Pretty and Useful. Visual Rhetoric for Mobile TV Content

International Journal of Digital Television, 2014

sd.polyu.edu.hk

This paper explores the distinct creative processes necessitated by the convergence between traditional audiovisual media and interactive multimedia applications, in particular interactive video (i-video), through a case study of the multidisciplinary interactive marketing project Lynx Blow (2007), created by the London digital marketing agency Dare. In collaboration with Dare, we sought to develop a new method of creative project workflow to coordinate and align the contrasting practices across a wide range of disciplines using a real, highly cross-disciplinary commercial project as the focus of our analysis. Our research identifies the disciplinary tensions in the area of interactive video on the web and has produced commercial and broader strategic guidelines that are both intimately interconnected and highly relevant to a 2 broader context of contemporary development in design education and professional design for the digital arena.

Mobile communication systems are responsible for some of the most significant changes that are taking place in cultural practices. Nowadays, media convergence and other similar socio-technological processes have facilitated mobile phone adoption as a portable, multi-use, interactive device that individuals use to enable them to manage important aspects of their work and leisure time. This study attempts to examine the factors influencing the adoption of mobile TV, the related trends (in terms of experiences, ideas, and models), and the type of user that operates this device. This research also analyses the values, perceptions and motivational needs of users as well as the benefits and drawbacks they encounter when using mobile TV. The study develops a mobile TV content test by using a viewing experience among 100 students from the universities of Malaga and Seville, in Spain. Structured questionnaires with closed questions are used with qualitative techniques that promote virtual discussion in forums that focuses on face-to-face groups. Despite the fast advance of technology, which has seen a considerable improvement in terms of mobile terminals provision since 2010, the study has enabled the development of a theoretical model of the phenomenon of mobile TV that remains relevant, and the proposed classification of user preferences in terms of ergonomic technology, delivery dynamics, the economic value of services, and consumption patterns and scenarios continue suitable in the current stream of cultural practices. The main results focus on participants’ evaluations of mobile media narrative and the cross-platform experience

Proceedings of the seventh european conference on European interactive television conference - EuroITV '09, 2009

In the future Mobile TV will play a major role amongst traditional TV services. However, since Mobile TV brings new aspects into television, like small screens, consumption in noisy surroundings, etc., it also represents a new challenge on how to create, transfer and present content that maximizes the consumer experience. In the past, research has been often focusing on one particular aspect of this new TV scheme, as well as surveys on this research often neglected aspects that still might be of interest when trying to understand the dependencies of Mobile TV content and presentation to perceived quality.

This paper explores the distinct creative processes necessitated by the convergence between traditional audiovisual media and interactive multimedia applications, in particular interactive video (i-video), through a case study of the multidisciplinary interactive marketing project Lynx Blow , created by the London digital marketing agency Dare. In collaboration with Dare, we sought to develop a new method of creative project workflow to co-ordinate and align the contrasting practices across a wide range of disciplines using a real, highly cross-disciplinary commercial project as the focus of our analysis.

In Creutzburg R and Takala Jh and Chen Cw Proceedings of Spie Spie, 2006

This paper presents the results from three lab-based studies that investigated different ways of delivering Mobile TV News by measuring user responses to different encoding bitrates, image resolutions and text quality. All studies were carried out with participants watching News content on mobile devices, with a total of 216 participants rating the acceptability of the viewing experience. Study 1 compared the acceptability of a 15-second video clip at different video and audio encoding bit rates on a 3G phone at a resolution of 176x144 and an iPAQ PDA (240x180). Study 2 measured the acceptability of video quality of full feature news clips of 2.5 minutes which were recorded from broadcast TV, encoded at resolutions ranging from 120x90 to 240x180, and combined with different encoding bit rates and audio qualities presented on an iPAQ. Study 3 improved the legibility of the text included in the video simulating a separate text delivery. The acceptability of News' video quality was greatly reduced at a resolution of 120x90. The legibility of text was a decisive factor in the participants' assessment of the video quality. Resolutions of 168x126 and higher were substantially more acceptable when they were accompanied by optimized high quality text compared to proportionally scaled inline text. When accompanied by high quality text TV news clips were acceptable to the vast majority of participants at resolutions as small as 168x126 for video encoding bitrates of 160kbps and higher. Service designers and operators can apply this knowledge to design a cost-effective mobile TV experience.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media in TV idents; and to explore how the human mark (such as drawing and model making) in a hybrid with digital media can not only revitalise traditions in design, but also the reception of illusion in this context. Design/methodology/approach – The study focuses on the work of RedBee Media, a company that has a global market and reputation. The phenomenology of how BBC Three and BBC 2 Christmas were rebranded was examined through interviews with the designers and animators involved. Taking a media industry studies lens to examine an art/technology divide the author will expand the visual culture theory of Manovich’s (2007) metamedium. Findings – The influence of technology on television graphic design is contested and continual. Designers might begin to question rather than rely on technology through the process of design. They can confront generic software solutions and apply more critical skills to explore fusions of heritage and digital processes in a metamedium. Research limitations/implications – This research was focused on a UK broadcaster and a single UK creative agency with a global influence. Future research should examine leading creative practice in other international markets. Practical implications – The significance of this research is in understanding the materiality and creativity in the artform of TV idents and how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media. Originality/value – Academics in media and design history are acknowledging the cultural significance of television branding. Design practitioners need to understand why and how in the work of others. Keywords Branding, Analogue animation, Audience-generated content, Channel idents, Computer generated imagery, Television graphics Paper type Research paper

