I'm a new member and I came here from Gametrailers where I used to enjoy their reviews and plenty of videos. It seems completely odd to someone like me, coming from GT where pretty much everything is free and the ads aren't blaring in my face all the time, to all of a sudden be restricted on almost everything. At the same time the video quality I don't care for that much. A lot of the time I'm listening to Quicklooks more than watching them. I'm mostly here for the Quicklooks and the Giantbombcast. Sure it would be nice to watch TNT and some of the other premium content, but honestly $50 is too steep a price for me. I'm already paying for Live and a variety of other subscriptions a month. If their premium service was maybe $25 a year I'd probably consider it - but that would also just be considering. When almost the entire internet is doing what GB does, at a less amusing level, but for free it's hard to justify paying for it. I LOVE the Bombcast, it's great but if they made that premium content well I would probably just stop listening. So the 720p isn't really that important to me.

I personally don't have a problem with non-subscribers receiving HD video, especially now video's for non-premium members are hosted on youtube, so bandwidth costs are negated. And that seems to be the general consensus of subscribers on the forums. BUT I do totally understand the reluctance of the staff to do so. HD has always been touted as a main feature of subscribing, and by giving that to standard members you're taking away a benefit that people paid for. Especially so soon after many people just renewed their subscription. There are lots of subscribers who aren't as active on the forums who don't see and comment on posts about this sort of thing. There could be hundreds of subscribers out there who subscribed mainly to get HD video, and would be seriously pissed off if it became available to everyone, making the $50 they spent largely pointless.

So yeah, I think it's something that will happen in time, but something that has to be done carefully to avoid upsetting members. It's not just as simple as a vocal section of the paying members saying "Yo dawg, give dat HD vidja to everybody cause we coo wit it" and then them pressing a button and making it happen.

@OllyOxenFree said:

I think the bigger issue now is simply that the Whiskey Media guys should get back to us and let us know their position.

If they've got reasons for the HD videos being subscriber only then please let us know, because it's hard to avoid the fact that the previous argument given was bandwidth, which is no longer an issue.

My personal opinion is that 720p would be nice, but 480p is a must if they want the site to look as good as it did for non subscribers a week ago. With all of the YouTube compression the 360p videos look a lot worse than they did when Whiskey hosted them themselves.

@Afroman269 said:

@Axxol Cheap bastard.

You cut me deep, Afroman. :(

I think it is of putting blocking video quality and turns off more subscribers than it brings in. And fuck youtube.

I'm a subscriber specifically because I wanted access to high def, quality content from GB staff. Can't get that stuff anywhere else. If it's outsourced to youtube, fine. That's gotta be part of some larger business thingamajig. I trust Whiskey Media to keep the content quality in check.

After a few months of paid access, I'm just happy to be supporting the site for as long as it remains a worthy cause and an entirely unique brand of industry commentary.

HD *is* substantially better for game reviews and quicklooks, as it presents the next-best thing for those who won't or can't play that new or rare game. Fine with me if non-subscribers get to enjoy that experience as well.

Can't we just

@MattyFTM said:

I personally don't have a problem with non-subscribers receiving HD video, especially now video's for non-premium members are hosted on youtube, so bandwidth costs are negated. And that seems to be the general consensus of subscribers on the forums. BUT I do totally understand the reluctance of the staff to do so. HD has always been touted as a main feature of subscribing, and by giving that to standard members you're taking away a benefit that people paid for. Especially so soon after many people just renewed their subscription. There are lots of subscribers who aren't as active on the forums who don't see and comment on posts about this sort of thing. There could be hundreds of subscribers out there who subscribed mainly to get HD video, and would be seriously pissed off if it became available to everyone, making the $50 they spent largely pointless.

So yeah, I think it's something that will happen in time, but something that has to be done carefully to avoid upsetting members. It's not just as simple as a vocal section of the paying members saying "Yo dawg, give dat HD vidja to everybody cause we coo wit it" and then them pressing a button and making it happen.

You know, I agree with you. I know I said before it was probably for money reasons but if it's not going to cost them bandwidth it's probably not that.

As a subscriber, have no issues with non-subs getting HD video.

That being said, I always bring out the world's smallest violin whenever I run into someone either complaining about their free content, or wanting more free stuff. By free, I mean no money out of pocket.

