TV and Movies On YouTube? 101
CNet is running a story speculating on the potential for full-length television shows and movies on YouTube. Google has been looking for ways to improve the popular but unprofitable video-sharing site, including some experiments with movies that exceed the typical 10-minute limit. Incorporating a system similar to Hulu could draw the interest of more advertisers.
"[Mark Cuban] wrote that Hulu is crushing YouTube in revenue per video and revenue per user primarily because 'Hulu has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site,' Cuban wrote. 'It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy.' YouTube doesn't have the same luxury because it can advertise only 'on the small percentage of videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with.'"
OH MY GOD! (Score:2, Funny)
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The Cognitive Surplus is where it's at (Score:5, Interesting)
The studios screwed themselves on this one.
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Look at AtheneWins: he tries to tell people some of his ideas and I think don't think it's for money because he is not a partner although he has like 60mil views. But the way he's making himself heard is not a morally correct one.
Hotforwords is another
Re:The Cognitive Surplus is where it's at (Score:4, Interesting)
This is exactly the one advantage which YouTube gives you which the "shut up and watch" old media does not.
If you cannot popularise quality content, then the fault lies with the populace, or yourself - not the distribution medium.
We are in the early days of exploring our cognitive surplus, and yes - some of these explorations mimic the tricks mainstream media has previously used to grab viewers. So if you're telling me that 50% of the most popular YouTube videos are not just thinly-veiled sex-related enticements, then I think we can agree that we're watching a fascinating experiment unfold.
I do, however, object to the phrase "partners are now whoring themselves to get more views." If you look at the evils that a monopoly stranglehold on the channels of media distribution (everything from sitcoms to news), has wrecked upon society, then a strong case could be made that hastening the democratization and financial viability of those channels is nothing less than a moral imperative.
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I would hate to see it all mucked up with revenue dollars on advertisement. What would prevent YouTube from becoming exactly as broadcast television? Broadcast has been working under this model for 50 years and they have become so impotent, immaterial, and outright painful to watch that I don't think they, or anyone who emulates their business model has long for this world.
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What would prevent YouTube from becoming exactly as broadcast television?
Broadcast television and YouTube have completely different barriers to entry. They are on opposite ends of the scale.
For example, something like Chocolate Rain [youtube.com] would not be placed before 24 million viewers on broadcast television. It works only because you can email it or otherwise share it with your friends.
Statistically, YouTube is a more accurate gauge of what people like than Nielson -- it's driven by consumers sharing what they like with other people who may just do the same if they like it too.
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Have you ever watched any really old silent or early sound movies? Some of the "classics" are about the same quality that I see on YouTube.
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E.g. the winners [youtube.com] of the 2007 YouTube awards.
Re:OH MY GOD! (Score:5, Interesting)
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But the episodes Hulu does put up are awful nice. The advertisements are not all that intrusive (you can always browse in another tab and watch something else).
I honestly believe that a lot of the companies believe that if they put up entire seasons or entire shows no one would buy the DVDs. I do not think it would hurt to do a test with a popular (but older, somewhat unprofitable in DVD sales) show for a few months and see if DVD sales increase, decrease, or no change.
The only flaw in that plan is that
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While the lack of previous seasons is a downmark, whatever hulu actually has is quite good.
The ads are not too long. The video quality is somewhat decent. They have a good selection of new shows, and a lot of old stuff as well.
Re:OH MY GOD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Really?
Hulu seems like an awfully nice compromise between watching "regular TV," and sifting through piles of low-quality crap on sidreel.
The general scheme is that you get excellent quality full episodes in a legal manner endorsed by the content producers (for which they get paid!).
In return, you have to watch a 10-30 second ad in each slot that would normally have a 4-5 minute commercial break on TV. In the end, this works out to about 2-3 minutes PER HOUR. For free and legal content, this seems like a fantastic compromise that mostly benefits the consumer.
Of course, if they increase the ads, my approval will be somewhat diminished, but in its current form, Hulu rocks.
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Silly misguided hypocrites...
