Full
Motion
Video, a term used to describe any piece of digitally-stored
video footage (not necessarily full-screen) in which movement is
not limited to only part of the frame. Originally used to differentiate between video sequences compressed using a
codec such as
Cinepak or
MPEG, and partially-animated video scenes* (frequently used in games before the use of
CD-ROM storage became widespread). Now used to refer to any piece of pre-shot or pre-rendered video footage in a game.
The majority of games do not use FMV very often (with the exception of introductory cinematics - sometimes, bizarrely, videos of in-game footage edited together) because it has several drawbacks that can be avoided by using other methods (such as text, voice-over, or in-engine cut-scenes):
-
It's extremely expensive (especially if you want decent 'name' actors, or Mark Hamill)
-
It chews up storage space
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It is generally only watched once
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It is (except in very special cases) non-interactive
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It does not gel very well with the rest of the game (again, there are exceptions)
Some developers (notably
Westwood) still use FMV quite heavily, partially because they have made a long-term investment in building up their film production facilities.
Square and
Blizzard are also very keen on FMV (probably because it looks
cool even on low-end hardware).
In response to the previous writeups in this node: Some of the Sega-CD FMV-based games (made by a company called Digital Pictures) managed a fairly decent level of interaction, such as Double Switch. It Came From The Desert featured no FMV of any kind. FMV did suck when people tried to make games solely based on it, but it's quite harmless and inoffensive (well, skippable at least) in modern titles.
*i.e. traditional 'cut-scenes' made up of photographs or parts of video stills. Good examples can be seen in Betrayal at Krondor and Heart of China by Dynamix.