Video in Interactive media

Why do we need Interactive Media?

Interactive media allows you to watch multiple types of video and audio media via many different platforms such as mobile phones, interactive TV, DVD’s or the Internet.

Before the Internet and TV were invented the only place you could watch film was at the cinema. Then however when Television came along you cold watch films at home as well as at the cinema, which gave film makers the choose of making a feature film for cinemas only or making short programmes for television stations instead.

Then during the 1980s home videos came about, allowing for the first time anyone to either record or re-watch television programmes when it suited them, or create there own homemade videos to show their family and friends. Also video cassettes allowed film makers to release there films onto the new home video format that meaning they can make more money for their film by reselling it as a video cassette. The next big step in interactive media history was the release of DVD’s and the creating of the internet during the 1990’s. DVD’s allowed for much more media to be viewed than ever before, so film makers could now release extra material that had always been stored but never shown as lack of space on video formats but could now be placed onto DVDs.

The internet allowed for interactive media to really expand now you could watch film trailers, television programs and home movies uploaded by the media viewers themselves. This helped in the development of other devices many portable such as mobile phones that now have the ability to view television shows, news access or even social network built into the device. These are all forms of interactive media.


Platforms of video Interactive media

The platforms of interactive media are all the places you can either watch or interact with the technologies. On the internet the most common platforms of interactive are youtube, iplayer, real player or windows media player. The problem with these different players is that to watch videos on these platforms you have to have the right player for the platform meaning you have to install onto your computer lots of different players that can take up memory room.


Other internet platforms can be sent via e-mail attachments, these tend to be film trailers or newsletters that have been compressed down small enough so that can be added to e-mails as attachments. The downside of e-mail attachments is that sometimes they can contain computer viruses. Other downsides to video attachments on e-mails are that the quality isn’t as good because of the video file has become compressed making it small enough so that it can be attached to an e-mail. The benefit however is that because it small in file size it can be sent to a wide range of people very quickly at the press of a button.



Kiosks are useful platforms of interactive media as they contain information on local attractions via the web. Some kiosks have videos on the local attractions providing simple and quick information. The downside to kiosks is that they are very slow at loading web pages and that the information they provide is only relevant to the local area and so isn’t very good at browsing the internet. They also have weather reports, job information and some kiosks even have the ability to top up mobile phones. The benefit however is that they provide all the latest information on the local area and are updated daily.




CD ROM is a rather outdated platform of interactive media that can be used for educational use or promotional use. They usually have videos of either demonstrations on how to do a subject or information about a subject. Most CD ROM have point and click software as well where the consumer can fully interact with CD ROM for the benefit of their education or the education of others by promotion. The downside to CD ROMs are that they don’t have huge amounts of space and so the information they provide is limited compared to information shared over the internet. The benefit of CD ROMs is that they reproduced easily and handed out to be used as home study.


DVDs are a good source of video interactivity as they contain both the feature film itself and ‘special features’ these tend to be further videos on the making of the film, commentary during the film, games about the film or inspired by the film and on some DVDs Easter eggs can be found also. An Easter egg is again further video or still photos that have been hidden within the DVD menu such as within the background picture or hidden within another video. The downside of DVDs is that now they are being outdated by blue ray disc’s instead which have vast more space than either DVD or CD ROM. Although DVDs are now being outdated by blue ray it is a lot cheaper to make a DVD than it is a blue ray disc making it more affordable than blue ray discs.

Presentations are another platform of interactive media as on ‘PowerPoint’ presentations it is possible to add video within the presentation alongside simple animation to make the presentation more visual interesting for the purpose of again promotional or education uses. With power point presentation you can add pictures and flash videos also. The downside to power point presentations is that sometimes they can crash or freeze because the more you add to a PowerPoint the slower the presentation will take to load. The benefit of power point presentations is that the presentation can be used over and over again to show vast number of people for educational benefit.

