Let us begin the post with a piece of information. In the Internet more than 50 percentage of traffic is due to video transmission. Colour movies emerged in early 1930s and it was the only source of video at that time. TV emerged in 1950s and added huge collection video to the world. The evolution of video from 1934 to 2014 (80 years) is to be discussed in this post.
Video Classification
For a general public, a movie stored in video cassette or Video Compact Disc (VCD) is considered as a video. But a graduate in electronics engineering will quantify video as “sequence of still pictures (frames) that are displayed on screen in a very small time interval.” Video can be classified into three major categories namely; entertainment video, Industrial video and Surveillance video. As name implies entertainment video encompasses movies and TV programmes. As per the definition Black and White (B&W) silent movies come under the category of video. But in this post it is restricted to colour talkies (colour movie with soundtrack). In manufacturing industries video cameras are extensively used to capture the production processes. Videos are analysed and features are extracted. These features are used as feedback in production processes. Machines fitted with camera replace human beings. They work 24x7, seven days a week without a holiday. As they don't require any pay rise, there is no strike in factories. The video content generated by machine vision systems can be branded as Industrial video. Most of the public places are monitored by a surveillance system. This cost effective method reduces the requirement of Beat Officers (police who are on patrol), aftermath of crime recorded video acts as clues to nail the culprits and acts as prosecution evidence in the court of law. Video content is increasing leaps and bounds.
Entertainment Classification
Within the span of 80 years technology behind entertainment video has changed tremendously. Lot of literature is available that looks evolution of video through technology perspective. In this post evolution of video is seen through cost perspective. The entertainment video can be broadly classified into three categories namely; Movies, Television and Internet Video. In a theatre, video content is projected on big silver screen (around 20 meters) and viewed by more than 100 people at a time. It has very high resolution (4K), cost of production is high (runs into millions of US dollars) and runs for 90 minutes to 150 minutes. Construction and maintenance of theatre require substantial investment. Television is housed in a room and watched by a family or group of people (usually less than 10). The maximum resolution is 2K and viewed more than two hours per day on average. The Internet video category encompasses mobile phones and smart phones. The content is invariably downloaded from Internet and run time of content is limited to few minutes. Cost of production, cost of projection and content patrons differs for the aforesaid three categories. Table 1 dwells the differences between movies, television and Internet video in detail. The differences may exist for eternity. Thus these categories can be treated as mutually exclusive.
| Attributes | Movies | Television | Internet Video |
| Number of viewers | >100 | <10 | 1 or 2 |
| Screen size | 20 meters | 80 inches | 4 to 11 inches |
| Video content | Less | High | Very high |
| Video duration | 90 mins to 150 mins | max 30 minutes | < 10 minutes |
| Budget | High | Low | near zero |
| Video taken by | Professional | Semi-professional | Amateur |
| Resolution | Very high | Low | Very low to low |
| Distance from screen | > 10 meters | > 5 feet; < 10 feet | 1 or 2 feet |
| Video Storage | Film | VHS, VCD, DVD | Internet, pen drive |
Production cost
absorbed by
| Patrons (viewers) | Sponsors | Content creators |
| Govt regulation | Very high | High | very low |
Movies
Movies are projected on big silver screen accompanied with high decibel audio to create a 'immersive effect.' This effect act as a payoff for the money spent on buying the ticket. Cost of the movie ticket is always high as theatre patrons (viewers) bear the production and projection cost. Next, only five percentage of movies become box office hit and another five percentage recover the cost of production. Rest of the movies makes a big hole in producers' pocket. Thus to get guaranteed patronage movies invariably have carefully crafted unrealistic circumstances and emotion stoking scenes.
