Unit 8: Task 4 – Developing Technologies

During the past years people has seen the rise and fall of new technologies that have always attended to change the way we perceive the main entertainment content that we usually see on TV and also in the Film industry, in this blog I will describe the development of some of the main technologies and services that have played an important role in the industries, also I will explain the change and evolution that some of these technologies have experimented and how the media practitioners have adapted to all of these changes.

Satellite Television

Is better known as the transition of data throw the use of satellite dishes, sending the information translated in form of entertainment content to all the houses that have a tv signal, required to transmit the diverse tv’s content for a massive audience. This technology allows the satellite dish to receive the signal transmitted from a space satellite, sharing a connection that gives access to the people who wish to watch a specific tv channel.

Most of the content that is seen on the Tv is deliberated by specific television services, that can come from different sources, where one of the most popular is a live studio feed. During the transmission of content, a studio will normally encrypt the channels information, sending it to the space satellite to be translated and redirected to all the houses with a specific tv service.

Satellite TV Programming

The different source of programming that allows satellite tv providers to receive a wide range of content is divided into two primary sectors; the national channels, with content produced for mayor audience that looks for a source of entertainment or accurate information, that will have some relevance with the individual’s nationality. Some examples of this are programs as BBC One, ITV, Channel 4 ( These programs show a principal focus on the actual event and the life of the people who live in the UK).

Also, there is the local channel, that normally they are the focus in a specific area of entertainment for a wider range of audience, but at the same time is limited in comparison with a national channel. Some of the examples can be Made Television, That’s TV, London Live that provided a more diverse content, that is not attached to any patriotic or national view.
Satellite TV Signal

The resolution that is normally used during the transmission of the Tv programs is so high, that a compression to reduce the size of data is need it, to be able of sending the information without any further complications. The finality of the size compression. Is also to get away from the information that does not has any relevance during the transmission. During the process the compression discomposes and reconstruct the data, to minimise the final size, by using the standard file compression MPEG.

This compression also allows distributing the information to more than one channel. In conjunction with this, all the data is encoding and converted into a MPEG-4 video that allows a better transition between the broadcast transmission and the house satellite.

Problems with Broadcast TV

There is a common issue that is presented in this technology, and this applies to the interference produced by the broadcast Tv. these share many similarities between them, where the most relevant in this case will be the transmission of programming via radio signal. There are many cases where an interference is produced between them and a block in the programming transmission is produced, resulting in the loss of the signal leaving the tv in an inactivity period where the antenna does not reed any channel for an indeterminate period, that could long from many seconds to even hours in the worst scenario.

A critical factor that detonated this issue was the quick adaptability and evolution of this technology with the rise of the digital era, and consequently the introduction to the digital Tv. The developing of this new technology give to the consumer access a faster reproduction of the tv channel with an improvement in image quality, allowing the audience to enjoy a high-resolution tv programming.

Bill Hayes and Gary Sgrignoli explained for http://iptv.org/digital/, the different technical aspects between the old analog channel and the digital channel, and how the digital Tv reflected a very considerable improvement in the evolution of the satellite tv. They put in contrast also how both of the channels share a connection that allows them to receive the same satellite transmission, but how both react in different ways to transmit the signal to the tv, giving a considerable advantage to the digital tv and its capacity to transmit in the same frequency that the analog Tv using a lower transmitting power and with a considerable difference in the resolution.

Bobexr3 make a compassion Between Digital and analog tv in his YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn_eIg39vH0) where he shows the visual difference of these two channels, to demonstrate “a phenomenon called cliff effect”, that reflect lower intensity that the analog channel possess, and how the quality imagine decrease in comparison with the stable resection of the digital channel.

This statesman was also a very notorious impact in the population as a report for Q2 2009 stated:

• 89.8% (23.2 million of 25.6 million televisions) of main TV sets received digital television
• 70% (24.3 million of 35 million televisions) of secondary TV sets received multichannel television (multichannel refers to any digital television, and analog cable)
• 80.5% (48.3 million of 60 million televisions) of all TV sets received multichannel TV; the remainder received analog terrestrial television.

3D Television

With the production and development of many films that reflect high quality level that made the viewer to feel a more realistic experience in the theatre, the television industry felt the necessity to innovated and upgraded their products, developing a technology that was able to produce the same sensation to the customer with 3d films such as Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and many others. The invention of the 4K Ultra HD 3D TVs was manufactured with a technology that allows reproducing four times the resolution of a full high-quality TV.

