Jonas De Meulenaere

From Era of Plenty to Era of Overflow What Shall I Watch

This article focuses on how viewers decide what to watch in a context of almost infinite video content availability and a lasting expansion of the process of digitization. We investigate to what extent viewers apply an active search process toward video content. Therefore we applied a focus group methodology. Seven focus group sessions were conducted, totaling 47 participants. We found that this process is guided by a combination of contextual, content-related, and personal factors, which simultaneously free as well as restrict the viewer in his choice. Moreover it can be concluded that a gradual shift is taking place in who fulfills the gatekeeper’s role.

Qualitative assessment of contemporary media sharing practices and their relationship to the sMS platform

Being a social species, humans sometimes desire to share information and to consume content as part of a group. A myriad of practical issues might however prevent people from physically congregating. The synchronous MediaSharing (sMS) framework attempts to remedy this inconvenience by supporting the real-time synchronization of multimedia content across dispersed locations. As such, it can be regarded as a social media consumption platform for geographically dislocated users. This paper presents the outcome of a two-fold prefatory qualitative assessment of the sMS application. A literature study was first conducted to gain insight in the contemporary (non-professional) practices of end-users with respect to the authoring, sharing and consumption of multimedia, as well as concerning their usage of digital social services like social networking sites. On the basis of focus group interviews, the findings from the desk research were then representatively verified and their relationship to the sMS framework was studied. The results reveal that users do recognize the need for an sMS-like application, that they generally appreciate its functionality and present feature collection, that the sMS service is largely compatible with or supplementary to their current habits, and that they would consider utilizing it in certain use cases.

Immersive experiences in the home: a field trial on stereoscopic 3DTV

Announced as an immersive technology stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) is actively implemented in consumer electronics. S-3D is capable of producing a sense of presence for the viewers, yet bottlenecks such as visual discomfort still exist. This research investigates the experiences of presence and visual comfort when watching S-3D content in the home, hereby focusing on both user characteristics and environmental factors, in particular light circumstances. This was researched using a mixed method design, involving in-depth interviews, diary study, quantitative survey as well as three subjective tests. Sensations of presence as well as the S-3D visualizations in itself can motivate viewers to watch S-3D. Moreover, there is a clear trade off between these positive sensations and discomforts derived from the nature of S-3D and the S-3D glasses. In addition, both visual comfort and presence are significantly influenced by the given light circumstances.