Movies distributed freely on web

Introduction

Online TV is becoming more and more popular. Since “myTV” platform has been published by TVB, people have and may prefer the option of watching films and TV dramas online.  However, TVB Limited in Hong Kong is not the first to develop the market of having free web distributed programs. The company started the running the platform in November, 2008(according to zh-hk.etvhk.wikia.com/wiki/MyTV). But some illegal platforms like Firefox, PPStream and TOM365… started even earlier. These platforms shared more than common TV programs from different free TV companies but also movies from 1980s to those on show movies. One of the attractive points of using illegal platforms is that movies form foreign countries that are not on show in Hong Kong can be found. After all, who would step into a cinema for Hollywood Masterpieces?

This short survey would focus on the principle of distributed movie system, a featuring example, the video file type used and my personal feelings after doing this short survey.

The principle of a distributed movie system

“Distributed computing is the most natural environment for the MOVIE System. The communication model for MOVIE networks is based on one simple principle, uniform for distributed and MIMD-parallel architectures: nodes of such network communicate by sending Movie Script. This model unifies communication and computation: Computing in MOVIE is when a server interprets Movie Script, whereas communication occurs when a server sends Movie Script to be interpreted by another server on the network. Social human activities provide adequate analogies here. One can think of MOVIE network as a society of autonomous intelligent agents, capable of internal information processing and of information exchange, both organized in terms of the same high-level language structures. The processing capabilities of such a system are in principle unlimited. Detailed programming paradigms for distributed computing are not specified initially at the Movie Script level and can be freely selected depending on the application needs. Successful computation/communication patterns with some reusability potential can then be retained within the system in the form of appropriate Movie Script extensions.

The Movie Script-based user-level model for MOVIE networks is uniform, elegant, and appealing. Its detailed technical implementation, however, is a complex task. Communication services must be included at the lowermost level of the inner loop of the Movie Script interpreter and coordinated with scheduling, event handling, software interrupts, and other dynamic components of the server. Also, when building interfaces to existing Open Systems components, we have to cope with various existing network and message-passing protocols. In the networking domain, we use the UNIX socket library as the base-C-level platform, but then the question arises of how to handle higher protocols such as NFS, RPC, XDR and a variety of recent ``open'' models. Similar uncertainties arise in handling and integrating various message-passing protocols for MIMD-parallel computing. 

From the above, distributed movie system is base on the parallel computing like peer to peer to download and upload information .The definition of Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is “a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or work loads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer).

However, the system is more advanced than using peer-to-peer computing only. In most common case, Bit torrent (BT) is used. “BT divides a file into blocks normally of size 0.25M. When “peers” download the file block by block, they will also upload the finished blocks to other “peers”. Therefore, the upload bandwidth increases as the number of the user rises. In contrast, the common technique has only one server for downloading; the server will slowly become overloading when the number of user increases. In order to avoid people who are unwilling to become seeds and close BT directly after download is finished; sometimes someone provides an incomplete file with 99% of it. The remaining 1% is uploaded only when there are enough people who are downloading to nearly completion so that some of them could become seeds” (http://www.funshion.com/english/qa_more.html). That is, when one distribute a 300MB animation with the maximum upload speed=64Kbs and there are 15 people downloading it. The animation can be successfully distributed to those 15 people within 2 hours. As each person who received the file already would become a “Seed” distributor too. So, the more people using BT technology to download, the faster the downloading speed. Another advantage of this technique is that the files can be downloaded from many sources and there is no need to queue up like using Kazza.

Personal feelings

I think that legal free movie system on web brought convenience to audience who want to have watch TV anytime. As a college student, I don not have time to watch TV programs from in school days. But I can enjoy the TV show in weekends using my own computer anywhere I like.

However, after the exposure to illegal free movie system on web, I rely on it more than legal free movie system. The advantages of illegal free movie system are having recent movies and documentaries on web, having programs that are not shown in Hong Kong but in other countries, allow downloading and have advanced search engine …etc.The system may include those dramas from local legal movie system. I don’t need to get to the homepage of “myTV” but to TOM365 to search for the programs I missed.

