I shall later post, in an appendix section, a research paper I recently wrote on the Internet and Real Time Media Theory. In this paper it encapsulates the brief history of the Internet and the World Wide Webs development (as well as the differences between them) and acts as a foundation for anyone who isn’t already in the know, from which I shall now be working from. If a picture paints a thousand words, then the filmed image increases this by 1,500 (at 25 frames per second) each minute. It is not essential to go into the history of the moving image and film itself although if interested there is a wealth of information on this subject both on and offline.
Where the Internet is concerned, it is the term ‘multimedia’ which encapsulates images, voice, sound and moving images. It is the moving images (video and animation) which I am particularly interested in. As vast and wealthy as the Internet is with its information, it was difficult for me to find the right words to find when the first moving image arose on the Internet, through using search engines. On one timeline it stated that it was the Commodore Amiga in 1985, which combined and allowed for advanced graphics, sound and video capabilities thus with the potential to then host moving images. Later in 1993 (following the development of the World Wide Web which standardised Inter protocol; see appendix for further details) the Internet’s first radio station began streaming, aptly named Internet Talk Radio, and in 1994 it was the Rolling Stones, who using the same technology streamed a live concert over the Internet using both audio and visual technologies.
This technology, then called Multicast Backbone or M-Bone for short, was developed by Steve Deering in the late 1980’s and came into force in the early nineties. This technology he had developed was primarily targeted at video conferencing, one of the fundamental reasons why the internet was first set up; communication. The main idea behind video conferencing was to allow for a room full of people on one side of the world to discuss matters with a room full of people somewhere else as if they were all in the same room. Ever since television had been created the notion of this idea was being experimented with and later the video phone call was in action.
Another type of video conferencing client was to be called CU-SeeMe, produced by Tim Dorcey. It was using this technology that the first television show was broadcast over the Internet in 1994 using IPTV (Internet Protocol Television). The television show in question was produced by the well known American broadcaster ABC, and was their World News Now show. News obviously being an important cultural dialogue, this allowed for Internet users across the world to access World news from their home computers without having to have a subscription to a Cable or other form of television network. Using the exact same technology one of the first films, entitled Party Girl, was premiered on the Internet in 1995. Therefore within a matter of about five years technology had jumped from video conferencing to full blown film and television streaming of sorts. Although there would still be a long way to go and many companies to buy into the technology, this was the foundation of what I am about to go into over the next few weeks.Arguably I was intending in this section to find a lot of data on simple moving images uploaded on the Internet as well as such mediums as advertising and online gaming to be discussed. Although it would seem that I have found an avenue with succinct and tentative links to establish a brief timeline of how the technology has developed and established itself, I feel this area may need to be revised at a later date with further research. However at this stage it is not necessary to do so in order to progress.
What is interesting to note here is that all developments are linked into using existing technologies, building upon one another rather then developing brand new technologies. Therefore although I could be using the Internet as a platform for viewing, screening and sharing video content, it may be possible to utilise other programs and platforms to my advantage.
Contributions to this section would be very welcomed.