3D Ready TV

There are no major differences between the 3d standard quality and the HDTV, with an exception in the 3d transmission that is connected directly to the 3d glasses. Essentially the 3d ready work as a connector, that becomes the regular HDTV in a 3d simulation, that recreated the sensation of a three-dimensional precession of what is being seen with the glasses on the TV. The regulation of this technology has been produced, and distributed for many entertaining companies that tried to keep on market established by new 3d services, as an example, it can be highlighted companies like; Blu-ray with their 3D films disc, Sony with their PlayStation 3D games, and also ESPN with the launch of ESPN 3D, offering 3D sport programs like the world cup soccer, golf, and the NBA finals.

In the 3D field, the Led company one of the best 3D TV with modification in the backlight, that allows to the Led TVs to be blithest and with a better contrast, in comparison with the resolution of the traditional 3D TVs. Also, the difference between the quality of the products is very evident, when how these special TVs, by increasing the backlight to the highest the deflected the darkness produced by the TV glasses. “The best high end LED 4K TVs to use Quantum Dots (Nano Crystals) for a broader color spectrum, brighter picture, deeper blacks”, according to the information provided in http://www.smartreview.com.

How does the 3D TV works?

To be able to show 3D content on a TV, it has to be displayed at the same time two individual imagines with the same content. The two imagines are separately distributed into the eyes of the viewer, one imagines is projected to the right eye and the other to the left eye, by applying the use of glasses, specially designed to project the two individual imagines into a single 3D image, producing an effect in the visual perception known as “stereopsis”. The best way to see how this effect plays with the optical perception of the people is by watching some 3D content without the glasses, and see how 3D visual is, in reality, two images intermixed between them.

Active 3D vs Passive 3D

In the 3D technology, there are several ways to process the 3D perception, the most common is the use of glasses with active or passive 3D technology. The different aspects that highlight the pros and cons of these two technologies are:

The Shutter:

The active 3D glasses are synchronized with the TV, this allows to get a dark visual in one of the lenses that hide the screen image for seconds, and intermix the dark visual between the lenses closing the visual from one eye to another. This technology provides a better resolution compared with the passive TV that blends two frames in one, and use different polarization on each lent, that achieve a decent but lower resolution.

Crosstalk:

This what gives the 3D look by superposing two imagines and making the edges of an object looks blurry, this effect happens when the glasses are not well connected to the TV, making crosstalk very evident during the transmission, and getting as a result that one eye get all the visual corresponded to the other eye, and lost the sensation of a 3D vision. As this problem affect principal to one of the lenses at the time, the consequences of the Crosstalk are more usually presented in the active 3D television compering with the passive.

Resolution:

This is probably the biggest difference between both technologies, as there is minor time framing sequence in the Active 3D compering with the passive 3D TV. This means that when it comes to watching any 3D content, the brain of an individual will have to display more effort when is using the 3D actives glasses, as the frame for each eye is displayed one after the other. This decreases the quality of the 3D effect and can introduce fatigue in the eyes of the person.

3D TV Falls

The 3D TVs that for a time were considered as one of the most innovated technologies, with started to suffer several issues that were not in consideration before the realization of this new technology.

The first mistake was the short timing introduction, that presented this technology during a time of adaptability in the consumer behavior, as during the time that the 3D television came out, most of the people were still in the transition for the HDTV and the new requirement that the digital TV broadcast was asking for. This time was surely not very accurate as the people were not able to afford such a quick change in time minor to 1 year.

Adding an extra complication to this technology was also the bad, fixed, and specific condition that came with the glasses that allow the consumers to enjoy the 3D content, the principal problem was not the implementation of two different systems that provide the same services under different formats, the main problem was that this system was not unchangeable between them and it only provides limitations in terms of what service was available for specific consumers.

As if the glasses were not already an extra problem for this new technology, the price plus the extra cost that needs it to be able to fully access to this new technology, make the situation even more complicated. With the need of a 3D special discs or a cable/satellite box and the confirmation of a proficient internet services that allow the connection to the special programs, the high cost of the 3D services and the other factors previously mentioned make this new technology to be forgotten and eventually improved with the rise of the virtual reality technology.

Virtual reality

The virtual reality is a new technology that provides to a cybernetical experience that goes beyond the perception of the real world of the user, recreating imagines, sound and sensations that are imperceptible for everyone except for those who are immersed into the virtual space provided by this technology. To be able to use this technology, the user will have to wear the appropriate equipment that will allow the access to the VR experience.

