Youtube Video Use

First off I am a Web Designer & Developer and a fan of Giantbomb so I know both sides of the coin when it comes to using and building websites.

Youtube videos by GB Actually is a bloody fantastic idea!

- The video player these days is good, it even matches the style of GB!

- The implementation of the video into the site has been spot on

- Youtube video will help with SEO (Search Engine stuff) and traffic

- Comments and links from facebook back to the site

- The player seems to work lots better for me, faster loading, can skip better and the issues with the Amazon servers, pausing etc goes away with this.

- Loads of benfits for Giantbomb

There are a few more good reasons and it was a great decision overall and I hope it saves money for the GB team.

Now my issue:

Money is tight for me and I will buck up the cash for paid, I love the site. When I can I will. Paid stuff - Great, help BC make money! Yep. I live in NZ so the cost is a little higher so I will when I can.

HD video stuff is as a paid member - Yep! fine, np.

BUT....

When you have a quick look or a video review ( Uncharted 3 and MW3 as examples) and while I have seen fine 320p Videos on youtube I really am having issues with a number of the videos from GB that are through youtube.

Paid of free a video goes up of a quick look for example you want to look at the game. When I was hearing "this game looks amazing" and when your looking at the video it looks like a PSP game, it just sucks. MW3 video looks CRAP, really does, Jeff looks all pixelated and it looks like old videos from the early days at gamespot.

Really is a step backward in my view in that sense, Full HD as paid is fine, but I bet I am not the only one needing to go elsewhere to view videos of games just to get a better quality. The negative of the youtube is you can click to youtube, see related stuff and go watch them in better quality.

That for me will start driving people away from elements of giantbomb, tested and co rather then attracting them or gaining interest into being a Paid Member, It is putting me off and I love the team and site.

I know the reasons as mentioned why go youtube, overall I am all for it but I think GB could re-think a few things here.

- Quicklooks and game reviews: Would be really good if these by default there were just higher quality. 420p maybe?

- Mailbags, misc videos etc - can be 360p NP.

- Game Trailers - If GB is going youtube they may as well link to these preview videos directly to the publishers/developers youtube videos as they put them up these days. Then they dont have to upload and we can view at 1080 etc.

Basically I think things could be mixed up a bit, where it is a bit more important the video comes out well, little bit higher quality etc, Maybe also how it is converted and uploaded to youtube is off and could be improved on?

Seeing comments complaining about them, MW3 already has a few comments about the quality straight the way and I can only see it grow.

Not a huge poster, up for some flames I am sure but I think I am raising some valid conerns here.

If Other media / Game sites can offer 1080p Trailers (Battlefield 3 expansion pack video as an example) and even smaller sites et can upload videos for at least their tailers and those resolutions and all they all free sites, I am sure things can be improved here.

Yea I think it's a popular opinion that the Quick Looks should be 480p and Trailers should be full HD, as it would definitely make GB more appealing to newcomers. I'm ok with 360p Quick Looks and trailers for some games as I'm watching them on my laptop but for the Triple-A games, I tend to seek out at least 720p versions.

Yeah I think 480p might be the way to go. GB videos looks worse on youtube, even though they're suppose to be same res. as the ones in the original player on the site.. Guess the compression is worse on youtube.

I love the idea of using youtube. The only problem is that some of the videos from screened have been removed, which kind of sucks. I dont know how much that happens with the other sites, but that sucks for screened.

I prefer YouTube over the crappy player the website was using before, however the lack of HD is frankly idiotic and is only damaging them.

It feels like a case of nickel and diming people as bandwidth is no longer an issue now that YouTube is being used.

Edit: I doubt I would even bother watching the videos on this site in HD, but I still think it's stupid.

Youtube videos run better for me than the original player, so I'm cool with it.

The videos are ugly, but my computer couldn't handle HD even if I did buy a subscription, so that's no big deal.

GB's response thus far:

If the image didn't show, basically..not a single fuck was given.

:(

@thenexus: you are right, about everything. a site that has its market share based on innovative use of maintaining a vibrant community and prides itself on making long form videos that people watch all the way through should not make decisions that confuse that userbase.

when you choose to be as transparent as whiskey is (and they have always been extremely transparent) you cannot just decide to take you video content quality back to 2008. it doesn't make any sense to the user, and because we are all pretty smart, we have already figured out that the bandwidth issues cannot be the main reason there is no 480p

Giant bomb operates at such a niche, that they almost always are perceived as something other than other game sites, meaning they are rarely compared to sites that have way higher budgets. this is an extremely nice position to be in (as a marketeer i know exactly how hard that is). When making a call like 360p you open yourself up to scrutiny; people will think why can site A and site B give me this while giant bomb cannot.