It's blasphemy to utter the "name" of G-d period. It doesn't matter what the context is.
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Hulu has all of the first two seasons of Babylon 5. Also a ton of full length movies. And Firefly. Why are you complaining again?
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...the silly commercials that make it like a throwback to 80's television.
Studio driven streaming video sites make me remember why the Tivo was originally so cool.
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This could work (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing stopping the traditional advertising model working in this distribution model. Show say a tiny Coca Cola (or whatever) logo in the top left corner of episode or movie that you are showing, and the advertiser would be happy!
I think this could be a win win situation for everyone, and could also spill over into the p2p distribution market en masse.
That's my hope anyway, as I'm sick and tired of internet distribution channels being demonised as for pirates only... meh
Re:This could work (Score:4, Insightful)
As long the ads are in a sidebar or something and not on top of the entertainment. Or some other kind of overlay that could be removed.
I can't seem to watch normal broadcast stations any more without a quarter of the screen having this stupid animations on top. I'm not completely adphobic but that's like someone standing in front of the screen at a theater.
TV Overlays, telemarketing and spam... there is no way I would ever buy from companies who resort to being annoying.
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Well, if done in not in an overkill manner, it wouldn't be that bad; for example stuff you download that was ripped from the SciFi channel, has a SciFi logo in the corner.
As a result (being someone who doesn't have cable) I now know that Battlestar is broadcasted on the SciFi channel.
As a personal example, for me that was relatively unobtrusive advertising at work.
Re:This could work (Score:4, Interesting)
one suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think this is unlikely to happen. Viacom already has a video sharing site where you can watch ANY episode of The Daily Show. The question Viacom will ask is, "What value does YouTube add that we don't already have, or could easily develop?" Frankly I don't see that youtube does add any value, but maybe I'm wrong.
No, I think Viacom is NOT the company to try to pursue negotiation rights with, at least for now. That doesn't mean there aren't other media companies they couldn't do the same thing with, tha
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And leaving it decentralized makes the system much more robust, and fosters an environment where more innovation can happen. I think that's a much bigger (and existing) advantage that trumps your theoretical bigger audience.
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Oh yeah. One site will use Windows Media with DRM (everyone uses Windows Vista, right?), one site will use RealMedia (who uses THAT anymore?!) and another one will use Quicktime with an obscure CODEC that won't even work on intel Macs (or something).
Forget Flash, Windows Media, Real Media and DivX... Give us non-DRM'ed H.264/AAC video files, not everyone has the bandwidth to stream that stuff in real-time and not everyone wants to be tethered to their computer to be able to watch TV shows and movies.
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H.264/AAC is more standard then the hack job that is DivX.
H.264/AAC works on all platform, on any decent media player.
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> Go to a TV/Movie torrent site, thats all anyone uses.
Well, I guess we can tell who's been to the Pirate Bay and who hasn't now eh?
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For one, because Viacom limit distribution by country. For two, because there is no way to find related content -- if you're watching an interview on The Daily Show, you're probably interested in watching that same person being interviewed on The Late Show
These are advantages to YOU, not to Viacom. I don't know why Viacom limits distribution by country, but they've identified that as something that's important to their business. Also, Viacom doesn't WANT you to start watching The Late Show, as they don't
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But there is a potential advantage for the producer as well - e.g. if The Late Show got a smaller cut of the ad revenue by being a YouTube partner, rather than running their own distribution site, but a wider audience.
It's gloriously unscientific [google.com] but The Daily Show hasn't had any large surges of search-interest since Viacom sued in March 2007. To me this suggests that less people are sharing, and talking about
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If I want to find out what a particular person has done, YouTube is the
LAST place I would look. I would try some place that tends to catalog
that particular sort of information. Since this is the web, sites such
as those could even "gasp" link to where the content is (either online
in a streaming format or available for purchase).
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Hulu? No thanks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why have an internationally accessible website at all, if you won't even show (short, low-quality, low resolution) videos except for US-Americans? Why should, say, bloggers even bother to embed those videos on the world-wide web, if they can't reach an world-wide audience?
