Non-premium members getting just 360p videos?

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

Do you walk into McDonalds (since you're probably a fat American) and demand free burgers because you used their toilet? You seem like an entitled douchebag so you probably do.

Sorry, a lot of us aren't 14 year-olds that live off of our mommies and daddies like your attitude certainly suggests.

What? This makes no sense. If I was a 14 year old, what money would I have to spend on website subscriptions?

Think before you type so I don't have to read drivel like this again, please.

@GunslingerPanda said:

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

Do you walk into McDonalds (since you're probably a fat American) and demand free burgers because you used their toilet? You seem like an entitled douchebag so you probably do.

Sorry, a lot of us aren't 14 year-olds that live off of our mommies and daddies like your attitude certainly suggests.

What? This makes no sense. If I was a 14 year old, what money would I have to spend on website subscriptions?

Think before you type so I don't have to read drivel like this again, please.

Right over your head it seems, so I'll just sit back on this one. I already stated my opinion so I really have nothing else to add to this conversation.

I'm not sure using Youtube comments are the best compass for what Whiskey Media should be doing...

@Swick said:

I'm not sure using Youtube comments are the best compass for what Whiskey Media should be doing...

God those youtube comments are AWFUL. "Quick look? Lewl 50 minutes is not quick!"

I want non-subscribers to get HD because it's not costing them anything.

But it would be much better if the non-subscribers took 5 dollars out of their pocket every month and gave it to Whiskey and that would solve your HD problem.

I am a paying member who has nothing to contribute to this discussion because it does not relate to me in any way, as other paying members should also do!

I wonder why it's 360 and not 480 but youtube seriously works in mysterious ways.
 
But if $5 a month is too much, you have bigger issues than this to complain about. Go out and join your local 99% protest.

I wonder why it's 360 and not 480 but youtube seriously works in mysterious ways.  But if $5 a month is too much, you have bigger issues than this to complain about. Go out and join your local 99% protest.

@artgarcrunkle said:

@crusader8463 said:

@LordJezo: Not to my knowledge they haven't. To me this whole thin just feels like another one of their ideas that they throw out there without thinking about it in any meaningful way and then hope the community just bends over and takes it. I hope they realize that they have moved past the point of being a small site with a community that's made up of nothing but people that worship the ground they walk on, and believe that they can do no wrong, and now have a strong portion of the community that will actually call them on their dumb ideas.

I see more people dickriding GB than anything else, so I don't know about that.

That's because that small bunch are still there, but I think that the largest part of the community is the ones that come to the site and never post in the comments/forums who view this as nothing more then a website and will base whether or not they come back on the quality of it as a site and not their love of the staff; which up until recently was the main reason the majority of the community came here.

That's just my two cents. Since I started working my time here has basically gone down to just watching a QL every few days. They will do what they want to do, but I just hope they start using that thing between their ears and think future projects through more, because I personally feel that in the last year or so I have seen them do more miss steps then benefits to the site/network.

It was a bit silly even in 2008, when Giant Bomb started. Not having HD videos? What? Why? And not having them now is really beyond silly.

I feel that 720p should be free for everyone, and 1080p should be for subscribers. HD is not something new and exclusive, it is the standard everywhere for couple years now. You just don't think about it anymore, because it is everywhere for free.

Whiskey Media is based on video content and to be offering that awesome video content in this shitty resolution for non paying memebers is a really bad decision.

I think 360p is low, but 480p should be fine for the people that don't pay. 480p is equivalent to the High setting in the Whiskey player and non-subscribers could still use that before the switch to YouTube.

As far as free HD, I think it would be cool, but the crew probably thinks that'd be giving away a premium only feature. Really, I pay because I want this site to keep going seeing as it's the only video game website I go to anymore besides Kotaku and Joystiq (news only) and I would guess other preemies are like that too, but then again I'm sure someone will complain if HD is given away for free. I would say keep downloading premium only, but I'm sure now that GB stuff is on youtube, someone can just go through other means of getting the raw flv and convert it to mp4 or something.

While I fully support non-premium users getting access to video content above 360p, I think the tech team has a lot of other outstanding issues to resolve first. Highest on my list of those would be videos uploaded in progressive streaming. It's totally ludicrous that every other video uploaded by the guys still has the progressive streaming on it broken. No other site has this kind of problem with this kind of persistence, and I don't pay to use those sites. I do here, so fix the goddamn progressive streaming tech guys, and I don't want to hear any bullshit excuses. Other websites can do it, and so can you.

