Format Essay

There used to only be one way of watching films and videos, which was through a television set. This meant there was one standard way of exporting and viewing the content, making it much easier for editors. This isn’t the case anymore, as videos can be accessed anywhere and from a lot of different platforms. The internet is one of the major changes in video watching. It allows for a completely different viewing experience for the audience, and has revolutionised how film is viewed. 

The different mediums and platforms that videos can now be viewed on have resulted in lot of different formats, that are designed for viewing in different ways. They can cause problems though, as some formats don’t let the audience view the video on other mediums. For example, video files must be exported specifically in .3PG to be downloaded to a phone in a compressed file. This would make the file unwatchable on computer and televisions. Sending videos through email is also very difficult. There is a certain size that files cannot exceed, to be able to send in an email, and normally, video files exceed this size. A way to resolve this is to compress the video. This will make the file smaller, allowing it to be sent, it will however reduce the quality of the video significantly. The quality of the video is very important in some cases. What a lot of people do is upload them to internet sites such as YouTube, which will allow for videos of all sizes to be stored and viewed whenever they are wanted. This is currently the most popular way of saving videos, as they can be accessed anywhere, on any device. YouTube is so popular because it allows anybody to see what you have uploaded, which has resulted in some major music artists being discovered. Some people prefer to save videos onto CD’s and DVD’s, meaning they store it themselves and can only be played or devices with a CD/DVD reader. This is quite an old method of storing content, and was the norm before YouTube was mainstream. Doing this means the videos don’t take up space on the computer, but does risk damaging or losing everything that is saved onto it. The footage on DVD’s often isn’t as good quality as the footage you see online today. Blu ray disks record and show the content in much better resolution, but they do require a special player, making it an unpopular form of saving footage. 

Television sets have developed hugely over the last few years. They no longer only show what is being broadcast, but can show older films and TV through different applications. Sky and BT are two of the best known catch-up TV providers, but they also broadcast a lot of live TV as well. These catch-up programmes can be watched through the TV, or using applications on a computer. Sky has ‘Sky Go’ which is a much better-established site than the BT equivalent ‘BT TV’. These are also available as apps on phones and tablets, as well as on the computer. All these different platforms and viewing methods are all there to make sure the company doesn’t fall behind its closest rivals. Any sort of development or idea that might give one company an advantage is huge and can often create a surge of buyers. BT TV allows owners to buy and keep any program they watch, and view it on up to 4 devices. This has given BT a huge advantage until Sky develop something of similar benefit. Other TV companies and producers have their own way of watching catch-up TV. The BBC have iPlayer, which shows their most recent and popular programs, and is available on TV, mobiles and Tablets. Channel 4 and ITV also have their own sites. These are called on demand, as they allow viewers to watch their favourite programmes whenever they ‘demand’ it, instead of having to watch it when it is broadcast. This has meant, while TV viewing figures are falling, total viewing figures are rising. Before you could watch on demand, catching up on TV required buying box sets and DVD’s. These DVD’s and boxsets used to be a way of continuing to make money off shows that weren’t relevant or being broadcast anymore. As people no longer have to buy them, the companies have lost a valuable income. They make up for this by collecting revenue through advertising. While the TV companies have always shown adverts on their live broadcasts, showing adverts at regular intervals during each video. BBC iPlayer has been the exception because it receives the TV license from all TV owners, however, they have started to advertise their own TV programmes, to make their viewers aware of their high budget and well anticipated productions. YouTube and  

 

Vimeo are two video viewing services which aren’t available on the TV. They show adverts before videos as well, so that they receive money for maintaining the site. It also means they can give people an incentive to create video content for their sight, as they will pay out money to people with huge viewing figures and lots of subscribers. All these on demand services are available through the internet, although programmes can often be downloaded and watched later. They will appear the same, but can be watched on the move. These are often huge files, so that the quality of the video is still high. If the file was compressed, the quality would be worse but it would take up less space on the device. 

Promotional Material 

Videos are used in promotion all the time. It is the main way that people advertise, because video is such a well-used and viewed medium. They also allow the advertiser to communicate what they are promoting directly to the audience with words and content instead of text which makes them much more immersive. A lot of massive companies are including their own videos on their websites. These aren’t the videos that are shown on TV, but are extras for the loyal customers that look for them. The company raise awareness of these videos and their website through television advertising. Having videos on their website that informs customers enhances it and makes it appeal to a larger group of people. People are also more likely to buy from them if they are already on the site. As it is an advertising technique, the video should be available on all platforms. This is done similarly to YouTube, where the server changes the format depending on the device automatically. This means that there is no added inconvenience for the customer, that would otherwise make them disinterested. The format for YouTube videos originally had to be manually changed for each video. While acceptable and expected when streaming videos was first made available, it would now deter people from viewing in that way. 

