Mini Assignment

In the UK, the creation of television was formed upon many inventors, dating back to the year 1817 when Swedish Scientist Berzelius discovered selenium after experimenting with his colleague; a chemical that would later play into creating images. Alexandre Becquerel found out about electrochemical effects of light in 1839. Other pioneers included, Albert Robida,

British Broadcast Corporation or BBC as we know it was founded by John Reith in the 1920’s. Before the BBC arrived, television was called by other names such as Radioscope, Audiovision, Farscope and Radiovision. BBC were the innovators of Radio in Britain, signalling a turning point in British broadcasting history. In 1922, a group of executives met to discuss the broadcasting of Radio, which was granted for them by popular demand by the public as Radio was already broadcast in America, Joseph May and William Crookes who all discovered little elements that were eventually put together to create television.

In the 1930’s, BBC built a broadcasting house cementing their current success. They expanded radio broadcasts to the news, arts and education with experiments of a regular TV service by John Logie Baird. Sound and vision was sent alternatively first before the system was developed in the 1930’s. From the 1930’s sound and vision was sent simultaneously.

The 1950’s brought a coronation of Queen Elizabeth II onto the television screens where it was watched by 20 million viewers. Other popular programs include Blue Peter and Cornation Street.
The 1990’s saw BBC become digital in the form of digital broadcasting. This allowed TV programmes to become global so that other people beside viewers in the UK were able to watch BBC programmes and therefore grow in popularity. They created the BBC iPlayer in the 2000’s which met great success as people were now able to watch back programmes that they missed on TV.

Commercials made it's way to television in 1954 and soon after another company that is largely popular today was created, ITV1. ITV started broadcasting in 1955 in London. Over the years, following ITV’s success they widened their horizons by creating other channels such as ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. They further expanded with plus one channels that once again enabled viewers to watch back programmes they missed.

PAL stands for Phase Alternating Line and is a television format that is predominantly used in Europe with the exception of France. The unit of Frequency for PAL is 50Hz. PAL’s resolution is 720 x 576. The framing is 25 frames per second and use 625 lines.

SECAM is similar to PAL as their frequency is also 50Hz and their framing 25 frames per second. Their framing also uses 625 lines. The origin of SECAM derived from the French, hence the French nickname ‘Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire.’ The English version of this name is called Sequential colour with Memory. Instead of using PAL they created their own television format SECAM. The main difference between SECAM and PAL is that the colour signals are sent differently to PAL.

NTSC means National Television Standards Committee and is used in North America and Japan. The name of this format came from the name of the organisation in America who created the format. NTSC framing displays 525 lines, uses 29.7 frames per second and has a resolution of 720 x 480.

Television has advanced aplenty over the years. The first major technical advance came from the invention of colour TV from Black and white, deriving through RGB, three colours which are red, green and blue that are signalled to the TV. Colour TV changed the way that TV is watched as people are able to enjoy TV as it looks in the everyday world and see details that black and white TV disguised. Colour TV also brings a modern look to programmes.

In time, small TV’s with a 4:3 screen were changed for wide screen TV’s with a 16:9 screen so programmes could be watched in a higher resolution. Digital TV allowed people to consume TV in more than one way, so for example, if they were to miss a programme on TV than they would be able to watch their programme online or on their mobile phone, so there is a much broader way of watching program.

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Broadcast systems like Virgin Media, Sky, Freeview and Video on Demand allow digital TV. Terrestrial allows only five main channels (BBC1, 2, ITV1, Channel 4, Five) while plenty more channels are available on Digital TV. Systems such as Freeview are watched through television where as Video On Demand is watched online.

One major advantage digital cameras have over film cameras is that they are much cheaper to buy than film cameras. More people tend to buy digital cameras or this reason, particularly for a online video or film that is little to no budget. They are also easier to handle and carry around because they are light, compared to the heavy weight of film cameras that require a dolly to move around because of the weight. The only thing that a digital camera really needs is a tripod, unless the video is filmed hand held and tripods are also easy to carry around as they are a of a weight that one person is able to carry around. Another great advantage of digital cameras is that a card can be used to film footage on, instead of a tape making the process of logging footage easier. This is because footage that is filmed works like digital cameras and is stored into a clip, so looking through hours of footage and logging the start and end times of each clip can be avoided.

I personally don't feel the standards of television production have been lowered. Programs that are broadcast through television are funded, sponsored and supported by companies. TV shows are just as watched as online videos, but they I believe they generally earn quite a fair amount of money depending on the amount of viewers that regularly watch a particular programme. For example, the TV reality show X Factor began with a familiar format of people singing in a bare room in front of three judges, but as the amount of viewers increased over the years along with the amount of money they were receiving, they spent money making the show even bigger to attract more people, with famous celebrity guest judges people would know, and an audience for people to audition in front of. The high standards of the show as well as their dramatization engaged the audience and increased viewers. Reality Shows, Soaps, morning shows and so on receive regular viewers with professional productions.

Broadcast television has an advantage over online videos in that money can be spent for shows to be advertised, albeit the TV, magazines, newspapers and so forth, attracting viewers to watch the show, where as with online videos, popularity is usually gained either by chance, or word of the mouth.

Expensive equipment such as studio cameras on wheels are used for productions such as these along with lighting equipment, a microphone set, sound studio and so on. Equipment such as these may be bought from specialist websites as this equipment is generally bought for people working in the media industry in companies.

Online videos have become popular, but I believe that has largely to do with who is in the video and if they are entertaining, rather than the video quality or production. Whether they video log, perform skits or perform a talent, there usually has to be something about the video that makes it enjoyable to watch in order to get views. I think the reason why online videos are so accepted in today's society is because they are online videos, rather than television. The way many online videos are filmed do not specifically abide to the guidelines of what we normally see on television. For example, there may be a particular size required or TV such as 16:9 or a video may be of very low quality. If the same low quality, 4:3 video was to be shown on TV how it was, then it may not become popular because it's so different to how TV today is broadcast.

As I have previously noted, viewers are more accepting on low quality videos online, but even people who have gained a fan base by posting online videos soon opt to film their videos on HD, presumably after buying an HD camera. A youtuber whose channel name is called Nigahiga, first posted low quality videos, then gained a wide fanbase. Videos that he posts now is filmed in HD, as he along with other youtubers evolve the quality of their videos with the times.

Equipment filmed by many people who post videos online are generally handheld cameras as anyone can by a camera, film something and post their video online as thousands of people do. It all depends on the content of the video.

Mini Assignment

Friday, 11 February 2011

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Mini Assignment