3D-TV: an environmental aspect

World is always changing. Not long ago, High Quality (HD) TV has just showed up, now, an even more high technology Television is developed and put into the market – the 3D television. Such new technology and items claimed that they are improving our quality of life, indeed, is the other way rounded. They are improving the entertainment we enjoyed, but they are deeply destroying the environment of the world, which highly affect our quality of life too.

3D TV is an emerging technology that allows consumers to enjoy three-dimensional movies, television programs and video games in their homes. The technology requires the purchase of new television equipment, including a 3D-ready TV, a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and also a 3"D glasses” (http://tv.about.com). If we want to enjoy movie, TV programs or video games, what we got now can already allow us to do so. But if you want to step into the 3-D world, you need to buy for the new one even thought the one you are using is still running quite well. Such additional action will lead to more serious of electronic waste problem. Those disposed TV or electronic devices will expose some destructive substances such as lead, mercury and hexavalent chromium, which will cause bad effects on human body through air, water, or other ways. So when you decide to step into the 3-D world, you are actually using the surrounding environment and your health to exchange the slightly more joy from the new technology. But the environment will be deeply destroyed because of your slightly more joy.

Despite causing water pollution or air pollution, 3D TV also limit the use of land. To store more disposed e-waste, more land are required, so more trees might be destroyed because of this. Even the land can be free after few years, the land cannot be reused because there will accumulate lots of destructive substances, trees cannot grow, people cannot live there, no houses will be built on the top. At the end, the land become useless except storing rubbish, a large piece of land will be wasted. Also large quantity of trees are being destroyed with no reverse action can be done.

One more concern is about the additional equipment used in watching the 3D TV, which are the 3D glasses. When you need to watch TV, no longer as simple as before, not just sitting in front of it but also need to wear 3D glasses. If each family got 4 members, there should be 4 glasses in house. And we got thousand million of families in the world, the demand for 3D glasses would be very great. That means, a very large amount of resources will be used in producing this extra equipment. The world is already running out of resources, people are seeking for reusable resources, but the appear of 3D TV lead to the extra waste of resources on those extra glasses needed, without the 3D TV, such resources can be saved to do some more meaningful things.

At the end, what 3D TV can bring to our environment is waste, destructive waste and pollutions.

Reference

1. http://tv.about.com/od/frequentlyaskedquestions/f/3DTV_FAQ.htm
2. http://earth911.com/news/2007/04/19/throw-away-your-television/

3D-TV: Societal Concerns

3D displaying technology is more and more popular in recent years, although at this moment it is mainly applied in the film industry. It is foreseeable that it will soon go deep into society and houses and influencing people.s life. Among these impacts, some are positive while some are not. In this critique, few societal issues concerning introducing of 3D-TV into daily basis will be discussed.

Although 3D-TV gives viewer a fantastic experience, not all people can enjoy this technology. Those who are poor cannot really get a grasp of this technology. The first problem is money, currently the minimum spending for installing a 3D-TV set in Hong Kong is around HKD$20,000 ("3D",2010), including at least a displaying unit and "3D Goggle". How could people expect those who are getting financial assistance from the government can have a 3D-TV set? Another problem is space, the recommended viewing distance, for a common 40 to 55 inches 3D-TV, is 9 feet to 12 feet and 6 inches (D. Briere and P. Hurley, 2007). For those who are poorer, they cannot find such a large empty space in their common tiny houses. This will lead to a further differentiation between poor one and the rich one because the poor one can.t enjoy the better televisions, which is just the basic equipment in modern world.

The second issue is about the usefulness of 3D-TV in the daily basis. Since the release of the film <Avatar> in 2010, many people start appreciating the magnificent visual effect created by 3D technology. In order to take advantage to this enthusiasm of 3D displaying technique, many new films used 3D filming techniques, but turn out the visual experience of those films did not differentiate too much with the common filming techniques. In fact, 3D displaying works better in the cartoons film because the images are more simple that those human-casting films. The first difference is the background of images, for those human-casting films, they usually filmed under natural setting, which caused too much object to be displayed on the screen at one time. Another difference is that some scenes in 3D cartoon films could be specially design to fit the 3D effect while the human-casting films cannot. This shows that 3D displaying technique is not always that useful in enhancing visual experiences. This leads to the result that the broadcasting companies and film producers are not willing to produce all programmes using 3D technology as the cost is very high. With this little amount of programmes available, it seems it is unnecessary to get a 3D-TV at home.

