Interactive Video

Interactive media is currently everywhere, an essential feature of interactivity is that its mutual. The user and the machine both take an active role. Any form of interface between the end user/audience and the medium may be considered interactive. Even having a play/pause feature means you are interacting with the video.

Currently there are many forms of interactive media that exist these are:

• Fashion websites
• Digital booklets
• DVD menus
• Pornography websites/films
• Chat roulette
• Bonus content(video)
• Online adverts
• Interactive games
• Trailers
• Mobile devices(apps)
• Presentations
• E-learning
• Video sharing

Due to the advance in technology within the past years, media platforms have become more interactive for us. The purpose of having interactive elements within a platform could be for promotional reasons, which appear a lot on websites such as YouTube. Another purpose is for entertainment for users, if there is interaction within a platforms it enhances the users experience. Interaction is also useful for educational purposes, websites such as GCSE Bitesize contains interaction which allows the user to learn as they interact. Interactivity within videos can be just as simple as play/pause as you are interacting with the interface.



Below I will list a few of  the different forms that interactive media exist and explain each one.

• Youtube

Youtube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 and since late 2006 owned by Google. Users can upload, view and share videos. YouTube uses Abode Flash Video and HTML5 technology. This is so that they can display a wide variety of user-generated content including video clips, TV clips, music videos and so on. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including:

• .AVI
• .MKV
• .MOV
• .MP4
• DivX
• .FLV
• .ogg
• .ogv

These include videos formats such as MPEG-4, MPEG, VOB and .WMV. YouTube also supports 3GP, this means that videos can be uploaded from mobile phones.

Originally YouTube offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320x240 pixels. Now YouTube offers 144 pixels, 240 pixels, 360 pixels and 480 pixels, which I will explain into more detail when it comes to explaining quality.

• Interactive Kiosks

An interactive kiosk is a computer terminal featuring specialized hardware and software designed within a public exhibit that provides access to information and applications for communication, commerce, entertainment and education.

The integration of technology allows kiosks to perform a variety of functions, evolving into self-service kiosks. For example some kiosks may enable users to enter a public utility bill account number in order to perform and online transaction, or collect cash in exchange for merchandize.

• Video Games

A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.


As part of our coursework we created an interactive video and it involved decisions. Depending on the decision you choose, leads you down a different path resorting a different ending. We decided to upload our video on to YouTube as we thought it would be the most accessible platform to use.

Below is the video:

Our interactive video's purpose was to entertain the viewer, it contained a number of decisions leading to different pathways. It has two types of interactivity, as you can play and pause the video and you are choosing different decisions as you progress through the video.


Quality vs File Size

What is quality?

Quality is the standard of something when measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.

Resolution

The display resolution is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. The display resolution is normally quoted as width x height with the units in pixels for example, "1206 x 750" means the width is 1026 pixels and the height is 768 pixels. Depending on the amount of pixels within an image/video depends on the quality.

Below is an image that is very poor quality from Youtube showing at 144pixels.

144pixels on YouTube would be more useful for viewing on a mobile devices, the lower the pixels the less internet it will use. Also depending on the screen size of your mobile devices will effect the quality on which you view the video above at.

There is a massive difference within the quality of the video now as visible, the video above was played at 360pixels which is auto for YouTube. This pixel size would be more suitable for a laptop or a tablet with a bigger screen rather a mobile phone. If you were to use a mobile phone to view this video at 360pixels you wouldn't get the sharpness like you do on a laptop/tablet.


Currently in this day and age we compare the quality of everything whether its worth buying. Say for example because an Xbox has less memory than a PS4 you are more likely to pay more for the PS4 than buy an XBOX which has less file storage. As an Xbox has less storage than a PS4 it would also mean that the quality(resolution) would be better on a PS4. Another example would be a DVD and a Blu- ray. Again because the DVD holds less than the Blu-ray would, the quality(resolution) would be a lot better on the Blu- ray on the DVD.

Below I will show the different of one game on a PS4 and an Xbox.

As you can see Grand Theft Auto 3 on the Xbox the quality itself doesn't look that good, this is because of the memory of the Xbox games will be displayed at a lower resolution compared to the same game on the PS4.

As the image shows above you can see that Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PS4 has better quality, this is because the PS4 holds a lot more memory.


Screen size Vs Viewing distance

Depending on what distance you view your television at, depends on the resolution in which you are watching a particular show/film at. For example if you were sitting to close to a television you would not be able to see the whole imagine in perspective. As well as being able to see the pixels within the image itself.  Same applies to if you were sitting far away from your television the image would be blurry, this is why you should be sitting at the correct viewing distance so that you experience the best possible viewing.

Below is a chart which identifies the viewing distance where resolution becomes noticeable.

Data compression

Data compression involves encoding information using fewer bits that the original. Compression can be either lossy or lossless. The term lossy is removing unnecessary bits/info. Lossy compression reduces file size considerably but leads to pixilation and reduced quality. The term lossless eliminates statically redundancy.

Compression is useful because it helps reduce resource usage, this means freeing data space or transmission capacity.


Data rate

Data rate is the rate in which information is transferred between electronic devices. In most cases, this term is used to describe internet connection speeds and how quickly a consumer can upload or download files.  Hardware components such as hard drives, memory, and video cards also deal with data rates as such as they also process information. Internet connections are more so measured in terms of data rate. A 56k dial up modem, for example can receive 56 kilobits per second as a maximum when it is fully installed. Information is sent is small chunks of data called packets.



File Size
The higher the quality of a video, music file or game the bigger the file size is. Watching a film in good quality can be good but unfortunately it takes a huge amount of space on the device you are watching the film on. If you reduce the file size then it becomes complicated as the quality then becomes pixelated.