Entertainment in the Information Age

In this blog I will be talking about entertainment in the information age and how it has changed over the last few years. Entertainment has changed in lots of different areas, such as gaming, cinema, music, Mpegs, TV, Radio, E-books and digital cameras.

Gaming

Gaming has changed a vast amount in the information age.  Many years ago, video games were just some 2d shapes in small screens with a simple moving stick and buttons as a controller.  Some video games were just in big arcade machines that you had to put money into to play it.  Examples of this would be Pac-man, asteroids and space invader.  As gaming evolved, more companies started to create games, their own consoles and with these new developments came new genres such as racing, arcade, sport and sci-fi.  Over time video games got better and better to what we have today, with big consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and PC.  It is estimated that in today’s world, the video game industry makes more money than Hollywood.

Video games used to be seen as anti-social because only one person would be able to play by them self, and they still are by some people,  but today they are being more widely developed for multiplayer.  This is so you can connect, play with and talk to your friends over the internet using your console.  Titles such as Call of Duty are mainly a multiplayer game where people all over the world can connect to each other and play.  There are also more multiplayer features that can bring a whole family together, to have fun together.  Some of the big companies, over the last few years, have released motion capture gaming.  This can be for fitness, fun or to play a game more realistically.  Consoles such as the Wii and kinect for xbox are mainly used for motion capture gaming and are more family friendly because the games are so simple to play because all you need is movement and to press a few buttons.  An example of this would be Mario Kart or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games.  These kind of games bring the family together because the whole family can understand what to do and have fun.

Video games are also spreading to our mobile phones and portable devices.  Games on the mobile are fun to play to pass the time but they are never going to be as good as a console game because it is not the phones primary function.

Advantages of Video Games

• Fun to play
• Keeps people occupied
• For all ages
• Aids towards developing new technology

Disadvantages of video games

• Too much is bad for your health
• Expensive to buy consoles and games
• People can get addicted to games and they play for hours on end without breaks which is bad for their health and mental health

In my opinion, I think video games are really fun.  I have an Xbox where I can play the games I am interested in, but we also have a family Wii where we can all play together and have fun if friends come over.

Music

Music has always played a part in people’s lives for centuries.  Over the years there have been more and more genres that evolve and mix with other genres to create music for everybody’s taste.  Some people like classical, some like electronic and some like heavy metal.  What you like to listen to is down to you.

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and tested it with the first song ever recorded, which was ‘Mary had a little lamb’.  The recordings played on such a device generally consist of wavy lines that are scratched, engraved, or grooved onto a rotating cylinder or disc. As the cylinder or disc rotates, a needle or other similar object on the device traces the wavy lines and vibrates, reproducing sound waves.  For years music was recorded onto large plastic disks called records and they were played on a gramophone.  The records then shrunk down to smaller records and then got replaced by cassette tapes. Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. These spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic case. Four tracks were available on the tape, two on each side.  To change the songs you had to turn the tape over.  The next replacement was the Compact Disk (CD).  The CD is an optical disc used to store digital data. They can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or 700MB of data.  These are still used today to buy from shops, but are becoming less popular because of the invention of the MP3 players and download services such as iTunes or Spotifty.  People download their MP3 songs from the internet or rip songs from their CD onto their computers and then plug in their mp3 players and iPods.  They put the music onto the mp3 player or iPod and then they can take thousands of songs with them anywhere.  This can then be played using headphones or by being plugged into some speakers or a speaker dock.

Advantages of Music

• Technology is changing all the time to make it easier for us to play our music
•  We can take music anywhere
• Everyone can find something they like from the vast selection of artists, albums and genres

Disadvantages of music

• You can go deaf if you play music too loud through ear phones
• Music is shared illegally by giving your friends the CD to put on their computers or sending them the mp3 files

In my experience, music is really useful to have on CD’s, computers and iPods.  It is really easy to transfer music from one to the other and to find the songs you want.  Music for me has only ever been on CD’s and when I was growing up, mp3 players because I was not born when people used records.

Movies

Movies used to only be shown at the cinema where light would be projected through some moving film with pictures on it to create a moving image.  The projector would also play sound through the speakers that it detected on the film.  Today we have digital cinemas where instead of movie film, we have digital movies stored on DVD’s, the internet or hard drives.  The cinema downloads the movie from its source and then shows it on the computer which is connected to the high tech projector which shines it’s beam of light onto the massive screen at the front of the cinema.  Some recent developments over the last couple of years are 3D.  This is when we see the image on the screen with a third dimension to it.  This gives us the impression that things in the movie are jumping out of the screen.  For this to happen, the movie is filmed with 2 cameras and is projected with a special 3d projector.  This projector shows 2 images on the screen that looks blurry without special 3d glasses which we wear during the movie.  These glasses bring the 2 images together to create the 3d effect.  Other developments in movies is the usage of CGI technology.  This means Computer-generated imagery.  This is done on computers by special designers that can create characters, objects and scenes with special software, to create moving animations which later become the movie.  Famous CGI titles include Avatar, Finding Nemo, Monster’s Inc. and Toy Story.

Movies used to be watched at home on something similar to cassette tapes, called HVS.  This is short for Video Home System.  These video tapes could be bought from the shops, and on them would be the movies that people had seen at the cinema.  These tapes were played on VHS Players which were connected to your television.  When the CD was invented, people worked on making a CD for movies.  This was called the DVD.  This stands for Digital Video Disk.  This is played on DVD players which is also connected to the television.  DVD’s give higher definition than video tapes and they store more features like commentaries and deleted scenes.  Another more recent development is the Blu-Ray disk.  This is very similar to a DVD but it provides much higher definition and high definition sound.  It is played by a Blu-ray player.  The Blu-Ray disk is much easier for the player to read because the data is closer to the surface and the Blu-Ray player reads the data more accurately and faster.  This is what creates the higher definition.

Advantages of Movies

• Easy to view in the comfort of your own home
• Technology is making it look even better all the time
• Great entertainment

Disadvantages of Movies

• People can pirate movies and sell them illegally
• 3D glasses can make your eyes hurt after a long time
• DVD and Blu-Ray players are expensive

In my experience, DVD and blu-ray are much better than video tapes and digital cinemas are much better than normal cinemas.  This is because of the higher definition and the greater overall quality.  Also, DVD’s and Blu-Ray disks are much smaller and easier to store than the big chunky cassettes.