Interactive Media Platforms

Interactive media platforms are what we use to access different forms of media. There are loads of different ways that we consume media one way is by using phones to download music and videos ,I-pods to stream and download videos and the internet which is what we use to access websites and also download and upload videos and music.

One platform that we all use regularly is the World Wide Web which allows you to watch or stream films from the internet and you can also view and download images, music and films from the internet which means that you then have a copy of them. Email attachments are another platform and these allow us to send homemade videos to other people such as your friends and family with ease, viruses and junk mail are attached to some emails and can be annoying to those who get them.
Another platform is the DVD which is better form rather than the VCR which was the best platform before DVD. DVD’s allow you to watch films that had previously come out at the cinema which means that the audience can watch it whenever they want because they have the film. A second form of DVD is Blu-Ray technology which makes the DVD have better quality pictures and sounds and so adds to the experience of watch the film outside of the cinema screen. CD ROMs are a platform that allows you to transfer files from computers to other digital media platforms such as a CD music player. Another platform that allows you to watch videos outside of the cinema are Kiosks, Kiosks are small self service information centres that allow you to watch videos, pay bills, surf the internet etc some people use Kiosks as a way to pay bills or money in to their bank account because they are open on some days that other places aren’t.
A platform of interactive media that is used by companies to make pitches are Presentations, presentations allow you to use computers or other forms of media to explain your idea. A program that allows you to create presentations easily is Microsoft PowerPoint; this program is easy to use and allows you to make small or large presentations that can then be used to back up your ideas, which is why companies use them for pitches. A platform that is used through TV is the Red Button which allows you to access extras from TV programs and they also allow you to get up-to-date news and information from your TV at your leisure and this means that you aren’t behind with the latest news. Another main platform of interactive media are mobile devices such as Phones, PDA’s and Games Consoles Phones and PDA’s allow you to stream videos off the internet on to them and allow you to then watch them whenever you want.
And Games Consoles allow games to be played on-line using multiplayer games which allow loads of players to play the same game at the same time even on the same console. Two examples of Games Consoles that allow multiplayer games to be played on-line and X-BOX 360’S and Sony Play station 3’s.

Uses of Video in Interactive Media

Short films are one of the uses of Video in Interactive Media and are used because they are a way to show films that are small, short films are better than long films because long films take up a lot of time and the short film don’t and more people like to watch short films rather than long films. An example of a short film is an animated film. This is a good example of a short film because the sequences are short because they take up a lot of time to film a good example of an animated short film is Wallace and Gromit because this is a form of stop frame animation. Promotional material such as trailers and adverts are used as video content in interactive media and are used to promote films and products. Films use trailers as promotional material to advertise the film and to promote it so that they get more people wanting to watch the film, companies use adverts to promote their products so that they can get people to buy and use them which means that films and products can be promoted cheaply and easily.

Film trailers as mentioned above are used to promote the film before and during the main film’s release date into the cinema, an example of a popular film trailer that promoted the main film extremely well is Star Wars this film trailer promoted the film really well because it captured a lot of peoples attention and made them want to watch the film which is what a film trailer is supposed to do. User Generated content is another use of video in interactive media and is made by people to promote themselves and their music/product and this allows them to boost the sale of their product/music. Viral Marketing is used in interactive media videos as a way to promote products such as computers and mobile phones an example of viral marketing is the Cadbury’s Gorilla advert that was shot in 2007 which was used to promote the Cadbury’s chocolate bar and which was a huge hit on many websites. This form of marketing is clever as it doesn’t promote the video as it would be normally as it doesn’t reveal/talk about the product in a huge amount of detail because that isn’t the aim of the advert because the actual aim of the advert is to grab the viewers attention. Here are some viral marketing videos as shown below:

Cadbury's Gorrila viral Advert:



Sussex Safer Roads Partnership viral advert:





Another use of video in interactive media is advertising; advertising is used to promote products and influence people’s decisions into buying them. An example of advertising of a product is the video created by a guy imitating Guitar Hero on his by which was named Bike Hero.
Here is the video below:



Virtual Reality is another popular use of video in interactive media because it allows you to visit locations without having to go there. Virtual tours of museums, wedding venues and football stadiums allow you to see the location without going there and are very popular because people don’t want to have to travel to the location because they would rather do it in their own home. Video games are effective uses of video in interactive media because they are becoming more popular because they are becoming more virtual based and this means that young people are more interested in them.
Another use of video in interactive media is a program called E – Learning which allows you to do different videos clips and is a Virtual Learning Environment that allows you to do loads of different things on E-Learning.

Video in Interactive Media Technologies

Video Compression
Video compression reduces the quantity of data used to represent digital video images to create a smaller file but the video images are low quality.

Codec
A Codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and or decoding a digital signal or data stream. And are used to compress a file to make it smaller e.g. 400mb is lowered to 8mb.

Streaming and Download
Streaming allows you to watch video files “live” and downloading is a way of receiving or sending data onto a memory system such as phones, I-pods etc.

Interactive Video Formats

MPEG
(Moving Picture Image Expert Group)

AVI
(Audio Video Interleave)

MOV
Is a movie that can be played through QuickTime player.

WMV
(Windows Media Video) can only be played through Windows.



Bandwidth
Band width is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources and can vary depending on how fast your internet connection is.

Frame Rates
Frame rates, or frame frequency is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images known as frames.

Screen Resolutions
Screen resolutions are made up of a number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed on a monitor screen.

File Sizes
Files sizes are typically measured in bytes and measure the size of the computer file.

Picture Ratios
Picture ratios are measured by dividing the width by the height of the picture.

Digital Rights Movement
Digital Rights Movement is basically used to protect and secure digital content and can be used to restrict content such as Adult sites.

Media Players

DVD
(Digital Versatile Disc) is an optical disc storage media format and its main uses are video and data storage

I-Player
I-player is an internet TV service and an example of a TV service site is BBC I-PLAYER


QuickTime
QuickTime is a program developed by Apple and is capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips etc.

Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is developed by Windows and is capable of the same formats as QuickTime.


REAL
Real media player is a closed source cross-platform media player that plays MP3, QuickTime and Windows Media Player.


Embedded Video
Embedding allows videos to be posted onto a blog or website using an embed code.

Video Tagging
Video Tagging allows you to label videos to then allow for easier access for friends and family to see it which is a quick link that doesn’t take long to load.