Although I guess it could make embedding targeted ads easier, since you know your audience...
USCIS (Score:2)
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...none of their clips are available ... (short, low-quality, low resolution) videos ...
By the way, in addition to short clips from shows, Hulu has full-length TV shows and even movies on the site. The quality/resolution isn't great (although comparable to conventional TV, I guess). They are also starting to phase-in "HD" versions of some of the shows/movies. The resolution is good (1280x720)... but it suffers from the usual drawbacks of buffered video (either it's jerky or you have to wait for it to buffer a bit...).
I'm not saying the Hulu viewing experience is fantastic... just making i
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If you want to see streaming video that "just works" and has little country restriction Joost is the way to go :)
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MIRO sucks.
Its opensource yet despite the powerful opensource torrent programs it didn't occur to them to allow bandwidth limiting or connection encryption?
Id test it again to get a full list of deficiencies, but thanks to what i think is bad packaging of firefox3, in ubuntu 8.04 any program that depends on libgnomeui-0 makes firefox unusable on my kubuntu system
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clearly you have difficulty reading, but i said i couldnt test it further to find out all the other reasons i dropped it because of this bug (which i took care to point out wasnt they're fault)
But generally given the number of ISPs that throttle torrents, providing upload limiting and encryption is an important requirement.
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So its basically Vuze with less torrent features?
As for the political stuff, I am sure it would be fascinating if I was in your country, as it is I don't mind browsing on Joost (10mb/s dsl with a great shaper on my end, so bandwidth is never an issue) and when a show I find interesting finishes it usually grabs something from the hottest selection, so some free soft core porn, everyone wins :)
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Actually YouTube has country-specific blocking for the more 'official' videos (that some company or sponsor is involved in, e.g. "legal" music videos and TV). If all YouTube's videos were backed by a company, like Hulu's, then I'm sure you'd see the exact same thing.
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Yes, I'm fairly sure that there are quite many countries where you can't buy Coca Cola or a Toyota.
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And I thought people liked hulu-hoops...
That said, Cuban must be living in Cuba because he is so out of touch with his target audiences.
YouTube Has Already Tried This (Score:2, Interesting)
Back when YouTube first came about, they had original regular running series. Some of them were actually decent too. Then things started to change and now we have a different YouTube.
Besides, it's not as if people don't already do this on YouTube themselves. I'm more surprised that at some point they haven't aggressively tried making money from this in some fashion.
Re:YouTube Has Already Tried This (Score:5, Informative)
Have you watched any of the longer-running more established youtube 'series'? They all have popup-on-screen ads on them
The big issue here is that the size of the window is so freaking small. Watching more than a few minutes with something that small is just painful, and the 'Full Screen' mode, even with their new HD player, still pales in comparison to hulu
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Host pilots for shows for free and offer a Google-checkout-integrated escrow service. If you like the pilot, give put some money towards the production of the series. If a target amount is reached before a set date, Google takes a fixed percentage and gives the rest to the producers. They then make a series, send DVDs to the people who paid in advance, and put it on YouTube. Google show advertising around the online version and start collecting money towards the
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Taxpayers haven't paid any money towards content creation. And good content is expensive. If you are happy watching things like the Phil DeFranco show or Hot for Words, good for you. But if you want something like Battlestar Galactica or Heroes, then *every episode* has to bring in millions of dollars somehow. That's hard to manage. This is not a solved problem.
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How dare you point out the logical flaws in the free entertainment arguments. You are obviously anti-freedom.
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This is not the fault of the content providers.
Youtube/google didn't build them, and they have to pay the people who DID build them. If they aren't making at least enough money to pay for the fees they are being charged, they aren't going to keep it going.
If you had a business who was paying for customers parking, and you weren
Doomed business model (Score:2)
IMHO, YouTube has a very difficult business model to profit from, the way things are currently headed. Networks would rather publish their own television shows on their own websites, because it allows them instantaneous and total control over advertising and video content. In fact, many major networks now have their prime-time lineup on the web for instant viewing.