Before the move to youtube, the HD stuff being premium content was more understandable due to bandwidth costs and whatnot, but I don't feel that being on youtube should necessarily change anything with the way membership premiums are structured. GB transferring the burden of free user video bandwidth to youtube is a smart decision on their end. It has the potential to draw more users to Giant Bomb and it also causes the membership to be that much more enticing to people who care about the quality of their video. The content is still free, you'd just be paying to get it at a higher quality.

Also, uploading takes a lot of freaking time (especially if you're talking the quantity and length of videos GB has) and the difference in filesize between high quality and HD is pretty huge. The zombie vid on the front page right now for instance, is 100MB at High Quality, and a whopping 897MB in HD. If they're currently only upping at 320, I bet the jump is even greater. You're asking them to increase their current uploads by roughly 800+% for nothing in return. Which is why again I'll bust out the mini viola. If they did it, good for them, lucky for you, no sweat off my back.

HD is free on many other websites but I don't watch vids on many other websites. Even with a membership, I watch most of my content at low quality because the internet here at work blows. Even though HD content may be the normal standard at this point, I think the stuff that goes on in this site is above and beyond most every other gaming site. The forums and community is way better, the wiki's is awesome, the questing lvling, achievement tracking, the quicklooks and the goddamn bombcast. All free, all awesome. I dunno. You can always ask for more but might be falling on deaf ears -_-;;

I feel for you bro.

EDIT: How I read through 3 pages of replies and didn't catch that you were a paying member already, I don't know -_-;; But pretty much what I said stays the same. I still think non-subs are getting an awesome amount of content at a 0$ price point =D

@Hockeymask27 said:

The current quality is fine even at full screen. I guess i'm easy to please.

or you own a 13" monitor

@Krummey said:

@jakob187: I'm just saying that I believe the folks running this site seem to have a good idea as to what they are doing. And yes, of course, at some point everything everywhere will be in HD. But if it isn't yet on this site, I choose to believe that if they could, they would.

As for me, HD isn't an incentive to subscribe, but the mobile site is HUGE. I'm on the road all day for work, and being able to check GB during breaks is key.

Here's a thought to ponder: the intern content goes up in HD, but the stuff that gets featured on the front page here on the site...isn't? Doesn't that seem a tad bit perplexing? I even made a point of linking a video that is over the 10 minute mark.

Therefore, why are they restricting the content that gets featured through the site? We can only assume that it's because HD viewing is made available through membership to the site, and without the clarity from the staff themselves, it seems rather boggling to any user that knows otherwise. I would assume it seems even more odd to those that are viewing Giant Bomb videos for the first time on YouTube.

I wouldn't be against the idea. Now that they have unloaded that bandwidth to YouTube and are getting some ad money from them I can't see a good reason not to. Us paying folk still get to use the ad-free and preferable (to me) Whiskey Media player. If there wasn't so much other subscriber content lately my opinion might be different though.

Maybe they're waiting to see how the tube switch and ad deal works out before doing anything else in this matter, I don't know..

I should also point out that I think everyone in this community knows how hard these guys are working on a regular basis, so I don't want anyone to think we are undermining or unappreciative of that at all. The achievements system has been wonky because of all the updates that Microsoft has pushed out, the guides have been an issue for some time, and there are everyday things that pop up that these guys probably have to hotfix on the reg.

@ShiftyMagician said:

When I see hundreds (if not thousands) of individual gamers that are not part of companies making higher quality video footage than a company with a budget, I find it funny that this site still hosts game trailers in which is only available here in a low resolution. They have a Youtube channel - they should just upload all their free videos in all of their resolutions free, because their 'competition' is now a bunch of hobbyists as well as the other gaming sites.

They can use their own custom player to host their premium content and keep it locked as premium members should get rewarded for keeping the site alive, or they can make their player a premium service in itself, moving free videos over to the Youtube player but with all the resolutions like what is being asked by a good portion of the community. However it's only a matter of time before they realise how foolish their current management of the video content really is. At least make game trailers or any content they didn't make be available to all in all resolutions available for free. Don't try to bundle it with the rest as something people have to pay to access. That specific case is the real joke here for me at the moment.