If Dave would just make a blog post explaining why whiskey made that call, like the community 'expects' him to do, the situation would be more contained than it is now.

Personally, I find Giant Bomb's video player to be really resource-intensive, always slowing down my computer, compared to the superior Youtube player. In fact, what's ended up annoying me is how I have to, for premium videos and HD videos, use the Giant Bomb player, when the youtube one is far more convenient for me.

I've noticed old screened.com videos now showing up as 720p, I was checking out some old Besties and was pleasantly surprised by the upgrade. Maybe they are bringing up the quality for other WM sites too?

It seems Everyone agrees using youtube for a variety of reasons is a good thing, The video quality on offer at the moment though seems a concern for all.

Can I ask the paid guys how it works for you when you view a video based on youtube on the site?

Your logged in and you have the youtube video and you have other control options? Or you still get the GB player and higher quality etc? If you do get the youtube player do you have higher quality selected by default?

They probably transitioned to youtube because they probably got partnered and can now make revenue off of each video.

Before you hit play you can choose between Streaming, Progressive, HTML5, and Youtube. If you pick youtube it's the same 360p that everyone else gets. When you pick the other options you have the option of different video qualities including HD.

@Marz said:

They probably transitioned to youtube because they probably got partnered and can now make revenue off of each video.

There are lots of reasons, some I mentioned in my first post and I do not blame them or complaining about any of them. Overall as I keep saying its a bloody good idea. I think just think the execution just needs tweaking.

Other Media sites do it and seem to be able to offer better quality.

Interesting comments about Screened etc, being on youtube you could run into more copyright issues in terms of people reporting and the random consideration that your videos show to much footage as the Media Mogal lawyers are constantly trolling sites like youtube to pull things off. So even when you have permission they just get yanked first asked questions later.

For Comic Vine and Screened you may see that being a common occurrence.

Is anyone here savvy to the standard Youtube Partners agreement?

The reason I ask is, I've noticed a lot of long form videos on Youtube (1hr+) are 360p only. Now, this could just be down to users compressing videos so that they upload faster, but I have a feeling it might be a restriction enforced by Youtube themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpuKBnjN8E&feature=feedu

Just one example of the comments all being said on youtube which really not what anyone wants to see :(

@Anthony said:

Before you hit play you can choose between Streaming, Progressive, HTML5, and Youtube. If you pick youtube it's the same 360p that everyone else gets. When you pick the other options you have the option of different video qualities including HD.

Cool thanks, Wonder if you just went all youtube (As it plays in IOS devices anyway for example) and through the API only show / set the resolution on your site depending on your parameters and on youtube those video resolutions not public. Never worked with youtube in that regard so I not know about that. Vimeo paid service has these sorts of controls.

So the change has made it so free members only get to watch low quality videos on the site?

Everything now being 360p is killing my eyes.

@LordJezo said:

So the change has made it so free members only get to watch low quality videos on the site?

Everything now being 360p is killing my eyes.

The thing is the default video has always been 360p. The issue has been that for a lot of the videos the transition to youtube has caused them to be go really bad.

I been going through the giantbomb videos as well as a lot of other game videos by other media sites posted on youtube.

There are plenty of videos on youtube at 360p that look fine to semi decent. The odd GB one even looks fine. What ever it is, from the source file to the 360p version it is converting bad. Always the case you need to use a good source so the scaled back stuff comes out ok, but we of course are not Vinny and team so I not sure of the process.

A lot of stuff game wise though starts at 480p, modern screen sizes and the new youtube offering the size options it does the norm for youtube videos will soon be that one size up and a number of gaming video outfits are already doing 480p minimum.

I just think it is a matter of the GB team to nail the way its uploaded to youtube and then comes out at 360p. Trailers should offer all resolutions as there is no bandwidth issues for GB in that regard. It would be nice to have some of the bigger quick looks & games at higher resolutions, mailbags etc can be low.

Just needs a good balance.

@Zaph said:

Is anyone here savvy to the standard Youtube Partners agreement?

The reason I ask is, I've noticed a lot of long form videos on Youtube (1hr+) are 360p only. Now, this could just be down to users compressing videos so that they upload faster, but I have a feeling it might be a restriction enforced by Youtube themselves.

I don't know, I think it's just to upload faster. I've watched 3 hour specials on some channels and they were at 720 (or whatever it is).

YES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EoD0exxMw&feature=feedu

Brilliant, great, fantastic.

Thanks BC Team, I can see the game and brads excellent review makes me want to buy the game.