Unit 62 Criteria 1 Understanding principles of digital video technology in interactive media

Unit 62 Criteria 1

Understanding principles of digital video technology in interactive media

Throughout the media industry today, designers are creating multi-platform application technologies that allow for far more previously ‘gadget’ handicapped people to be reached. Ten years ago the general mass public could only access interactive media through activities such as arcades, festivals and home consoles such as the ‘Playstation One’, and for the lucky ones; 56k dial-up on their dell computer. Contrasted with the access today, according to http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com - 74.63% of the world’s population own a mobile device. This allows for developers to design games, applications, videos and images that can be viewed at and interacted with right in the user’s hand.

The arrival of user generated websites such as YouTube allowed the world to be watch videos from the public’s perspective, instead of being hyped up by the media corporations the videos online would come straight from the people. Meaning no misinterpretation of news around the world and most importantly anyone could share videos – for free. Another aspect to this that was not capable before was the option to share sentimental memories with friends and family across the globe, for example; a family in America films a wedding that has recently taken place, instead of writing or e-mailing to one another describing the events, members of the website could, in a few clicks, upload a video to a ‘cloud’ which would come easily accessible to watch by the other family in Britain. This simple and yet clever tool allows people to be brought closer together.

YouTube started off in 2005 by displaying their videos in the .flv format (Flash Video) – The reason for this is that flash is such a comprehensive way to embed videos although it does required the Adobe Flash plug-in for the browser. It is widely used amongst almost every website, from advertisement banners to interactive spaces. Flash videos are very small in size when compared to other formats such as .Avi and .Wmv and yet still retain a high playback quality. Advances from this method allowed users to upload and watch their 3GP videos straight from their mobile devices. This option allowed many more users to share videos as people could be restricted by the lack of a computer. Over the years YouTube upped their game in the market by increasing the pixel definition of the videos leading to a higher quality viewing experience which they later transformed the file format to MP4. One other aspect of Flash Video is that it is nearly impossible to download from the browser, this stops fraud and illegal selling of online videos, although not impossible to download (via a browser add-on) this still limits the novice internet browser.

The birth of YouTube has given life to many new aspects of marketing and media, one of these directions has formed the term known as ‘Viral Marketing’. Viral Marketing can be a form of many things; Interactive Flash Games; Videos, Text Messages and images. Over the past few years the scale on how effective Viral Marketing is has developed dramatically, as more and more businesses are developing these marketing techniques the better the Viral’s are becoming. The way Viral Marketing works is quite simple – Word of mouth. If member of the public watches something on YouTube or plays a game that they find interesting or funny they will tell friends, who in turn will tell their friends and their friends again. ­This method of marketing has proven very successful over the years and with views on YouTube exceeding well over 26,000,000. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_n3hg-Gbg&feature=related

The release of the world’s first Smartphone - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(phone) Developers have been designing applications for these devices such as Games, Videos, Applications, Web Pages and MOD’s. Over time, mobile phone manufactures started to implement the Smartphone into the market allowing anyone to easily get their hands on one. At this time only well-educated developers could or would know how to develop for mobile devices but recently in the past few years the manufacturers of Smartphones such as ‘Nokia’ have released online methods that allow the general public to develop an app on their website using ‘Ovi App Wizard’ http://appwizard.ovi.com/web_nokia/signIn.jsp

Streaming Methods

· Downloading

· Progressive downloading

· Streaming

Downloading media works by initiating a packet transfer from a remote system (server). Developers for the home consoles such as the Wii; Xbox 360 and PS3 can use this method of media transfer for online gaming. Since the first online capable console developers have had a new target to aim towards, additionally the Dreamcast created a new demographic of people that games could be developed for.

“Progressive downloading is a term used to describe the transfer of digital media files from a server to a client, typically using the HTTP protocol when initiated from a computer. The consumer may begin playback of the media before the download is complete. The key difference between streaming media and progressive download is in how the digital media data is received and stored by the end user device that is accessing the digital media.”

Quoted from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_download

“Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed medium.”

“Live streaming, more specifically, means taking the media and broadcasting it live over the Internet. The process involves a camera for the media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher where the streams are made available to potential end-users and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. The media can then be viewed by end-users live.”

Quoted from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

Compression Methods

· Lossy

· Lossless

In the media industry when films or music are edited and finalised the last step by any savvy user is to compress the file so that the ultimate piece can be quickly transferred or burned onto a disc. When a film is in the production stage the video clips are usually in the .Avi or .Mpeg formats – these RAW files are typically quite large in file size. Before the compression a movie sequence could be well over triple the file size of that when it is compressed. There are two compression methods used in the media industry today; Lossy and Lossless.

The Lossy compression method is a binary code function that encodes data so that it loses some of the quality but decreases the file size. In most cases a RAW image with a file size of 108.5KB could be reduced to 1.14KB but will sacrifice quality, usually a low compression is applied when uploading to media websites etc while still reducing its file size to 9.37KB and keeping the quality. In some cases the file size can be reduced by up to 30 times that of the original. This method of data compression is by far the most used way in the media industry today.

“As an example, let's look at a type of information we're all familiar with: words.”

In John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address, he delivered this famous line:

"Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country."

The quote has 17 words, made up of 61 letters, 16 spaces, one dash and one period. If each letter, space or punctuation mark takes up one unit of memory, we get a total file size of 79 units. To get the file size down, we need to look for redundancies.

Immediately, we notice that:

· "ask" appears two times

· "what" appears two times

· "your" appears two times

· "country" appears two times

· "can" appears two times

· "do" appears two times

· "for" appears two times

· "you" appears two times

Quoted from - http://www.howstuffworks.com/file-compression.htm

By looking at this process it is easily noticeable of how Lossy compression works. By finding duplicates of words or in the binary format if there were “0000000000” this would be shortened to “10 x 0”.

The Lossless compression method compared to the Lossy compression is less compressed as it withholds its quality far more; film producers and editors usually export their movies after using this compression method. This process of compression works by removing free space from the clip, byte for byte the film is almost identical. For general use this compression method is not suitable for MP3 players and mobile devices.

Conclusion

In conclusion to this essay I can personally say that I have learned far more about video compression methods and file formats, also from research I have realised how the media industry works in today’s time compared to ten years ago. From my own personal experience of editing video’s I know understand the process of the benefits of compression.