I think that's a very good point. Perhaps it's even an idea to have simply do this with all the trailer stuff, and have the content created by GB hosted on the site in HD. I imagine that when you add it up, all the trailers, official gameplay videos and whatnot they get from publishers add up to quite a bit of bandwith usage. So perhaps by moving that over to Youtube there'll be bandwith to spare, allowing for GB content in HD for all members.

#OccupyGiantBomb

Personally, I don't give a shit. I love the HD video but I don't know the bandwidth load it creates for Giant Bomb or anything like that. It's not for me to decide because I know literally nothing about the technical specifics.

@Milkman said:

#OccupyGiantBomb

Giant Bomb isn't butt-fucking people like the Fed is. Come on, now. Behave.

@jakob187 said

Another thing I noticed, which I felt was a little odd, was that Giant Bomb is the ONLY Whiskey site that is currently pushing stuff out to YouTube. This...seems odd to me as well, but it may just be that YouTube outsourcing is coming down the line for the other sites. I think it's safe for anyone to say that Giant Bomb is the big site for Whiskey Media, so it's a bit more peculiar to me that the staff mentioned outsourcing to YouTube as a way to build the brand...when there are four other brands that could probably use that outsourcing a bit more. Getting brand recognition and bigger audiences for Comic Vine, Screened, Tested, and Anime Vice would be fucking awesome, as they are all sites that I think are well-handled by the folks who run them and deserve more props for the stuff they do. I know there are people that have their opinions on some of them (and by no means is this the place for you to express those opinions please).

Tested, Anime Vice and Comic Vine all have the youtube player and their own youtube channels. Screened is the only one that isn't using the youtube player on the site, and I assume that it's coming at some point in the near future.

@MattyFTM said:

@jakob187 said

Another thing I noticed, which I felt was a little odd, was that Giant Bomb is the ONLY Whiskey site that is currently pushing stuff out to YouTube. This...seems odd to me as well, but it may just be that YouTube outsourcing is coming down the line for the other sites. I think it's safe for anyone to say that Giant Bomb is the big site for Whiskey Media, so it's a bit more peculiar to me that the staff mentioned outsourcing to YouTube as a way to build the brand...when there are four other brands that could probably use that outsourcing a bit more. Getting brand recognition and bigger audiences for Comic Vine, Screened, Tested, and Anime Vice would be fucking awesome, as they are all sites that I think are well-handled by the folks who run them and deserve more props for the stuff they do. I know there are people that have their opinions on some of them (and by no means is this the place for you to express those opinions please).

Tested, Anime Vice and Comic Vine all have the youtube player and their own youtube channels. Screened is the only one that isn't using the youtube player on the site, and I assume that it's coming at some point in the near future.

Well, I'll be damned. I didn't notice it earlier. I've been on about 12 hours of sleep over the last four days, so I'm going to blame my ability to barely stay awake and delete that previous post then.

Or rather...I edited it and took out that particular part. Again, 12 hours of sleep in four days!

I just think it's unreasonable to use youtube with their shotty quality

480p is a reasonable request but taking features away from paid subscribers doesn't make any business sense.

my only complaint as a non premium member is that the videos are in 360p...   480p should be minimum for non HD content.

This whole "discussion" is futile. It's the likable, honest personalities of Whiskey Media that brought it's business to where it is today and what will keep it in the future (unless many of the staff leave) not what "p" your watching their videos at. It's what's inside that counts. You don't see anyone signing up to be a paid subscriber to GameTrailers.

It kind of makes the GB staff's comments on graphical quality pointless, because I can never tell if the graphics are good or not at 360p.

I prefer the lower quality videos because they load quicker, and use less bandwidth. not too fussed about things looking great on my laptop with the cracked screen

if they can give some sort of hd or whatever to everyone without it costing them a lot more, I really don't care. that's not why I subscribed.

"Yo this game looks hella grimmy..."

Really? I couldn't tell with only 360 pixels (I assume that's what the P stands for in 360p). The regular quality on the GB flash player was fine to me which leads me to believe those videos are at least in 480p. Can anyone confirm? I bought 2 monthly subscriptions in my time here and both times I didn't watch the content in HD because it wasn't buffering or working right and also there was serious video corruption in HD videos. HD content on every website except Youtube doesn't work for me and I'm not sure why, so whenever FPS russia or TheCoopMode have a new video I click on 720p. If GB will just post their stuff through Youtube It would be nice to get it in HD, but I'm sure there is business at play here I simply don't understand....

