Uses of video in Interactive Media 2 - Mobile Devices

Music Players and Mobile Phones:







































Mobile devices such as MP3 and MP4 players and mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular, especially with younger people, who are always interacting with others using modern methods such as e-mail, instant messaging and text messages.

The latter of these can now also be used with more interactive features, such as adding images or videos.
A more commonly-known piece of technology used for this is the iPhone, and iPod Touch.

Both of these devices, created by Apple, include many features and applications, and contain large amounts of memory, meaning it is able to store large quantities of media, in this case video. The videos are played using Apple's own media player, Quicktime.

Some disadventages of using this platform for video could be:

• Screen size - as the screen can be too small, using high-definition videos would prove useless, which in turn causes the non-HD videos played to become low-quality due to resizing
• Battery life - the use of video on mobile devices requires a large percentage of the device's battery, which would limit its use for more important purposes such as making and receiving calls
• Sharing with others - this can prove difficult at times as so many varieties of mobile devices exist, and videos can vary in quality as they are sent to other devices - there is also the problem that not all devices feature a video player, or have the space to receive large video files

Whereas some advantages of this platform for interactive media are:

• Simplicity - Files are quick and easy to send to others using movile devices, and open fairly quickly, which keeps the user interested in the product and its features
• Personal and public use - the addition of headphones to a device creates a more personal interaction, whereas videos can be shared with several people at once using a device's own speakers, which is more convenient (though a disadvantage to this could be that the device lacks its own speakers, making the videos more difficult to share)
• No loading or buffering time for the videos - As they are already on the device's memory, there is no need to load or stream videos from elsewhere or use the internet, which also saves money