For countries that have national television, video gives a community a mechanism for sharing information about themselves with the rest of the country. This can attract the attention at a policy level, and others who may be able to assist the community. It also raises awareness of the problems and issues documented using video. Most importantly, issues that are captured on video are more self-explanatory than, for example printed articles, since there is the considerable added benefit of the moving visual image.
Video cameras are becoming smaller, without any loss of quality of picture and sound, making them much easier to use in the field. However, to produce good quality images requires training in camera techniques; and if the original soundtrack is to be used, instead of a commentary added later, some additional sound equipment is normally required in addition to the microphone built in to the camera.
As a mass medium, video has significant advantages. Video programmes can be put together relatively quickly and multiple copies made, and the cassettes themselves are relatively easy to distribute. Mobile units can show up to date programmes, made within the country and even within the area, to large numbers of rural families. The tape can be wound back to repeat a particular action, or stopped to show a still image while the extension agent explains a point. The same mobile units can carry portable cameras to collect material for new programmes. The main limitation to viewing is that only 20 to 30 people can satisfactorily watch a video programme on a normal television set, compared to the several hundred who can watch a film projected onto a large screen. On the other hand, this smaller group size is much more suited to interaction and discussion after viewing than a large film audience.
Where some families in a rural area have television sets and video players or recorders in their homes, extension agents can bring video cassettes for them to watch, or can arrange for a group of farmers to come together at someone's house to watch. If there are video players in local tea shops, banks, input suppliers or other places where farmers gather, video cassettes can be shown to large numbers of farmers at very low cost. In Thailand , for example, a short video on the safe use of pesticides was shown in rural banks so that clients could watch it while they were waiting to meet bank staff.
Digital Video
Video has clearly demonstrated its usefulness as a communication tool that can be used in a participatory manner and one that can be used by local communities and groups. Many countries now have agencies that produce local language videos on development topics.
Until recently, however, video production has been relatively expensive and its use restricted by the fact that delivery in rural areas has often required a generator, a television and a player – as well as 4WD vehicle to transport all these. This is now rapidly changing, and there is renewed interest in video as a common communication medium.
Digital video is a viable development tool that could support regional and community television. Digital video has now become more accessible, and more convenient. Most personal computers can, given the right software, edit digital video fairly easily and in-house video editing units have been set up in many international organizations and NGOs. This has two key advantages – it reduces costs by eliminating the need to hire professional camera crews and editors, and it allows the editorial process to be carried out by or alongside the development professionals rather than be restricted to the video technical professionals. Delivery has also been simplified in Asia and Latin America, though not yet in most of Africa, and can be done through battery-operated and relatively cheap digital players. The cost of the
whole digital video unit set-up, including training can be less than the old cost of one video produced by an external team.
CD-ROM and DVD
New technology in the form of video saved on CD-ROM or in DVD format now offers the same basic benefits as video, but has additional advantages in that the CD-ROM or DVD disks are cheaper to produce in quantity, and can be used on most newer computers as well as on DVD players attached to a TV. CD-ROM and DVD also offer other advantages over magnetic tape.
- CD-ROM and DVD have a longer life expectancy than videotape. Whilst videotape is considered a good medium to originate in, it is a poor archiving medium, due to it's relatively short life.
- There is no mechanical wear to a DVD disk, since it is scanned solely by a low power laser beam. Videotape, on the other hand, is in contact with rotating heads, drums, capstans, pinch rollers, guide posts, bearings, audio heads or control track heads, all of which adds wear and tear to the tape each time it is played. Moreover, CD-ROM and DVD are not affected to the same extent by dust particles.
- The CD-ROM or DVD disk is not susceptible to magnetic fields, chemical breakdown or the damaging effects of hydrolysis as is videotape. Nor are they susceptible to being destroyed by an poorly adjusted or maintained video player. DVD disks are digitally recorded, and as a result the quality should not deteriorate, no matter how many times they are played.
Whether the distribution medium is videotape or by CD-ROM or DVD, the processes are essentially the same.
Using Video
Video is a versatile medium. As well as bringing "top-down" information to rural areas, it can also be used for:
- "Bottom-up" communication, to allow rural people's views and their farming systems to be recorded and shown to policy makers, agricultural researchers and other people who make decisions which affect rural people's lives. This gives a more realistic and direct understanding of the situation, through the words and perceptions of the people concerned, than is normally possible through reports by extension agents or the formal statistical presentations of research studies.
- A means of stimulating discussion and community action: an extension worker, with the help of local people, can film aspects of the local environment and farming system, including interviews with people who express various points of view about local problems and their solutions. This video material can then be shown to small groups or to meetings of the whole village, as the starting point for discussions on what action the village community should be taking to tackle the issues raised in the video.