I don't really care about HD. When I'm watching videos on my laptop they all look the same to me but that could just be my poor eyesight. That said I come here to listen to the people talk about games, the actual video is just a bonus in my book. Also SD, HD, sub-SD I can still tell when a game looks hella good even if the video resolution is low.

Thanks for being the voice of us, bro. 
 
I'd love to get a paid membership on this website as soon as I can, but I won't be able to for a while. Money is tight, and I don't have enough money to just get a membership.
 
But being a free user, I think we just get screwed sometimes. There was the case where they almost made the Bombcast a subscriber-only feature. That was total bullshit. There is also the thing about HD video. But what really grinds my gears is that the mobile website is subscriber only. Think about it: IGN, Gamespot, they all have mobile websites. They are also all free to use. But the Giant Bomb mobile website? You have to be a subscriber. That's a step backwards in my opinion. 
 
I think instead of just restricting what free users can use, Giant Bomb needs to give subscribers more features. Yeah, I'm sure Happy Hour and all that is cool, but will that make everybody want to pay $50 a year?

I am a paid subscriber and I don't watch HD. I don't understand why HD matters at all. They should delete the HD content except for big events and possibly trailers, save on overhead, and use those savings to buy hats.

HD can stay, but please give me 480p on Youtube. 360p looks terrible in fullscreen and you can't read small text.

Got to agree with damnboyadvance here: To hide a mobile version of your site behind a credit card check in 2011 is a considerably more dickish and backwards move on behalf of WM; whereas I can understand the "premium" status of HD due to bandwidth and/or prestige, this is actually limiting the usability of the website itself. Binding video quality and availability to a subscription is regular practice. But I've never been asked to pay for a mobile site. I'm not a subscriber and I won't ever be one, and I have no emotional investment in this issue whatsoever. But following the logic behind the argument, the mobile site should be the issue here.

HD video means nothing to me. Seriously. What matters to me is the content. I know and understand the reasons why that's premium stuff.

unacceptable giantbomb... unacceptable

Thanks for being the voice of us, bro. 
 
I'd love to get a paid membership on this website as soon as I can, but I won't be able to for a while. Money is tight, and I don't have enough money to just get a membership.
 
But being a free user, I think we just get screwed sometimes. There was the case where they almost made the Bombcast a subscriber-only feature. That was total bullshit. There is also the thing about HD video. But what really grinds my gears is that the mobile website is subscriber only. Think about it: IGN, Gamespot, they all have mobile websites. They are also all free to use. But the Giant Bomb mobile website? You have to be a subscriber. That's a step backwards in my opinion. 
 
I think instead of just restricting what free users can use, Giant Bomb needs to give subscribers more features. Yeah, I'm sure Happy Hour and all that is cool, but will that make everybody want to pay $50 a year?

I stopped reading about halfway through the irrelevant fawning, but I suspect I agree with you. If video is going to account for the majority of site content then it should be available in HD. If they can't justify that anymore then they should move back towards written content. Which they should do anyway, because 2/3 of Brad, Jeff and Ryan (nobody else counts) are much better behind a keyboard than in front of a camera, imo.

360p is indeed pretty crappy quality by today's standards. Every and any discussion they have about the graphical fidelity of a game is completely pointless for us non-subscribers. I guess I'll have to resort to using Gametrailers now if I want to see how the game actually looks.

Doesn't matter to me if they're HD or not.

I'd like to see more people drop the $5 a month on the site so I'm ok with HD being a perk.

I love supporting the site for $5 a month. I also get to buy kick ass T-shirts from time to time! The little differences once you're a paid subscriber didn't feel like much until that first T-shirt arrived. I strongly recommend becoming a member and checking out the members only store. The T-shirts are awesome. I love the Ryan Narc shirt. Been meaning to buy that for a while.

Cha-Ching, done.

The engineers are still building stuff to make it possible but trailers and publisher-assets will soon be uploaded in HD for all users.

