[Rusty]

I think FMV means just that - Full Motion VIDEO. The term seems completely technical to me, so I think one must regard it as technical alone.

FMV = ANY sequence of still pictures, played at a high enough framerate to be considered "full motion" video (not just a "series-of-still-pictures").
This means that any video sequence (file) is FMV, regardless of it's content -
be it live actors or computer generated characters, it's still Full Motion Video.

This also means, as was said above, that game-engine created cut-scenes ("in-game") are NOT FMV. The game doesn't switch to playing a video clip.

[ConcreteRancor]

Originally Posted by Ranma Ranma

A lot of you are simply misinformed. This is not an opinion but a fact from an old gaming veteran:

FMV = Full Motion Video = LIVE ACTORS. Gabriel Knight 2, Foxhunt, Conspiracies, and a lot of Sega CD games (Sewer Shark, Nighttrap, Sherlock Holmes, etc) are FMV.

CG = Computer Graphics = Final Fantasy like "movies".

Cutscene = Cutscene = In game graphics used to show a storyline with or without widescreen, boxing, etc. Think of how the story plays out in GTA or Mario Sunshine for this.

Something like Curse of Monkey Island's "movies" are cutscenes because they use the in game graphics.

Toonstruck is a hybrid because it uses a real actor (Christopher Lloyd) on cartoon backgrounds. Calling it FMV is a bit stretching it since there's more drawn graphics than FMV.

But CMI's cutscenes are of a higher quality of animation than the normal game. It's not really possible to have "cutscenes" as you describe them in a 2-D game, since you can't use the existing world in a way that is interesting cinematically. 3-D games you can. "Cutscene," as I see it, is an all-encompassing term. Read a review of a game in most gaming magazines or game sites, and you'll see references to "FMV cutscenes," "CG cutscenes," or "in-engine cutscenes" (the latter being what you were calling a "cutscene" above).

CMI's cutscenes, (and Full Throttle's for that matter,) are hand-animated, so they don't really fall into any of these categories.

But generally, although FMV should technically mean any video whose frames flow smoothly, it has basically come to mean live action footage. I haven't seen a game review in the past few years that has used the term in any other way. And since the gaming media is essentially making the definitions for the games industry, I'll stick with what they say, thanks.

[fov]

A lot of you are simply misinformed. This is not an opinion but a fact from an old gaming veteran:

FMV = Full Motion Video = LIVE ACTORS. Gabriel Knight 2, Foxhunt, Conspiracies, and a lot of Sega CD games (Sewer Shark, Nighttrap, Sherlock Holmes, etc) are FMV.

CG = Computer Graphics = Final Fantasy like "movies".

If you type "final fantasy" and "FMV" into google it turns up A TON of links for FF movies. So apparently we're not the only ones who are misinformed.

-emily

[MDMaster]

I've come to realize now that the FMV term is just improper or used improperly. I mean, that does not make you think about real actors or background. That's why I always thought that FMV qualified anything resembling 'a full screen video sequence, without boxes or stuff like that', but lately I've come to realize that if someone tells me about a FMV game, I immediately think about actors. And also I think about those lousy Sega CD games that Ranma mentioned, like 'Who Shot Johnny Rock'.
So, don't know, someone should really come up with a better term for that.

[oerhört]

If FMV should not be interpreted technically (meaning any cinematic not rendered in real-time), someone really should come up with a better word for it. For example "LAV" ("Live Actor Video") or something.