Digital VIDEO GAMES NUMBERS

Landmark year for digital

More features now shot on digital than film

By David S. Cohen 

This year is likely to be remembered as a pivotal one in the history of filmed entertainment, and hardly anybody seems to be noticing. 

Last week the PGA's mobile committee hosted an event at the Apple store in Century City. There Michael Cioni of post house Light Iron presented some statistics on digital imaging vs. tape vs. film. According to Cioni, 2011 is the year digital capture becomes more popular than film for professionally distributed, narrative filmmaking.  

Counting indies, user-generated content, news, gameshows, sports and reality television, digital passed film years ago. And Cioni's unofficial stats count only the number of titles, not the amount of footage shot. But if he's right, 2010 will be the last year to see more scripted features shot on film than on some form of digital.  

"You can't make film smaller," says Cioni. "You can't make 35mm be 8K resolution, no matter what you do. You can't have a (film) camera be four pounds. You can't fit a 400-foot magazine in a smaller space. It can't improve at the rate Moore's Law says we can predict technical improvements (in digital)." 

But film will linger for a while, he predicts, as a boutique format. What's really doomed, he says, is tape. Tape resolution is locked in by hardware to "2005 specs," says Cioni, and it's being left behind by file-based capture, recorded directly onto hard drives or solid-state storage. 

What about the film look? Cioni says that like car buyers, producers now have to consider "look" along with a slew of other factors including efficiency, size and cost.  

Cioni said, "If there are people out there, and there are, who want the picture to be the end-all, be-all reason to choose a format to shoot on, they're going to be the last guys at the Alamo. Because in the world I live in, image quality is not the No. 1 factor. It is cost."

Games are the most popular category in smartphone apps, Nielsen says

By Nathan Olivarez-Giles 

Games are the most popular category in mobile apps, followed by weather and then social networking, according to new data from the research firm Nielsen.

Of those who've downloaded apps to a smartphone in the last 30 days, 93% of downloaders are willing to pay for gaming apps, Nielsen said in a blog post detailing its new findings. 

"In contrast, only 76 percent of downloaders are willing to pay for news apps," the firm said. 

Of those who have played game apps in the last 30 days, gamers on iPhones, Windows Phone 7 devices or Android handsets are the most likely to have downloaded the games they played. On the other hand, owners of Blackberry phones or "feature phones," a.k.a. standard cellphones, more often play games that are pre-loaded on their devices. 

"The average mobile gamer plays an average of 7.8 hours a month," Nielsen said. "Those with iPhones tend to play around 14.7 hours each month while those with Android smartphones play around 9.3 hours per month." 

Of those who've downloaded apps in the last month, 64% downloaded a gaming app, while 60% downloaded a weather-related app and in third, 56% downloaded a social-networking app, Nielsen reported. 

On the low end, only 6% downloaded household or personal care apps and 11% downloaded apps having to do with education, the firm said.