This equipment consists in the majority of the scenarios into a headset of goggles with a screen that covers the eyes of the person, that allows the user to see and heard the virtual reality wished, and also a couple of remote controls, very similar to the Wii console, that gives to the user the ability of interact until a limited extent with the VR world.

The functionality of this product is complex to understand, pretty much of the base of this technology is taken from the virtual reality modeling language created in 1994, that succulently follow the invention of X3D file format, that represent the 3D computer graphics. This file format is normally used to design the 3-dimensional modeling of objects, and in a more advanced use, it is implemented to create the architecture of a three-dimensional space, that can be used as part of a VR world.

In more specific factor related to the design of the VR technology, the smartphone was used as a primary source of inspiration to create the look of the VR devices. The application of resources such as gyroscopes and motion sensor that will be able to track the response of the body movement, and the introduction of a HD screen with a small size that will allow a stereoscopy display in the use of the VR devices were some of the factors that helped to develop this new technology in a way that could give opportunity to new alternatives devices using this concept. A very known example of this is the creation of the Oculus Rift in 2012 by the company Oculus VR, launching their device to the market in 2016.

It is remarkable how this technology has had an evolution in a very short period of time, and how it has been improved the video and image resolution and diversity of the camera, By the implementation of an omnidirectional camera, the user is able to amply the VR vison in range of 360 degrees.

The impact that the VR technology has had in the past years it’s been large, extending the use of this devices in different fields, it is the video game market one of the most explored in terms of VR games and experience. Companies such as Sony created their own VR headset devices following the design showed by the Oculus Rift, developing their own system for the ps4 platform called PlayStation VR. The commercial response for this innovation in the gamer market was almost followed at the instant, by the released of video games classic that were able to support the VR interface, and allow the user to submerge themselves in this new experience of gaming. Between some of the examples of the VR in gaming, we can highlight Resident Evil 7 and its positives response from the users, referring to the fact of the VR technology increasing the fear and realism of the game, giving to the user more fun during immersion as it can be seen the following link.

Some of the innovations presented in the gaming market showed an opportunity for the film and entertainment industry, to explore new angles and alternatives in the way that the content is produced for the audience, and bring a more interactive experience inside their market. Inside the film industry, the VR experience allows the audience to have a 360-degree view in every scene. Productions companies such as Fox Sports and the pornographic studio Naughty America have implemented This technology, with the purpose of adapt to the new trends and increase the audience with this type of interactive content, but without a doubt, the most recent achievement made in this field was the short film, Pearl. This film was created by the hands of Google using the virtual reality experience to allow the audience to fell that they play a role in the film’s journey. Its brilliant development and the combination made on the narrative bought it a nomination as the best short animated film of 2017 in the academy awards of the same year.

However, the use of this new technology has brought new advantage in the media field, giving to the customer a more satisfactory and “real” experience with the digital content, and producing a considerable well remuneration to the media producers. There are a series of complication with reference to the subject of the health and safety issue that comes with this technology. There is some secondary effect that can come from the prolonged exposition to the VR devices, most of the symptoms share similarities with the motion sickness, experimenting discomfort, headaches, and disorientation.

There are other problems that take place in the VR discussion, as it is highlighted the addiction that can produce the environment created in a VR space. And also, how in a long time will influence the behavior of the people that later on will determinate a cultural and economic change on a big scale. Some of the most relevant comments about this uncertain worry are explained by the philosopher Zhai Zhenming in his book Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality.

Pay Per View

PPV is a broadcast streaming services that allow the user to pursue specific TV channel services for a determinate period of time, give it to the user to enjoy of exclusive content like sports games, films, or some specific international channels. In the UK some services like Sky Box Office provide access to this exclusive content, also this service is providing throw internet, giving access to devices like PCs, laptop, tablet or even some smartphones.

For many consumers, this is one of the most confusing services, as is not available all the time for some specific services. Normally the cable services provider will offer the PPV option attached with as part of package that is being sold, if not the option will appear on the schedule screen, were it will be shown the available PPV programs and by chose any of them, the customer will be automatically charged and the program will be available to watch on the date established.