TV clicks through or the ‘red button’ is a recent interactive media that can be found on freeview or other satellite TV providers such as SKY. This allows the view to access weather reports, play games switch to a different camera in sporting events or during major sport tournaments switch between sports. Also you can do home shopping, play along with game shows or sing along and on shows like the X factor you can even vote. The downside to the red button is that the number of services it provides is very limited when sport programs or other interactive game shows are not being aired. However when they are being aired it provides the consumer of the interactive media a lot of options to look at.
Uses of video interactive media




Short films are a great way for up and coming directors/ actors to get famous by uploading short films onto websites like britfilm.com or YouTube because large number of consumers both watch and upload videos they made themselves so the short film is likely to viewed a lot more than at conventions or festivals. The benefit of making short films is that they be compressed down making them really easy to upload onto the web where it’s possible that big producers will view the video content and offer to fund a feature film for that director, or find a part in feature film for the actor or actress. The downside however is that it can take a long time for anyone to find and watch film and even longer for producer to come across it.

Promotional material can be video clips for advertising products usually found on websites like facebook or other social network websites or sometimes as part of an
E-mail attachment. The benefit of video promotional material is that it can sent onto a large number of websites to advertise a product that might not otherwise be looked at directly by its intended audience. However the downside of promotional material is that most of it sent via E-mail is deleted before its even viewed or on websites you can choose to close any promotional material that appears quite easily, but they are however still a great marketing tool that can be used to advertise products.

Film trailers are good because again like short films they can be embedded onto websites and uploaded directly onto the internet really easily making them a great way to advertise up and coming films. Trailers are found on a number of web pages from YouTube, facebook or the film’s direct website. The downside to trailers is that it doesn’t mean that the viewer will go to see the film if the trailer doesn’t look very good, also the consumer might not even play the trailer on embedded websites reducing the possible number of film viewers once the film is released. Again the benefit of trailers is that they be embedded and uploaded onto internet really easily.

User-generated content means video content made by the consumers themselves the most famous website from which you can view user-generated content is YouTube. The benefits of user-generated content is that anyone can make a video and upload it directly onto YouTube and overnight it is possible to become really famous around the round, and some people even get recording contracts just because of their YouTube videos. Again just like Film trailers or short films it can take a while before anyway watches a user-generated content but however once people start watching the video, anything could happen.

Viral marketing and advertising are very similar and are both designed to do sell and promote a media product. Viral marketing is cheap to make and tends to look like a homemade video or like a user-generated video, however they always have the product their advertising at the end of the viral advert. Viral marketing is good because they help boost sales of that media product and they don’t cost very much money making them good advertising tools. The downside of viral marketing is again there’s the possibility that the view won’t have paid any attention to the viral advert.



Advertising videos online are similar to those used on television and in some cases are the same advert just uploaded onto the internet. These just like viral adverts are designed to increase interest and sales of media products but again it all depends on the viewer if they pay any attention to it. Both viral adverts and adverts online can be found on YouTube, facebook or many other websites and are usually either embedded directly onto the webpage or appear as pop ups on the webpage instead.

Virtual reality tours are a sequence of videos or still photos providing a virtual digital tour of certain location. This location can be anywhere or anything as there are roller coaster reality tours as well. The benefit of virtual reality tours is that gives you an idea of what the place is like to visit, however the downside is that it is never as good as actually visiting the place for real instead of virtual.

Games now play sequences of video clips as part of their narrative via flash animation software. Games are very interactive as the consumer has to make all the decisions for the character within the game and this can affect the outcome of the narrative. The downside is that there are so many different options that the user can affect to reach the same narrative outcome, however they still remain very interactive video media product.

E-learning basically means learning via electronic software over the internet. This can in the form of interactive games to improve math skills, video blogs covering a subject or even virtual lectures over webcam. The benefits of E-learning is that it can be learned anywhere at any time via a touch of a button. It’s great for students who live a long distant from school or college as it allows them to still learn everything that would have been covered in the classroom. The downside to E-learning is that you don’t get the hands on help from tutors and teachers and also E-learning doesn’t allow any practical work that schools and colleges offer instead.

Video in interactive media technologies

There are lots of different technologies that enable us to place videos onto the internet. The first thing that needs to be done before any video is uploaded onto the internet is video compression. The reason video needs to be compressed down is because video takes up a lot space and it would take ages to upload and play a video over the internet that hasn’t been compressed down. Compressing a video reducing the amount of space that a video has making it smaller and easier to upload onto the internet. The downside to video compression is that it can reduce the video quality as well as sometimes making the video jump/skip frames during playback.