Giant Bomb is a subscription based site now. One of the premium features is high quality video. To me this makes sense. 360p isn't awesome but it's good enough imo considering that it's free. Everyone can bring up that it's not the standard, but hell, GB is not a standard site. It's a subscription based site. They have their own quirky way of doing things and this is one of them.

If you love the content so much that you want to see it all in HQ, SUBSCRIBE!!!!! If you don't like that not being a subscriber locks you out of content and features, goto another site.

Apparently the videos have always been in 360p, so I honestly don't know why they seem so much worse now that they are on Youtube. Maybe it's all in my head.

Like the guy above me said, Giant Bomb is a subscription-based site now. Our opinions sort of don't matter. Really though, as long as the Bombcasts stay awesome, does the rest of the site really matter?

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

Do you walk into McDonalds (since you're probably a fat American) and demand free burgers because you used their toilet? You seem like an entitled douchebag so you probably do.

Sorry, a lot of us aren't 14 year-olds that live off of our mommies and daddies like your attitude certainly suggests.

What? This makes no sense. If I was a 14 year old, what money would I have to spend on website subscriptions?

Think before you type so I don't have to read drivel like this again, please.

Right over your head it seems, so I'll just sit back on this one. I already stated my opinion so I really have nothing else to add to this conversation.

I have to laugh because America is not the fattest country in the world, yet people keep trying to state that it is.

@SomeJerk said:

I wonder why it's 360 and not 480 but youtube seriously works in mysterious ways.  But if $5 a month is too much, you have bigger issues than this to complain about. Go out and join your local 99% protest.

My only option is the yearly because I can only pay with PayPal, and no, I can't afford that right now. Whenever I can. I will. 

@SomeJerk said:

@CL60 said:

@SomeJerk said:

I wonder why it's 360 and not 480 but youtube seriously works in mysterious ways. But if $5 a month is too much, you have bigger issues than this to complain about. Go out and join your local 99% protest.

My only option is the yearly because I can only pay with PayPal, and no, I can't afford that right now. Whenever I can. I will.

Had no idea PayPal worked like that, and holy crap that sucks. I myself can only afford monthlies with the pressure I'm living under.

Yeah but..

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

:P

Well I find it a bit disappointing only because my Internet is iffy at times and I enjoy the Youtube Player because you can just pause it and it loads all up unlike the Whiskey Media Player where as after 30 minutes, it needs to restart.

So I can see why non-paying members wouldn't like this!

@sickVisionz: that's a great idea. everyone who's not willing to pay up front: go to another site! For sure that's the idea WhiskeyMedia and GiantBomb must have been when they made these last changes. That's why they wanted to get some visibility on youtube, to state clearly once more to the rest of the world that if you don't pay you just have to GTFO. That will be a success...

Thank god, your attitude is shared by a minority of GB subscriber and users. I'm pretty confident in saying that it is not certantly shared by the staff, as it's clear that they wanted to create a "largish" site, while the seem to have ended up shooting their own feet.. I'm sure they are working out a solution on a reasonable middle ground that could make everyone satisfied, and then we will forget about this whole incident.

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

Do you walk into McDonalds (since you're probably a fat American) and demand free burgers because you used their toilet? You seem like an entitled douchebag so you probably do.

Sorry, a lot of us aren't 14 year-olds that live off of our mommies and daddies like your attitude certainly suggests.

What? This makes no sense. If I was a 14 year old, what money would I have to spend on website subscriptions?

Think before you type so I don't have to read drivel like this again, please.

Right over your head it seems, so I'll just sit back on this one. I already stated my opinion so I really have nothing else to add to this conversation.

I have to laugh because America is not the fattest country in the world, yet people keep trying to state that it is.

Amazing derailment of thread. This really isn't an issue of whether or not the subscription is worth it or supporting the site, the point that's really being made is that now that the videos are being hosted on YouTube, there should be at least 480p(still SD) offered as a standard since YouTube hosts HD videos for free. For all of you claiming that non-subscribers don't want to support the site, unlocking that higher res videos won't actually hurt their bandwidth because, y'know, it's hosted on YouTube.