Film Trailers 

These are a great example of interactive media. While they can be viewed on TV as adverts before films at the cinema, they are also available through a vast array of different websites, such as YouTube, IMDb and on social media. The film might even have its own website to inform fans about the film. If not, more information about the film will be available on the film production company’s website, or on IMDb. Producers often think that using film to advertise instead of an individual image or synopsis, will appeal much more to audience, which is why it is made available on so many platforms. A lot of the time, videos will be taken from a different server and embedded in a different location. There are benefits to not self-hosting the video, and using the same clip from YouTube will mean the video loads faster than it would otherwise, as they have got very fast playback speeds and very high resolution in their professionally made videos. The aspect ratio will be 16:9, which is the same for all YouTube videos. 16:9 is also the most common ratio for both televisions and computer monitors, and has been since 2009. If a video is uploaded with a different aspect ratio, the images might be stretched or there will be a black box around the edge. 

 

 

User Generated Content 

These are films and videos that are created by ordinary people, and can be shown to anybody through interactive sites, like YouTube or Vimeo. It really shows how far technology has come when it can be done so easily and quickly. When uploading videos, they should use a certain file format, aspect ratio and resolution. The information is readily available on the YouTube help section. While you can upload videos in .MOV, .MPEG4, .AVI, .WMV and. MPEGPS, YouTube recommends that you use an MP4 file. There are also a lot of different resolutions that can be viewed at. They range from 240p up to 4K, which is a huge difference and will give a very different view to the videos. The higher levels of resolution will most likely not be available for most film creators, as their cameras won’t collect content of the quality required. It is recommended that the videos are at least 720p for a video with a 16:9 aspect ratio. If the video is 4:3 ratio, which is the older style box TV, then the recommended resolution is 480p. The file has also got to be under a certain size. If it is more than 128GB, it must be compressed, which will unfortunately, reduce the quality of footage, but will allow for large files. YouTube recommends using H.264 codec to do this. 

Virtual Reality Tours 

These tours are used to show an interactive and complete view of a room, which you normally wouldn’t get without being there. The tours give you a 360 degree view of each room that you go to. This is done by taking pictures in a set route, similar to google maps. It allows the viewer to choose where they go, making it more interactive and engaging for them. Virtual tours can be a very persuasive factor when looking to buy or sell a house. These are available from a lot of different providers, one of which is done by Virtual Walkthrough. Their camera links to an iPad, and creates a 3D image of properties. It can also be done by the house or location owner without having to get a team in to do it for you. This reduces overall cost and makes it accessible for a larger number of people. Now people also have 360 degree film cameras, which film all the way round, but they do need to stay in the same location. These are becoming more popular for live events instead of tours. These are all normally viewed in Java, Flash or Quicktime formats, because it means they can viewed at any time on any browser and device while keeping the high resolution. 

Video Compression 

Compressing videos is one of the most difficult parts of media and film making. There isn’t one specific way to do it, and there are different formats which will compress files in different ways. Lossy compression recreates the data in an approximate format instead of an exact reconstruction. While this doesn’t sound beneficial in theory, as the quality of the video is much less, the approximate reconstruction means the data file is significantly smaller. Certain platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo require videos to be under a certain size. This normally involves video compression. Sometimes, YouTube will compress the file when you upload it, even if it has been done before. This can really damage the overall image, and make the content unwatchable as the quality has been reduced twice. Some of the common methods of lossy video compression are; 

• H.264 
• MPEG-2 

• MPEG-4 
• MPEG-1 

A lot of portable media players (phones, Tablets, laptops) require content to be in lossy formats because of processing and RAM constraints. Some low powered desktop might even struggle to play some lossless content as most media players have problems with processing massive amount of information.  

 

Lossless compression is different as it recreates the video perfectly from the compressed data. The quality of the footage isn’t reduced resulting in as clear and image as the camera permits. The issue with this method of compression is that it makes enormous files so that the content can be recreated properly. This isn’t an issue when putting the video directly onto DVD’s or when being stored on a hard drive as the content is locally stored. The file size does mean it can’t be sent through email or put onto YouTube as the maximum file size won’t allow it. It does however create a very high quality video which can be saved as a master copy. This can then be changed and exported, without the video constantly losing resolution. This is what is going to be done to the presentation-day videos so they can be altered and developed in the future. Some of the best used Lossless compression codecs are: 

• Apple QuickTime 
• FFmpeg 
• Libwavpack 
• Windows Media Encoder