A codec is what actually compresses the file to a different format. The codec lets the file know what it needs and what it doesn’t. Basically it acts like a key preventing the video from being viewed from just any old player. Instead it will only open and play onto a player that shares the same codec file. For example: an AVI video file will only play on a real player and nothing else.




Streaming is a way of watching video online, the faster the streaming speed the sooner you will be able to watch the video. I t is possible to watch a video while its streams the rest of the video but this can make the video quality worse and even freeze the video while the streaming catches up with the rest of the video, it is much better to let the streaming finish before watching the video. The downside to streaming is that it can take a long time to load the video if the file is quite large. Downloading a video file however will mean that you can watch straight away once the download is finished without losing as much quality however the downside to downloading video is you have to wait for download to finish before you can watch the video.

Interactive video formats include MPEG, AVI, MOV and WMV. They are all different video file types that require the same codec to be played. MPEG and AVI contain both the codec’s to be used on MAC and Windows software provided that the correct player is downloaded onto the MAC or Windows software ready to play the video file. Other video formats like WMV can only played on one or the other software systems providing they have the correct player, in the case of WMV it only works on Windows computer systems and the player would windows media player. The downside to interactive media formats is that you have to have the correct player on the correct software system to play the video format. However the benefit is that there is usually the same video availably to download in a wide range of formats so you’re likely to find at least one video file that play on your computer software.

Data Transfer rate is the rate at which different file sizes take to upload or download depending on the size of your own bandwidth. Basically the higher the bandwidth you own the faster the download or upload speed will be. Bandwidth can range between one megabit up to a kilobyte or more. The downside of having a lower bandwidth is that is can take ages to download or upload any video file even if it’s been compressed. However the benefit of a higher bandwidth is that you can download and upload higher quality video at a faster speed than someone can who has a small bandwidth.

Frame rates and screen resolutions are both to with picture quality. The higher the frame rate the faster and clearer the image becomes, it is usually 24 frames a second however this can vary on the quality of video. Screen resolution is to do with the number of pixels within the dimensions on the video player. The greater the pixels count the better quality of the images within the video you will get. File sizes are the measurement of how much space a video takes up ranging from about kb (kilobit) up to TB (terabyte) and in some cases higher. The higher the files size the longer it’s going to take to download or upload directly onto the internet.

Picture ratios are the range of the image displayed for the video player usually measured in either inches or centimetres. When talking about videos only it is measured on centimetres, typical picture ratios are 4:3, 16:9 etc, most videos are this size. The bigger the picture ratio the more of the footage you’re going to see within the video player.




Digital rights manager is a generic term for video ownership and rights to video access over the internet. At this moment in time most of the videos online are free to watch however in the future videos will most likely be rented to consumers for a set amount time in order to make money from videos posted on the internet. Some companies such as BBC iplayer have copyrights on all of their videos meaning that if any of their videos were copied they have the right sue that person who stole their video content. Other websites do a similar thing but also have donation boxes where the consumer can donate money to the producers of the video if they liked the video, to make money that way off their videos.

Media players are used to view interactive video media content. DVDs are most common type of media player as they contain plenty of room for which interactive video content can be placed. Internet media players include iplayer, QuickTime player, real player and windows media player. Each internet player will only play video files that are compatible with the player for example real player will only play AVI video types and not WMV which can only be played with windows media player. The downside to media players is that you have to install lots of different types of player to watch the many different types of video files that are available over the internet.

Embedded video is when you copy a video codec from a website most commonly YouTube and paste it onto a different website like blogger for example and then save it. On blogger you simply click the post blog page button. The video will now play straight of blogger website instead of opening a new window to YouTube and playing it there. The benefit of embedded video is that you can watch the video without the problem of looking for it again online as it is already on your website. The downside of embedded video is that sometimes the picture quality isn’t as good as it is from the direct source page aka YouTube itself and also the streaming time can take longer as its streaming the link from the other webpage.

Video tagging is when on websites like YouTube you put into the search box at the top of the screen a key word which helps narrow down the potential number of results making it easier to find the video you’re looking for. The benefit of video tagging is that it saves time when looking for a video online however the downside to video tagging is that unless you tag a very specific word you’re still likely to get lots of results you’re not really looking instead of just the one video.