Big data drives today’s movie industry, both in terms of the amount of data packed into each frame you see at theaters, and in terms of video streaming online. It’s what delivers 3D effects in the theater, and personalized recommendations to Netflix viewers. And very big numbers ride on both.
3 dimensions - quadruple the data
In the past few years, 3D movies have staged a comeback on a scale much greater than their brief heyday in the 1950s. Including the 3D effect adds "anywhere from 100% to 200% more data per frame," says Jeff Denworth, vice president of marketing for DataDirect Networks (DDN), in an InformationWeek article.
Denworth attributes the proliferation of present day 3D films to the huge success James Cameron had with the 3-D film Avatar in 2009, which packed a petabyte of data.
3D explodes the amount of data per film
Avatar cost about $237 million to produce, but it brought in more than ten times that amount. It earned the distinction of
IMDB identifying it as "the highest-grossing film of all time." By the beginning of 2010, it had taken in $2,779,404,183.
A rash of 3D films followed this success, and many did very well. According to Suppli Market Intelligence (owned by IHS), in 2011, 3D films brought in $7 billion at the box-office, 16 percent more than the previous year.
Bigger and bigger data
The full figures for 2012 are not yet in, though they will likely be higher, as the number of 3D screens has gone up from about 9,000 in 2009 to, according to Suppli, "43,000 by the third quarter" of 2012.
One of the biggest draws of the year, Marvel’s 3D superhero flick, The Avengers, grossed $1,511,757,910 in 2012. As 3D has grown common at the theater, movie-makers have to point to something else to distinguish their offering.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had to do 3-D one better with its "brand new format of High Frame Rate 3D (HFR 3D)." Instead of 24 frames per second, which is the movie standard, it packs in 48. The advantage to the viewer, it claims, it that the greater number offers an experience "closer to what the human eye actually sees."
Perhaps so, but quite a number of viewers were less than thrilled by the effect. Nevertheless, by December 29, 2012, The Hobbit had already taken in $600,508,000, according to IMDB figures.
Big data also impacting the small screen
Big data is also key to watching movies on the small screen. Instead of picking up a disc when they buy or rent a movie, now, people can have it come right to them. In an article on Newsle, Dan Cryan, senior principal analyst at IHS, observed that in 2012, Americans made "a historic switch to Internet-based consumption, setting the stage for a worldwide migration from physical to online."
That same article reports that estimates of online movie payments for the US in 2012 are “3.4 billion views or transactions, up from 1.4 billion in 2011." This form of video streaming is dominated by Netflix in the US, where it makes up "33% of peak period downstream traffic" according to Sandvine. Amazon, Hulu, and HBO Go follow far behind at 1.8 percent, 1.5 percent, and .5 percent, respectively.
Netflix intends to keep its lead with the help of big data.
Last year, Netflix was the subject of a WSJ blog on using big data to improve streaming video. Though Netflix still offers to mail out the DVDs people select for rental, more customers now opt for streaming. In the interest of improving efficiency on that end, Netflix transferred its holdings to Amazon’s cloud. It also started using Hadoop, which enables it "to run massive data analyses, such as graphing traffic patterns for every type of device across multiple markets." That helps plan for improved data transmission and better understanding of the customer.
In addition to using big data solutions for delivery of content, Netflix applies algorithms to predict what their customers will likely want to watch next. This type of data-mining technology makes Netflix confident that it can handle hosting original content. In fact, it bet more than $100 million on it; that’s the reported sum paid for the rights to two seasons of House of Cards, one of several original content series it plans on streaming.
As Netflix’s Chief Communications Officer, Jonathan Friedland, told Wired, "We know what people watch on Netflix and we’re able with a high degree of confidence to understand how big a likely audience is for a given show based on people’s viewing habits."
So what do you think? Is it possible to guarantee a hit with big data?
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— Ariella Brown, Technology Blogger
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