NetFlix on-demand, and Cable/Satellite on-demand services will be duking it out in the movie realm, with competition from pirated websit
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Hulu? (Score:1)
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I'm pretty sure I've watched entire episodes on Hulu with only one commercial break (though probably there was one before the episode started as well), and since there's only one commercial per break, that makes 1-2 commercials in an episode. For many episodes, there is a commercial break for every spot where there was intended to be one when it was first broadcast--but again, only one commercial per break, which is a huge improvement.
I remember when people got upset because Voyager went from--as I recall-
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Hulu? Please not. I've once watched an episode on it, but after all 5 minutes, a commercial appeared. I mean, one is ok, or maybe one every 30 minutes if it's a movie, but I'll certainly won't ever watch something on Hulu again unless they limit the ads shown.
Weird. I've watched several full seasons of shows on Hulu. There seem to be different numbers of ads for different shows (selection by the copyright holder?) but the largest number I've seen is one commercial for each spot there would have been one when it played on TV, plus one additional one within the first minute or so. Mind you, this is still quite a bit less than when the show originally played, where there are something like four commercials for each spot.
Maybe our different experiences are be
It's still less advertising than television (Score:1)
i personally have no problem waiting for a 15 second ad to pass or, in my case, 30 seconds of a screen telling me to disable my adblock software.
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The point being is that the show was not broadcast in a manner
consistent with how it was created. It was specifically created
to accomodate normal broadcast television commercial breaks. If
you split it up any more than that it's probably going to ruin
the dramatic effect intended by it's creator.
You're essentially trashing the work/effort of the creative people involved.
Cuban trolling again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember, Mark Cuban also claims to have made his saving throw to disbelieve the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. If I were Google, I'd rely on my own attorneys for legal advice, and not some self-important blowhard who pretends that important legal concepts don't exist when they don't protect his own financial interests.
"Potential" for full-length TV shows? (Score:2)
Full screen mode I can click away from! (Score:2)
Here's a beef with all the video sites: You can't have full screen running and then click elsewhere. It instantly goes back to normal size. I have 2 monitors, and want the 2nd monitor to be playing the show full-screen. Ugh.
When will developers realize we live in a 2+ monitor world? You move an app from the primary to secondary monitor, all popup dialogs still end up on the 1st screen.
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There are three barriers to remaking television (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Cost of Production
2. Cost of Distribution
3. Customer Price Sensitivity and General Interest
1. Cost of Production is still high and will remain high, though the bang for the buck is certainly increasing. While I don't enjoy police procedurals, you'll note that the production values are easily eclipsing movies in all but ginormous action set pieces. Shows like the original Battlestar Galactica were prohibitively expensive even with recycled special effects. The new Galactica, while the scripts still suffer from cranial-rectal inversion, it looks fantastic. Hollywood would have had an impossible time churning something out like that with models, Babylon 5's CGI looks dated now. Fans in their bedrooms are turning out CGI better than what a professional studio was doing ten years ago. Funny point: when that new B5 Lost Tales DVD was being put together, the new effects crew was scrambling for models. All of the original files were turned over to WB as per contract and were lost. The fans stepped in and provided a station model better than what was in the original show. You can only imagine what we'll be seeing in another decade. Still, it's going to cost money to put a proper show together and that will be the biggest barrier to entry.
2. Distribution. The Internet is a dagger in the heart of the conventional network business model. The suits are desperately trying to coopt it. Right now, the Internet's biggest vulnerability is that service is provided by telecoms and cable companies so the suits are looking to these companies to serve as gatekeepers. The suits would like to see the Net tamed into a comfy AOL model, putting up barriers to entry, filtering people only to approved and partnered sites, making sure they can start extracting profits again. I'm not sure if what we're looking at here is Tienanmen Square or the fall of the Berlin Wall -- I don't know if efforts to stop democratizing forces will succeed or fail. If they do fail, the networks will fall into ever-decreasing relevance.