@ZombiePie said:

The engineers are still building stuff to make it possible but trailers and publisher-assets will soon be uploaded in HD for all users.

HD trailers. Great.

Maybe this means that at least 480p is incoming for content people actually want to watch.

@Hockeymask27 said:

The current quality is fine even at full screen. I guess i'm easy to please.

LOL the current quality is far from fine. I have been watching every video in full screen and it looks horrible.

I was suprised when they switched to youtube and saw 360P it´s horrible.

I don't really care that much about the resolution, I just want to use Giant Bomb's video player.  Youtube takes too long to load videos.  I think they should make Youtube the default with an option for the GB player.  Most people wouldn't even notice it, and just stick with Youtube, but the choice would be there for people who do care about it.

Here's my take on it:
-HD should not be free, unless for trailers and other content widely accessible elsewhere
-the standard quality of a non-HD free video should be 480p

I like they changed to Youtube, the player is better than the one they had before, that shit would turn my laptop fan into a jet engine turbine.

But I will say it again, subscriptions for this site are bad and they need to move into ads, thats how the internet works right now. I love these guys but the idea of "supporting" them seems dumb. This is business baby. You can't make it personal or you won't last. So they need to get down to business and reach out and try to establish more relationships with advertisers.

But I will entertain the idea of subscriptions and say they need to step it up for what you pay for. Look at what 50 bucks gets us in the gaming world. A game, usually Best Buy has 10 bucks a new release one or two weeks later. Xbox Live now 60 bucks but easily 48 bucks if you get a code on Amazon. Here, you get videos and while I am sure they work hard on them, some look just cheesy and unprofessional. I am gonna pay to watch someone play an old video game? Yes it is entertaining but not worth paying for really. Not for me. The I love mondays videos need to be changed since I think those are a staple. Ryan rolling his around just looks dumb and in a business sense, not professional looking. I bring up professionalism because these guys get dead serious in reviews. Jeff especially gives a good enthusiastic demeanor and really so do the other guys, so it looks weird to see some of the other stuff that is put at the front of the site. So it really is just about what you get if you pay. I dont see it being much so I am not paying. It may sound like I am critical but I want this site to last and so business has to pick up as JR would say.

@Edin899 said:

@Hockeymask27 said:

The current quality is fine even at full screen. I guess i'm easy to please.

LOL the current quality is far from fine. I have been watching every video in full screen and it looks horrible.

I was suprised when they switched to youtube and saw 360P it´s horrible.

Videos before HD became an option for subscribers and before the switch to YouTube always were in 360p. The current debate is whether or not the switch to Youtube necessitates that the standard video quality be upped.

The engineers are still building stuff to make it possible but trailers and publisher-assets will soon be uploaded in HD for all users.

@Mercot said:

@damnboyadvance

Thanks for being the voice of us, bro.

I'd love to get a paid membership on this website as soon as I can, but I won't be able to for a while. Money is tight, and I don't have enough money to just get a membership.

But being a free user, I think we just get screwed sometimes. There was the case where they almost made the Bombcast a subscriber-only feature. That was total bullshit. There is also the thing about HD video. But what really grinds my gears is that the mobile website is subscriber only. Think about it: IGN, Gamespot, they all have mobile websites. They are also all free to use. But the Giant Bomb mobile website? You have to be a subscriber. That's a step backwards in my opinion.

I think instead of just restricting what free users can use, Giant Bomb needs to give subscribers more features. Yeah, I'm sure Happy Hour and all that is cool, but will that make everybody want to pay $50 a year?

I'm not sure how one can be screwed while enjoying a free service. You want subs to get more features than free users, making it worth the $50 a year, but wouldn't mobile access fall into this category? Would that bring you in as a subscriber if you had the means? (I'm not making light of your financial limitations by any stretch.) To reiterate (as I posted earlier) I'm happy to pay for extra content as long as GB keeps producing unique, quality stuff (hey, where else can I get periodic eps of Jar Time for fifty bones a year?). HD is still THE way to view GB videos, and it was the initial draw for me. If opening HD content to free users inspires more people to subscribe for extra content, then that seems like an okay deal for all.

Not being a mobile site user at all, aren't they literally stopping people accessing the mobile site if they aren't premium? Someone correct me if I am wrong.