights that video producers can place on their work to prohibit people from downloading content free of charge. At present most videos that appear online are free to watch, but it is thought that in the future this will change, meaning that consumers will have to pay to watch these certain videos.
There are five types of media player that are commonly used to view video in interactive media:
- DVD - (Digital Versatile Disc) can store a large amount of video and audio content on it by burning it onto it using a threadlike laser. These can be played on computer, various game consoles as well as the obvious DVD players. DVDs are still a incredibly popular way of watching video content as it is in reasonable high quality and can include bonus content hidden within it, besides the actual main feature. However, they are slowly decreasing in popularity due to the introduction of Blu-Ray.
- I-Player - Created by the BBC, its I-Player is a free service (like the BBC television channels) which is funded by the television license fees, and therefore, there are no adverts within the player. It enables viewers to watch previously broadcast programmes and radio shows within seven days of it initially being shown. The content is 'streamed', which means that the viewers can watch/listen as and when they desire. The player, evidently, only plays footage that is produced by the BBC.
- QuickTime - Developed by Apple, this very popular media player can play both video and audio files. It plays videos in very high quality; however, the format has to be that of a .mov file.
- Windows Media Player - used to store and play audio and video files. Developed by Microsoft, this player can only be used by computers running the Windows operating systems and Windows based hand-held devices. However, since the launch of Apple’s iTunes, it has greatly reduced in popularity. Furthermore, it can only play files that are in the format .WMV or .WMA.
- Real Player – is a closed source cross-platform media player, meaning that it works on various types of computers and plays a range of file formats e.g. MP3, MPEG-4 and QuickTime. Due to this, it is rather popular as users do not need to waste time converting the media content.
Embedded video is when a video is taken from one website/source, and then placed into another. This allows users to view your work within the same page, rather than having to click through to the initial source of the video, which is quicker and easier. However, some embedded videos have a reduced quality and take a while to stream from the original source i.e. YouTube.
Video tagging is when a video is assigned certain words (“tags”), so then when users type in these certain words into the search bar on websites such as YouTube, finding relevant videos is made easier. Although it may narrow down the amount of potential videos the user may be looking for, they are still likely to get unwanted results come up.
