20 Mark Question yeh?

Using your wider knowledge of new media technologies, dicuss how far young people's use of media technology differs from that of their parents.



Statistics show that young people do not use gaming technology more than their parents, with 75% of heads of households playing video games, the average age of the video gamer is 30. This is due to game industries aiming their products to wider range of ages such as Nintento and its Girl friendly DS and Family orientated Wii including fitness games. These however are not what young people are using their gaming technologies for as the most popular video game genre being action, young people are more interested in playing these games online, in a more 'pull technology' as they are not restricted by what the game designers wanted them to do in the level but can play by their own rules.

ITs my birthday on saterday

Digital Media Distribution Opportunities for the Film Industry

Computor technology with high speed broadband connection and proccessing power gives the public a new way to experience films. This therefore gives an oppertunity for film distributors to give their audience the films in a way that competes with DVDs in a home cinema system or pay per view on cable but also creates the problem of keeping them secure, "Already today some estimates say there are as many as 500,000 digital movies being exchanged illegally over the web.".

Windows media 9 is focused on 3rd generation of digital media online:
~"Fast Streaming" eliminates buffering delays for a more TV-like 'broadcasting' experience.
~Reduces internet congestion by optimising the video/audio quality for the users bandwith.
~Improved codecs increase video quality by 20% without increasing file size therfore film providers can either increase their quality or decrease their bandwith costs with the new codecs.

Distribution on CDs / DVDs
Most of the major DVD player manufactorers plan to make their players compatible with Windows Media Audio and Video rather than just the standard MPEG2 DVD format. Benefits of this will be the compression rates without loss of quality which will mean that more movies can be stored on one DVD (up to four) without loss of quality.
Some film distributors are selling films on single CDs, two hour movies compressed at around 700kbs fits easily and is a cheap way of distribution.
Digital rights management - users go online to aquire the liscense needed to play their content.

Theater Experiences
Technology can help theaters overcome some of the challenges that are losing profit in theater exhibition.

Some of those challenges include:
The Challenge High Distribution Costs – The cost of sending films out to theaters across the country and around the world is fixed today based on the cost of the film prints themselves, anywhere from $1200-2000 per theater.
No Security – Distributors have little control over a film once it leaves their facilities. They have to hope that it’s delivered safely to the appropriate theaters and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands or is damaged along the way.
Degradation Issues – As a movie is screened it becomes progressively more scratched and dirty, eventually demanding a replacement print.
Limited Programming Flexibility – Currently theater owners are only set up to receive 35 mm films. Since the cost of film production is so high there’s little content beyond major independent and studio movies that can afford to take advantage of a theater screening.
Inflexible Advertising – Advertisers love advertising in theaters because they have a captive audience. But today’s theater advertising is limited to slide shows and rarely a filmed ad. But again, given the costs of film distribution not many advertisers can afford to send a 35 mm reel to each theater and even if many advertisers did so, the theater owners aren’t equipped to switch from one ad reel to the next. The Solution Digital distribution and exhibition of content in tomorrow’s theaters will overcome many of these limitations.
Streamlined Distribution – The distribution process will no longer involve bulky expensive film reels. Films can be sent digitally over the IP network to targeted theaters without ever having to duplicate a 35 mm reel. This streamlined distribution will pave the way for new programming options including concerts, sporting events, distance learning and more. Theater owners can program content quickly and easily, moving content from one auditorium to many, meeting market demand in a way they are currently unable to.
Integrated Digital Rights Management – Digital theater content will be secured before it ever leaves the content owners facility. DRM will enable tracking and license serving so theaters and content owners know exactly when and where the content is accessed.
Digital Preservation – The one thousandth time a digital movie is screened provides the same quality as the first time. There is no breakdown in the digital file as there is with film.
Demographically targeted advertising – Digital ads can be served from one location and targeted to specific theaters based on content being shown in that theater to a particular demographic.