Universal Access in the Information Society, 2006

A diverse user population employs interactive TV (ITV) applications in a leisure context for entertainment purposes. The traditional user interface (UI) evaluation paradigm involving efficiency and task completion may not be adequate for the assessment of such applications. In this paper, we argue that unless ITV applications are evaluated with consideration for the ordinary TV viewer, they are going to be appropriate only for the computer literate user, thus excluding the TV audience from easy access to information society services. The field of media studies has accumulated an extensive theory of TV and associated methods. We applied the corresponding findings in the domain of ITV to examine how universal access to ITV applications can be obtained. By combining these results with emerging affective quality theories for interactive products, we propose a UI evaluation framework for ITV applications.

2015

Mobile TV can deliver up-to-date content to users on the move. But it is currently unclear how to best adapt higher resolution TV content. In this paper, we describe a laboratory study with 35 participants who watched short clips of different content and shot types on a 200ppi PDA display at a resolution of either 120x90 or 168x128. Participants selected their preferred size and rated the acceptability of the visual experience. The preferred viewing ratio depended on the resolution and had to be at least 9.8H. The minimal angular resolution people required and which limited the up-scaling factor was 14 pixels per degree. Extreme long shots were best when depicted actors were at least 0.7 ° high. A second study researched the ecological validity of previous lab results by comparing them to results from the field. Image size yielded more value for users in the field than was apparent from lab results. In conclusion, current prediction models based on preferred viewing distances for TV...

A Companion to Media Studies, 2003

Changing media, changing audiences Modern media and communication technologies possess a hitherto unprecedented power to encode and circulate symbolic representations. Throughout much of the world, though especially in industrialized countries, people routinely spend a considerable proportion of their leisure hours with the mass media, often more than they spend at work or school or in face to face communication. Moreover, leisure is increasingly focused on the media-rich home, a significant shift in a matter of a single generation. Despite the popular anxieties that flare up sporadically over media content and regulation, it is easy to take the media for granted precisely because of their ubiquity as background features of everyday life. Yet it is through this continual engagement with the media that people are positioned in relation to a flood of images and information both about worlds distant in space or time and about the world close to home, and this has implications for our domestic practices, our social relationships, our very identity. This chapter overviews current debates within audience research, arguing that although developments in technology may threaten to overtake these debates, audience research will be better prepared to understand the changing media environment by adopting a historical framework, looking back the better to look forward. But let us begin with a scenario from the future: 'You'll go to the electronics story and buy a "home gateway" box the size of today's VCR for maybe $300. You'll hook it to a broadband cable, then connect it to your wired or wireless home network. You'll call the cable provider and sign up for its custom-TV digital recording service for maybe $50 a month. You'll hang a flat plasma display … on the living-room wall and connect it to a wall socket that also taps into the home grid. You'll put modest displays in other rooms, too. As you leave the bedroom you'll say "off" to its screen, and as you enter the kitchen you'll say, "Screen, show me my stock numbers." During a commercial you'll use a little wireless remote to instruct the hidden gateway box to find, download and play an original Sta Trek episode. When the episode ends you'll grab the game controller off the coffee table, become Captain Kirk on the plasma screen and engage in a live, online dogfight in the Neutral Zone with an opponent from Tokyo' (Fischetti, 2001: 40). r Notwithstanding the hazards of attempting to predict the future, it is notable that such futuristic-or realistic-scenarios are becoming commonplace. Moreover, in certain respects, this quotation neatly illustrates what is, perhaps, happening to 'the audience', at least in industrialized countries, my focus here. It reflects an already-present pressure to develop and market intelligent, personalized, flexible information and communication technologies that increasingly bring the outside world into the domestic space. These technologies converge on the electronic screen, while screens are themselves increasingly dispersed throughout the home. We are promised the satisfaction of our egocentric desires to have our individualistic tastes or fandom precisely catered for, whether on television, computer games, etc, thereby permitting us the satisfying shift from passive observer to active participant in a virtual world.