Sunday, 3 March 2013

Video for Interactive Media: What You Need to Know


With the way digital video technology is advancing, designers have many more ways enhance a users experience. Before the Internet, video sharing and online advertisements, it would be extremely difficult to get a wide audience to view your content because it would take so long to get your content shown around. Now in the world wide web companies from big to small can have their content and advertisements viewed by hundreds almost instantly around the whole world. The web can be used on multiple platforms, the most portable and arguably popular is the smart phone.
 The way this media has evolved has opened doors for companies to grow, now into other countries because the world wide web can be accessed all around the world. Small growing companies who would not have stood a chance against the big titles before the internet can now have advertise and have people see their content from users in their own city to users on the other side of the world.
 This advancement in this area of the digital interactive media also allows small time companies and users to buy or rent their own hardware and software like editing software and HD cameras to create their own media.
 This also goes towards more personal use of the media, a lot of mobile phones have HD cameras and better advanced cameras a becoming more accessible to people who specialise in that area of the media. A website that has thrived off of people posting their own content that they have created themselves is YouTube, a site that allows users to post their own videos. YouTube started in 2005 and in the 8 years it has been going users have shared their videos to people all around the world and view each others content. Due to it's popularity with millions of people, some videos getting over billions of views, YouTube has become a big site for big companies to place their adverts and use their advanced software and hardware to create interesting videos and target the correct audience based on what genre the video is in, whether that is gaming, educational or comedy.
 People can become extremely popular through websites like this, because millions of people will re-blog or re-post and in general 'share' things they like with all their friends who in turn show all their friends and so on. With the use of social networking sites through the internet and messaging. Just like in the 'real' world big companies pay celebrities to advertise their products, big companies can also advertise their product through 'internet celebrities', some of whom have millions of 'subscribers' who view their videos. The channel 'Uberhaxornova' has advertised an American energy drink called NOS:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjHx2jBSnE

 And other 'YouTube' celebrities have made similar deals, some of whom have over a billion subscribers viewing their videos. Through this method, normal people and designers can post videos to these sites and get paid through advert revenue as their full time job. This also means designers can afford new software and cameras for higher quality work, like some graphical designers such as 'Corridordigital'. The quality of their work has improved because of their viewers and advancements in camera technology and editing and graphical software:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEa0T9QdYm4

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_254413&feature=iv&index=2&list=PL84DB158CAABE4E07&src_vid=ZEa0T9QdYm4&v=EtRIrQR0C0s

 The technology and editing software can really be seen improving the content these designers put out without the help of big companies. What originally started as a hobby became a job. Videos like these are equal quality to most modern films, but before the internet and video sharing this media would have been in lower quality in movie theatres/cinemas, whereas now w can watch videos on platforms like:
•DVD
 •BLU-RAY
 •Tablets
 •Smart phones
 •Computers - Media sharing sites (YouTube) and social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter)
 •Entertainment systems like the xbox 360
 •Television
With almost everyone with smart devices capable of recording videos, almost everything is recorded then sent to local or nation, even international news stations which then go onto websites and news sites where people can watch and share what people would normally never see without access to the internet and instantaneous video recording. However, this can be bad for privacy reasons. If somebody is recorded when they do not want to be and then that video is posted online it is impossible to remove it from the internet. Some sites may take the videos down due to bullying but there will always be copies. Cyber bullying is a huge problem that can be done anonymously and can leave a huge impact on the targets of bullying.
Industries have become increasingly more powerful through the internet since its introduction in the 1950s computers to the ARPNET in the 1960s to the 1982 World Wide Web. These companies, the two most powerful being Apple and Microsoft have created their own operating systems that can be used to search the World Wide Web and to promote their products through advertisements.
                  The introduction of video sharing has caused a revolution in the media industry. Before almost every mobile phone had a built in camera people one side of the world could only learn what was happening on the other side world through news stations and newspapers. This is the ‘hypodermic needle effect’ introduced by Lazarsfeld in 1940, where the media had a full direct and immediate powerful effect on its audiences with information that is heavily edited to be heavily biased towards what the media wanted to show. Now that almost everyone has a mobile phone and can post videos onto blogs and video websites everyone around the world can video their everyday lives and what the world is really like. We as a human race can, for the first time, see the world for ourselves online. Despite third world county Governments trying to block the internet in their countries people on the outside still set up sites where people can post their stories and videos of their hardship and real life situations.
                  The news channels and papers no longer have full control over what the people see and understand, users can search for themselves online for the truth and real stories that are happening in war zones and countries have a struggling economy.
Before videos were available on the internet the only video entertainment sources were movies and television. Now television has hundreds of channels and movies have advanced onto bigger and smaller screens in high definition and 3D. Films and TV shows can now be watched online through websites owned by the channels and also through ‘pirating’ sites that have illegal free downloads of games, movies, videos, songs and any digital media that can be thought of through sites like Pirate bay. Many industries and companies have tried to sue and arrest the owners of these websites but to no avail. With the use of YouTube people can now make YouTube exclusive internet series such as ‘Forward unto Dawn’, a high budget live action series that is based on the popular shooter Halo. -

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJVgXBfSH8&list=EL6AoSkjfTnuc&index=1

 Many people choose to watch their favorite television shows and movies online or download them to watch at their leisure and even when not connected to the internet. The advancements in how much data everyone can personally hold in personal hard drives and memory sticks has increased greatly. It is common for people to have a 32Megabite memory stick for work and have terabytes worth of data in external hard drives which would not even be considered a possibility years ago. The introduction of motion capture allows realistic animations of animated characters like in the movie Avatar.
Today’s cameras can film in higher definition at higher FPS (frames per second). The standard FPS in filming is 24p, 25p and 30p (as progressive formats). More films are using higher FPS such as 48FPS like ‘The Hobbit’ but it was still optional to view in lower FPS because if the frames are too fast in can often cause nausea, especially in longer films. The difference between 30p and 60p can easily be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

A higher FPS gives much clearer movement and reduces motion blur which is what can cause people to feel sick as the camera moves fast but normal motion blur is minimized.
People have found interesting ways of making their videos interactive with the use of links placed over the videos that take them to different linked videos that tell a story that the player controls themselves. These are called interactive YouTube games. They are essentially point and click adventures and a lot have quick time events.
Like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OVhanOQOw4  
It allows the viewers to choose their own story and make their own decisions.
This has become possible with the use of editing software such as Adobe Premier and Adobe after effects, just to list a few. After finishing the edit, users have multiple options for exports like .avi, .flv, .mpeg and .mpeg4. These are used to move media to different software formats, such as web designers using Adobe Flash who need to export in .flv to have videos play on their websites.
                  Over the last two decades DVD has replaced VHS video as the dominant format, which is then overtaken by digital downloads. This allows for videos to be shared and watched on portable devices like mobile phones and music players. We can download moving images quickly and easily with the use of ever increasing technology on smartphones and on our computers.
With new technology and applications being available to designers and editors to create content that can be used by the mass media and users worldwide we can see how advanced the technology really is. We have gigabytes of data stored in our pockets, we can share videos worldwide with the push of a button, we can see the true stories of people all over the world and we can share our own content. We can interact with each other through videos and the advancements of video technology over our mobile phones and computers and all without restriction. More people can grow their skills to be designers with more access to brilliant new digital technology.

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