The benefits of moving to digital distribution to theaters are clear. The costs for theater owners have been historically very to purchase the digital projectors and other equipment but some smaller theaters are finding that they can begin to achieve some of the benefits of digital cinema with off the shelf hardware and software. Recently theaters in Seattle and Dallas completed digital screenings of the critically acclaimed independent film “Wendigo.” Using a standard Windows-based workstation, Windows Media for the encoding, deliver and playback, and a DLP projector, the theater owners delivered high quality screenings. Customers were unable to tell that they were not watching a 35 mm film print. Although a digital screening as described above isn’t something that would meet the requirements of a major blockbuster it is a great option for theaters interested in delivering independent and alternative content geared to specific audiences.

Case study feedback #2

Toby - you still have a long way to go to complete your case study for tomorrow. Make sure you read the article linked on the department blog too.

CF

Film technologies

Oppertunity or Threat?
This lecture given by Lord Puttnam said the film industry needs to embrace digital technology otherwise it will share a similar fate to that of the music industry which has witnessed a massive drop in profits due to illegal internet trading.

Puttnam says that digital technology has the potential to substantially reduce distribution costs. Each physical film print costs $1000 or more, which quickly adds up, as in the case of Troy which was released simultaneously on 16,000 screens worldwide at a cost in the region of $16 million.

Digital distribution is taking a long time to catch on. There are only a handful of digital screens in the UK, and not many more in the United States. It’s countries such as China and Brazil which are leading the digital revolution; China, for example, already has 64 digital screens and plans to have at least 500 by the time of the Beijing Olympics.

“The problem is a relatively easy one to identify: Who pays? Solving it is a lot harder. Exhibitors, that’s to say the owners of cinema chains, have relatively little incentive to install or pay for new digital projectors. After all, digital doesn’t significantly add to the audience’s enjoyment of a film. The distributors, who will be the main beneficiaries in economic terms, effectively need to agree a model with the exhibitors whereby, although the projectors sit in the cinemas, it is they who are defraying a significant part of their costs – perhaps, for example, by paying exhibitors a fee to show their films thereby sharing in the costs of the projection equipment. This would be an almost complete reversal of the current model under which exhibitors effectively pay ‘rentals’ to the distributor out of the box-office gross in return for the right to screen a film.”

• Incentive for exhibitors to install digital projectors?
• Changes to audiences experience due to digital?
• Distributors benefits?
• Digital screens in UK?
• Digital cinema - media convergence?

Digital Democracy

Citizen journalism - the democratisation of the media enabled by advancements of heldhelled digital equipment and their increasing availability combined with web 2.0 features like blogging lets members of the public contribute to mainstream media.

Emily Bell talks about the difference between the professional journalist and the citizen contributor - and the fact that the work of the paid journalist is not always qualitativley better than the amateur citizen.

Googlezon presents a vision of the future where the collaboration of Googles storage space and bandwidth with Amazons huge commercial infrastructure to create an environment where members of the public are paid to provide entertaining material for the news based on their popularity, and the offline printed press is aimed at the older, 'elite' generation.

The age of permanent net revolution

~Endism is the perspective that sees new technologies as replacing older ones.
e.g CD roms replacing books
TV Replacing Radio ect.

~Media Ecosystem: The interactions between new and old media are complex. In science, an ecosystem is a dynamic system in which living organisms interact with one another and with their environment. The 'organisms' in our media ecosystem include broadcast and narrowcast television, movies, radio, print and the internet.

~Narrowcast TV: specialist content is aimed at subscription-based audiences and distributed via digital channels.

~The difference between the Web and the Internet is that the Web is enourmous, but its jsut one kind of traffic that runs on the internets tracks and signalling

~Push Pull mediums: Pull mediums - nothing comes to you unless you choose it, youre in charge, e.g. The Web. Push mediums - a select band of producers decide on the content, create it and push it at a passive audience, e.g. Television.

~Blogging- keeping an online diary - suggests that the traffic in ideas and cultrual products isnt a one way street, as it gives everyone access to publication media.

Film technologies: production distrubution exhibition

Technology

~Blue Ray? Why was it not successful?

~3D Cinema? How many are there? How popular are they?

~Celluloid? How many people still use Celluloid? Why?

~Digital Projectors - decline in cinema popularity stops cinemas affording to go digital.



Insitutions

~How much cheaper is Digital than Celluoid?

~Financial losses through film piracy? who? howmuch?





Audience

~How have the public responded to 3D cinema?

~How feasable is it to legally distribute films via the internet to the public?

~How many people still go to the cinema? why not?