 |
| Cameraman ride on the camera dolly mounted on track. image courtesy www.mptv.com |
Earlier days family oriented movies were produced and had substantial market. These movies emphasized acting and oratory skills of cast. Most of the shots were taken in studios or indoors. Close up and full shots were used extensively. Role of cameraman were very limited. Story and script writers were celebrated. Stunning visuals were retained for climax. Over the years family oriented movies become a history. In 1980s, elders stayed away from movies and children and youngsters became the prime audience for movies. Cartoon films and fantasy films are produced for children. Action (martial arts and world war based) and romance genre are reserved for youngsters. Children and youngsters are engrossed in visual effects than storyline or actors' skills. The neglected crew i.e. cameramen and stunt masters came to limelight. Computer graphics and digital post production helped to create stunning visuals. Digital audio helped to produce realistic background score. Digitized movie gave scratch-free pictures, even after several runs. The digital technology helped the movie industry to retain their patrons. Growth in film technology may be attributed to decline in family oriented movie themes.
Television
Production and transmission cost of television quality video is borne by sponsors. They in turn get air-time to promote their products or services. Captivating advertisements are interspersed between the TV programmes and public invariably buy advertised products. Next, patrons own television sets and projection cost per hour goes unnoticed. Thus even after spending money on TV viewing, users have a notion 'TV is free.' In most of the countries TV stations were built by the respective governments. Budget allotted by private or government broadcast companies for TV programmes are very limited. Carefully chosen plots (soap operas), shooting in indoor, use of semi-skilled crew, amateur cast and use of budget-friendly equipment are few techniques used to control the cost. Thus resulting video content can never match movies.
TV people prefer 'content capture' rather than 'content generation.' Sports, news, talk shows, game shows, cooking, fashion show, live music concerts and reality shows are best examples for content recording strategy. Most of Indian TV network thrive by recycling movie content. They broadcast old movies, movie clips, movie songs (each Indian movie will have at least five songs) and movie review programmes. Terrestrial broadcast technology provided few channels to the users. Community Access TV (CATV) or cable TV came into existence and tens of channels were offered to the users. This was possible due to advancement in satellite broadcast technology. Later, digital technology pervaded into TV content production and distribution. Digital channels offered high quality video over conventional analog TV channels. Each cable operator gave 100+ digital channels to the subscribers. Channels were started exclusively for children, women, youngster and business people. Pay channels like Discovery and National Geographic channels emerged. Here the production and transmission cost of video content is borne by the subscribers. So, dependence on sponsors reduced and in turn number of advertisement aired also became minimal. Success of Pay channels can be attributed to Direct to Home (DTH) technology. Availability of large number of channels transformed the family members to individuals. For example, head of the family will watch news channels, womenfolk’ watches soap operas, youngsters are addicted to MTV and children are glued to cartoon channels like Nickelodeon and Pogo.
Internet Video
Every decade computing power of Personal Computer (PC) increases and distinct identity of computer diminishes. Multimedia PC enabled to play Video Compact Disc (VCD). Thus 14” computer started mimicking as mini TV. Computers were connected in a network and Internet born. World Wide Web (WWW) emerged in Internet and helped the Internet grow leaps and bounds. Thus Internet media emerged and competed with traditional print and electronic media. It contains text, image, audio and video. Computer acts as a front end for Internet media. Second generation cellular communication systems improved and acquired the ability to handle data. Internet access via cellphone or smart-phone becomes a reality. Video compression technology developed for video telephony helped to create low resolution highly compressed videos. Low resolution video decoders (like 3GP or mp4) were embedded in smart-phones. Smart phones obviated the need of TV or computer screen to view video. Penetration cellular phone is more than PC penetration. Mobile broadband enabled online video viewing a possibility. Smart-phones' small screen size (4” to 6”) is well suited for viewing video content than surfing Web pages. Low cost digital camera, amateur videographers, video sharing websites like youTube, dailyMotion and metacafe helped to create much needed content for Internet media. Much of the Internet video is 'recycled TV and movie content,' adult content, class room lectures and hate speeches of religious radicals. Google search engine helps to find right video content present in youTube. Thus Google and youTube forms a perfect match.
Internet and smart-phone are inherently individual centric. Family centric society has turned into individual centric within a span of 100 years. Whom to blame technology or stake holders of family?