Another issue is concerning the biological aspect of users. Many people feel dizziness("健康", 2010), nausea and headaches after watching. Moreover, according to Samsung (2010), watching 3D-TV may cause impended visual ability, directionless, unconsciousness or even apoplexy. For the children, since watching 3D-TV requires a ※3D goggle§ , which force the eyes to focus in an abnormal way, this could lead to the loss of depth perception of those children (Xin Hua Net, 2010, as stated in "叫好", 2010). Depth perception is extremely important for human to survive as this could let us know the distance between object so that we know how far the object we want to take is , or we could know walking forward 1 step more we would fall down to the hill, for example. Also, according to a survey done by Nielsen (2010, as stated in "健康", 2010), 50% of the responders feel uncomfortable in wearing the 3D goggle. We can see that watching 3D-TV affects our health, both in short-term or long-run.

The fourth issue is fear of abuse. Given that the visual effect generated by this 3D technique is that fantastic and great. It would seem like .real. for the viewer. However, the production of these films actually undergone computer processing. During this process, additional object are easily added to fake people, just similar to the problem of digital imaging. It is extremely dangerous as television programme play an important part of human.s life. It is an important channel for us to know the things happening around the world (passively). If someone actively and purposively alters the film, for example, for political or illegal use (like to slander someone or to attack the government), the public may support their act as the film act as an "evidence". Therefore, it is very important for the public to bear in mind that the film is not always real and we must not trust them entirely and try to get a wider picture through other channels.

The final issue is concerning the use of 3D technology in medical field. Having talked about few less positive issues of 3D-TV, it could actually be used in medical imaging. Like HDTV, combined with a suitable camera it can be used to show a clearer image of inside our body (Yang, 2003). In the future, 3D-TV could also be used in the field to display 3D view of our organs inside our body. This could help health care practitioners to get a clearer picture of how is going on inside our body.

In conclusion, at this instant, when 3D-TV is immersing into the society, it is great to see that 3D-TV could become a useful tool in medical field that could be beneficial to the public. At the same time, there are few issues that the public should concern, including whether the poorer can afford the cost and enjoy this technology, the health issues, the low amount of programme available, the misleading content that may be displayed. It is hoped that with more improvement on this technology, these drawbacks can be diminished in the foreseeable future.

 

References

1. 3D電視抵玩入門頭炮.(2010, April 7). Sing Tao Daily Online. Retrieved Nov 11, 2010 from http://www.singtao.com/archive/fullstory.asp?andor=or&year1=2010&month1=4&day1=7&year2=2010&month2=4&day2=7&category=all&id=20100407m05&keyword1=&keyword2=
2. Briere, D. & Hurley, P. (2007). HDTV for Dummies. Indianapolis, Indiana : Wiley Publishing, Inc.
3. Samsung. (2010). Viewing TV using the 3D function. Australia: Author.
4. Retrieved Nov 13, 2010 from http://www.samsung.com/au/tv/pdf/3D-tv-warning.pdf
5. Yang, F.(2003). 貝爾德 – 研製電視機的第一人. Beijing, China : 光明日報出版社.
6. 叫好不叫座 3D電視遭遇「寒流」.(2010, Nov 7). Wen Wei Po Online. Retrieved Nov 12, 2010 from http://info.wenweipo.com/index.php/?action-viewnews-itemid-38037
7. 健康貼士：幾類人群不宜觀看3D電視購買需謹慎.(2010, Nov 12). 科技日報. Retrieved Nov 12, 2010 from http://big5.chinataiwan.org/xwzx/Technology/201011/t20101112_1599704.htm