Understanding principles of digital video technology in interactive media
In today’s modern world we are more prone to using interactivity than ever before. With all sorts of new technology, this late decade has been the start of a virtual revolution and the industry continues to expand. The designers of this technology are trying to enhance our interactive experience and make it more enjoyable for the user, as everything new realised today is some-what interactive as the demand from users is very high.
Video games are full of interactivity, with the releases of the new Xbox Kinect, Playstation move and the Wii console, everything is completely interactive. The Xbox Kinect has been designed with 3 cameras so that it can detect 3D scene information and follow the player’s movements making the player also the controller. Another interactive type of game is the wii, you need a controller but you also have the ability to interact with the game. With the wii there’s a sensor that sits on top of the TV that traces the movement of the remote. So instead of just having a remote and pressing buttons, this allowed gamers to play with motions and after the public loved it and millions were buying it more corporations started designing new ways to bring interactions into their consoles.
There is a wide range of video technology, Interactive TV is a prime example of this, the BBC red button is a good interactive feature which allows the user to change the channel and view the things they want to see via a menu that pops up when you press the red button on your remote giving a wider range of programs which will make the overall BBC channel ratings increase. Sky+ is another interactive technology this allows the user to pause, record and rewind live TV, this happens due to a hard drive in the set top box. In the UK sky’s main competitors are freeview+ because they offer a similar service and are another type of personal video recorder.
Mobile devices that are being released from 2009 onwards have touch sensitive screens, compared to phones from about 5 years ago when everything was button controlled. Let’s take the Iphone for example, the Iphone includes a virtual keyboard, a video camera, camera phone with text messaging and voicemail, a portable media player, and an Internet client with email and Wi-Fi connectivity. The user interface is built around the devices multi touch screen; the Iphone includes quite a few digital video format, H.264 video: up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile with AAC LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in M4V, MP3, MP4, and MOV file formats, these are Iphone video specifications from the apple website (see, http://www.any-video-converter.com/iphone-video-converter/iphone-video-format.php) which has hundreds more apps, features and digital video formats than phones 5-10 years ago.
Designers and producers are changing the way they deal with their consoles because the consumers are demanding more interactivity in their gaming experience. In this last decade the main gaming manufacturers have been releasing more interactive games than ever before. The first main release of more interactivity was 3D films in cinema; 3D films are a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. 3D films have been around for decades, starting in the 1950s but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3D film, although 3D films were still shown in the 1950s. In the 1980s and 90s there was a worldwide resurgence in 3D driven by IMAX high end theaters. 3D films became more and more successful throughout the 2000s. Alice in wonderland, Toy Story, Avatar, Tron Legacy and How to Train Your Dragon have all been great 3D successes of the last year making millions and attracting more people into the 3D industry.
Digital Video Discs (DVDs) and CDs are good ways for the user to get involved with the features on the disc and choose which features they want to view and skip the ones they don’t. For instance DVDs have a title menu, which could include start film, scene selection, behind the scenes and special features, the user has the freedom to view which feature he wants and isn’t forced to view every feature on the disc, this is the same with CDs although the CD may contain just files, the principle is the same, access which files you want and discard the other unwanted files.
Even though in the recent years CDs and DVDs are still being used users online would prefer to download files due to the fact that it’s free, this may be illegal but millions of people do it, one of the main ways of downloading films, music, games and generally anything is torrentz this site offers millions of files from millions of people that have uploaded, then using Bittorrent or Utorrent, these programs extract the content making it available to use. Another way to watch films and TV episodes is streaming media, streaming is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end user while being delivered by a streaming provider The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming like TV and radio or inherently non streaming like books, video cassettes and audio tapes.
YouTube is one of the most viewed websites in the world, the site offers thousands if not millions of viral videos that can range from anything stupid to something incredibly funny, for instance this clip BeenerKeeKee19952 has put on YouTube of himself miming a 50 cent song, towards the middle of the song 50 cent himself actually comes into his room and starts miming with him, his first productions were just himself miming to certain songs but he got very famous very fast, his views on YouTube went into the millions. Music artists are always looking for ways to get there songs out there this was a way to promote 50 cents new song ‘down on me’ and it is recognized due to BeenerKeeKee19952’s videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/BeenerKeeKee19952 . although we think YouTube is free and technically it is it gets so much web traffic and businesses pay to advertise there product or website on YouTube, with the site getting millions of views a day this would mean the company with the advert on the page will likely get noticed and help the business make profit, this has changed the market so many companies will compete to get there adverts on major websites such as YouTube and Google and bid for the advertising space. Email attachments are helpful in sending important files very quickly, .wmv files are very compressed files so they are easy to send with an email as an attachment, sending files all over the globe.
E-Learning platforms comprise all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked or not, the main objective of these programs are to teach. E-learning is out of class learning but gives the same experience of actually being in a classroom, it is essentially computer transferred skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include web based learning, computer based learning and virtual classroom opportunities. Content is delivered via the Internet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD ROM. It can be self paced or instructor led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio all helping to implement the learning process.
The most used and known digital video file formats are .avi, .wmv, .mov and MP4. AVI files are what are known as a container format. There are many formats in this category and each format varies, video formats come in parts, layers and types. The container is part of the video file and it holds other parts. Any video you watch is made up of a container and interior parts. For example, the video and audio are actually separate but are bundled together within the container. .wmv stands for Windows Media Video, these files are highly compressed making them tiny, because these files are so compressed it lows the resolution the more you compress a video the more detail you take out, compression is always just a balance between image quality and file size. The .wmv files are good for sending low resolution viral videos around the world via email; attaching these small files and sending them to other online users make them very famous and sometimes extremely popular. .mov files are apple software it means QuickTime Movie files are very common. MOV functions frequently as both a sharing file but is quality enough to use as source video inside of an editing program. MP4 is a file sharing format that