3. Price Sensitivity and General Interest. The vast majority of people are casual fans of whatever they're into, they're usually not obsessive geeks. Miss an episode of a series? Not care if you don't see it? I never could understand that. But I'm a geek. Geeks are the ones who were buying Trek on tape back when it worked out to something like $10 per episode. DVD's finally made it feasible to distribute archived shows from the past and distribute new productions directly to the customer. While there have been direct-to-video schlockfests for years, Disney being a prime offender, there hasn't been as much interest in distributing things like episodic television content directly to DVD. Of course, with digital distribution, the DVD angle becomes only an interest if someone wants to keep the show permanently.
I suppose you can also throw a fourth category in here, generational adaptation of technology. People my parent's age would tape a show and play it back, not fast-forwarding through the commercials. Even more likely, they'd not be able to figure out how to record it and just watch it live. But the younger the viewer, the more readily they will adapt to the new technologies. Fast-forward another decade and you'll see middle-aged people perfectly acclimated to watching content on their laptops and ipods and cell phones. And I think that this sort of independence of choice in both content and viewing behavior will create a demand that the suits will be unable to control.
Right now there's really a conversation going on between viewers and content producers/distributors. The producer/distributors are saying "Shut up and pay what we demand, you cunts" and the viewers are saying "no thank you. We don't want your commercial-laden television, we don't want to pay $12 to go watch a movie that has 20 minutes of commercials in front of it, we don't want to be limited to just your approved content. And what you have that we like, you charge too much or you dick with show's creator to mess it all up."
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There's nothing inherently magical about television, and I think we're just waiting for the populace to grok that the idea of the television set as we grew up with, will soon go the way of the phonograph. Around that point market forces should redress the balance.
In addition, there's no need for a show to start with a 24 e
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There have been some fan films with very good production quality.
One of the Trek ones had better external effects shots than the
recently redone Old Trek. It wasn't so matter a much of
technology as of technique. The acting stank but that's often
true of "real TV" anyways. Plus quality stuff may eventually
attract the better talent simply because they would rather not
work on drek.
Perhaps today the economics doesn't support the starving artist
but soon it will.
Of course, its most important use will be for... (Score:3, Funny)
Improve the player (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially for a google property, I find their flash player to be of really poor quality. The seek bar (or whatever it's called) never goes to where you drop it, and there are really only a handful of places you can seek to if you want to see a part over again. It seems like every other flash video player I've come across behaves as I'd expect it to.
And it's annoying as hell to have the dock-esque related videos pop up any time my mouse goes near the vid.
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Okay, that makes sense - but why can't the player just interpolate these things internally on the client side? Like I mentioned, it seems like every other flash video player out there (break, hulu, revver) handles this just fine.
Yeah...but (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing's for sure (Score:1)
Those of us on slow, outdated connection speeds [me included] won't be watching.
YT is slow enough as it is for someone with my ISP.
Why doesn't Google just produce their own shows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if Google purchased House and put all the full length episodes on Youtube, and then continued the series, allowing the episodes to only be viewed on Youtube and then eventually released on DVD. They could completely revolutionize the way Tv is done and make a bundle in the process.
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Google does not want to get into the business of "content creation". They make their money being the access portal (one way or another) to other people's content. Whether that's through Google Search/News/etc.
As soon as they enter the content market (whether that be for entertainment television, news of any sort, books, or music), they will make competitors out of other c
I for one welcome ... (Score:1)
Who cares, it's *total* not per-user that matters (Score:2)
Imagine this, you've to two videos on your site and each one makes you $10,000 per day, and another site, each video makes you $1, but you've got 100,000,000 of them... which site would you rather own?
One of the advantages of youtube is it delivers media with advertising that people largely stomach. The whole idea is silly. People need to stop worrying about maximizing profit -- instead, they should concentrate on developing a sustainable profit.
uhhh (Score:2)
Now the next generation of content delivery is video on demand, delivered via the Internet with embedded commercials that I cannot fast forward through.
Seriously?