Whether you’re a broadcaster, content creator, or just an everyday consumer, innovation in the video technology industry makes a huge impact on your life.
More often than not, the media we consume on a daily basis comes in video form. It’s the most engaging form of content, and the Coronavirus pandemic has made it an even bigger part of our lives than it already was.
Take a look at this list of video technology innovations for a peeks at what’s next for the industry.
Interactive Video
Traditionally, video content is linear in nature. Play, pause, speed controls, and scrubbing are the only touch-points available for users to interact with the video itself.
Enter Interactive video. This technology is poised to take user engagement to the next level by introducing new, different video features for people to interact with the content they consume.
Whereas regular videos require encouraging people to use additional tools such as comments, likes, and shares to maximize engagement, interactive videos embed functionality into the video itself. This can come in a variety of forms, including:
Buttons and clickable objects within the frame reveal hidden information or link users to a separate webpage
Choose your own path formats which enable users to customize their experiences
Input fields for user-submitted information
Adoption of this new technology is increasing rapidly year over year. According to a study conducted by video marketing company Wyzowl that surveyed 813 marketing professionals, 24% plan to include interactive video in their strategy for this year, an increase of 3% from the previous year’s study.
Data also suggests that interactive video is incredibly popular among users, producing higher engagement and satisfaction than its traditional counterpart. It’s also reported by a 2017 study that view time increases by as much as 47% when videos have an interactive component.
Super Resolution
If you’ve ever wished you could upscale old movies and home videos into resolutions more appropriate for 2021, you’re in luck. Super-resolution is making the jump from still images to video.
In simple terms, super-resolution converts images and videos of a lower resolution into a higher resolution using AI machine learning software that combines many low-resolution frames into a single high-resolution frame. Many modern smartphones have this technology built into their camera systems, so chances are that you’ve used it before.
While the process is relatively well understood and easy to complete for still images, applying the technique to the multi-frame video has been notoriously hard for researchers to accomplish. Problems often result from how CPU-intensive the process is, upscaling a single frame can take over 20 minutes according to one Stanford University study.
However, as public gatherings ceased and the majority of people came under stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic last year, businesses had a newfound incentive to tackle this problem head-on so that older content could be refreshed for consumers. In response, many companies stepped up to meet this demand, often using distributed cloud-based technology to solve the massive CPU cost.
With this innovation, video super-resolution is now viable for mass application across the industry. Soon enough, you’ll be able to watch anything in 4K.
Flexible Displays
Remember the flip phone? It’s back, and this time comes with a touch screen. As foldable smartphones make their way to becoming more common and attractive in the smartphone industry, it is easy to forget how far the technology has come.
First-generation flexible displays were unable to be sent by the user, instead of being molded and set in place by the manufacturer during production. This curved display was put to use in devices such as the Galaxy Edge and iPhone X product lines.
Second-generation displays came about soon after the first and set themselves apart with their capability of being manipulated by the end-user. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold smartphone and it’s few competitors achieved their infamous folds using this generation display.
Unfortunately, the technology was released with a slew of unresolved technical issues that ruined the experience for most users. Combined with already declining smartphone sales and a global pandemic, the outlook for flexible displays looked bleak by the end of 2020.
But times have changed. Devices like Samsung’s newly released Galaxy Z Fold 2 have performed well and are endearing the public to flexible display technology once again. And as time goes on, video technology will adapt to the form factor, offering novel ways to experience video content online.
So if you’re working for one of the many Portland production companies, this is definitely a trend you may want to consider following. Keep up with the latest video technology trends and find out what is new in video here.
Ultra High Definition VR
Just as flexible displays had initial trouble gaining traction, VR technology also suffered at its outset.
Early adopters experienced a plethora of pain points with the platform, including motion sickness, poor quality displays, high entry costs, and the lack of engaging applications to use. Thus, many people wrote off technology as a passing fad.
VR has since had a few more years to develop and now is at a point where it can meet its initial expectations. Ultra High Definition displays with resolutions up to 8K give users the virtual reality experience they have been waiting for.
Coupled with the low latency enabled by 5G technology and quality, cost-effective devices, VR is finally on the cusp of mainstream adoption.
Multiview
So far we’ve seen multiple instances of the coronavirus pandemic spurring new growth and innovation in the video technology industry. Multiview, a feature that enables many different people to view a single piece of content simultaneously, is arguably the biggest example of such.
There was a huge demand by consumers for video platforms to add multiview functionality to their service to relieve the stress of self-isolation and give people a safe way to connect with each other.
Many platforms including Netflix, Hulu, and various other networks complied with user demand for Multiview. And wherever gaps existed, dedicated third-party software was developed able to fill them. Going forward, multiview likely will become a standard feature across the board.
The Future of Video Technology Innovations
Current technology trends point already point to that video is the dominant form of content on the internet. As these video technology innovations continue to develop and mature over time, the industry’s dominance will only become more and more cemented.
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