This platform charges the video content at a one-time fee, where access is restricted depending on the number of views or ether the time duration of the program, giving also the option of buying the content to get infinite access to the program and increase the revenues of the PPV. One of the main PPV content that the people are more willing to pay for the access are the sports programs related to football, being the most popular package the premier league and the FIFA World Cup, or also the boxing event, attend to attract a considerable public. In fact, one of the most disputed fights between the UFC fighter Connor McGregor and the undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather was probably the highest profit Pay per View event, that got £ 489726014.50 as the total earning after the event.

The development that this technology has experimented it comes to be evident with the evolution of the PPV and the introduction of the transitional video on demand, that as the customers used to do before with the physical rental stores, the transactional model shows an equivalent system that works throw a digital platform.

This particular alternative allows the customer to pursue a video for a undefine period of time and download it into a PC, the particular attractive that is represented in this new model presented by the TVOD, even if show a better alternative against it old relative (PPV) does not show any attention to project any sport content that is alternatively show under the subscription of the pay per view content.

Streaming Content.

The streaming content, is the virtual delivery of a video or audio product, using specific media platforms that allow the instant transmission of it. The connection established by the media player with the customer is provided throw internet connection, that depending on the broadband speed the transmission will project the video file in a Hight speed resolution or in a low-quality delivery. It is recommended for the customers to have at least 2.5 Mbit/sec of internet speed, to be able of enjoy of a good streaming services, but for higher quality of definition, 10 Mbit/sec is what is more recommended by Netflix, that is one of the streaming providers more used at the moment.

Streaming and Downloads

Even though streaming is considerate as the fastest way to reproduce media content through internet, many users prefer the use of progressive download as an alternative to access to the online content, due to the Hight requirement for a high definition service. In fact, both services attend to provide a similar service to the customers, but there is a prominent difference between the way they do it.

Progressive download, also known as traditional downloads, is the transition of data from media provider to the customer, where it is required the full transition of data stored in a specific device, in order to reproduce the file. On the contrary, with a streaming service, provide to the user the facility of using the content without download all the data. Taking as an example, it can be highlighted iTunes Store, where it needs to download the entire files before using them, and also Spotify as a streaming service, where you can access to all the content instantly, where the data is automatically deleted after being used.

Live Streaming

Same as the regular streaming service, the most particular difference, in this case, is that the content provided is transmitted in real time events. The use of it is more often related to living television shows and special event. Social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube have incorporated this service throw their own tools; Facebook lives and YouTube Live Streaming, that allows their users to record broadcast transmission throw their apps as a new way to connect and interact with the people.

Streaming Games and Apps

Streaming content is being in a constant expansion and evolution, allowing the customers to be more involved inside the development of this technology, such as the case with games and smartphone app where It has been implemented a new technique call on-demand resources. This allows to the user to expand the features and functions in an app by streaming new content without an update or download any extension. This technique was first implemented by Apple, but also Sony produced their own services of streaming content known as PlayStation Now, that give the users of ps4 the opportunity of streaming ps3 video games without download any games.

Practice by Media Producers

The arrival of the streaming contents supposed a big change in the way how media producers interact and develop their business throw the social media, as was previously exposed before with the incorporations of big companies into the streaming platforms as Facebook or YouTube. In fact, on A 2016 report from Brandive indicated that 44% of brands are now using live-streaming, as these new platforms offer a higher flexibility and creative content opportunity, as well as the possibility to reach more people to see their products.

Streaming and impact inside the DVD Industry
With the popularity of the streaming platforms growing at a considerable speed, film industry market was affected in a considerable way, having a change in the costumer’s preferences to reproduce their content. This change produced a downfall of many DVD rental companies, as the people preferred to use streaming platforms such as Netflix to their favorites film and tv series. In 2016 a study made by the St. John’s University reflect this drastic change in the market and how DVD companies were facing so much problem as people di not find reasons to buy DVD as with the streaming the could get access to the same product in a few minutes.

In fact, the same study reflects Netflix as one of the main examples in the study, as this company apart from providing their regular streaming content, it also provides a DVD rental service that was still working in regular bases, and the company still count with 5.3 million subscribers, that was considered low comparing with last year, without taking into consideration that their streaming services hold around 65 million subscribers to the date.

To conclude, we have seeing all these changes over the years but we really never realise about that before, after exploring the following points it is being highlighted how the media industry is in constant evolution and every time that a new technology has been introduced to the public, another one has to come to an end. Also, we understand that the customers need some period of adaptability, in order to progress into the use of a new technology, and finally how every technology provides new alternatives to produce new advantage inside the media content.

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