Video has always been 360p. The compression on youtube is shitty. Their 360p is worse than the 360p than this website. The HD on giantbomb is better than what HD would lok like on youtube because youtube compresses giantbomb's compression

The staff have made it pretty clear they are willing to alienate non-premium members, the only sensible thing is to take GB off your adblock white list and watch videos on other sites instead.

After watching yesterday's Radio show I understand that everyone will be getting HD video pretty soon.

There was quite a bit of discussion on this on the WM radio show last night.  A resolution is on the way that people should be happy with.  No pun intended.

@Liber said:

After watching yesterday's Radio show I understand that everyone will be getting HD video pretty soon.

That is what they said right? I was half paying attention to it but it seems this is the way.

@artgarcrunkle: You should really listen to the latest Radio Show. They explain exactly what happened with Youtube and why the video quality is so bad (note: it's Youtube's fault). Also you will all most likely receive 720p video for free in the near future.

@Enigma777: Or non-premium will have to deal with 720p on youtube....however that quality of video looks like

@Dany: Yea, that's what I meant. I guess I should have put the 720p in quotations.

@Enigma777: Thanks for the heads up but I've only given them money through advertising which isn't enough for them to allow me to access that content :)

@Enigma777: Oh wow. this is really great to hear. I just wanted to say that I'd be fine with HD videos on youtube even though I'm paying. If there is no stress on GB's bandwidth there is no reason to have low res videos.

It's good to hear they understand the complaints with the poor video compression from youtube.

I don't mind them switching to youtube, in fact it makes sense,

but the quality did decrease from what was originally provided by the site itself,

which obviously went against what they said about not taking anything away from non-subs.

also, it doesn't represent the site in a good light either, if they were hoping for new people to

find the site through youtube i imagine quite a few people would look at the video quality and turn off pretty quickly

i think 720 for everyone and 1080 for subscribers sounds good, even 480p or whatever the equivalent was before

but 720 would be great, and would really bring the site up to the level of video quality employed by pretty much every other gaming site

Im sure it was 480p before but I dont mind anymore.  I kind of cared after I went on Screened and they had better quality videos but its ok, you gotta do what you gotta do

@RockAction: They talked extensively about this subject on the radio show. They said the intention of the youtube change was to both lessen their bandwidth costs, as well as bring in a new crowd of people through youtube. They said that both of these have been successes although Dave and Vinny agree that video quality on youtube is shit.

Resolution on Giant Bomb and youtube are both identical at 360p, it just happens that youtube does bad shit to video compression. The only thing holding them back from upping that resolution for non premium members is that HD video was initially billed as one of the bullet points for subscribers. Taking that away from us and giving higher quality video to everyone would kind of mean some people would feel the need to stop paying because all they wanted was HD.

Also Vinny said everything they record is natively only 720p, so they don't really have the option of giving 1080 content to anyone. They did conclude that changes were going to be made for the youtube stuff in the future.

I hope that all makes sense.

I don't mind the quality...

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Still_I_Cry said:

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

@Napalm said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

Pay up, bitches.

Do you walk into McDonalds (since you're probably a fat American) and demand free burgers because you used their toilet? You seem like an entitled douchebag so you probably do.

Sorry, a lot of us aren't 14 year-olds that live off of our mommies and daddies like your attitude certainly suggests.

What? This makes no sense. If I was a 14 year old, what money would I have to spend on website subscriptions?

Think before you type so I don't have to read drivel like this again, please.

Right over your head it seems, so I'll just sit back on this one. I already stated my opinion so I really have nothing else to add to this conversation.

I have to laugh because America is not the fattest country in the world, yet people keep trying to state that it is.

America hasn't collectively lost weight or improved its health at all, other parts of the world are just gaining more weight. There is nothing to laugh about.

Oh, "The percentage of adults who are obese hasn't increased much over the past 10 years after several decades of skyrocketing growth, an indication that America's obesity epidemic is finally starting to level off, according to a landmark government analysis released Wednesday."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-01-13-obesity-rates_N.htm

So, this may suggest some form of improvement.

I like your argument style. Asserting without sources.

Life expectancy is also increasing (which suggests improvements of some kind)

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+in+us+statistics

"Life expectancy in the United States has been on the rise for a decade, increasing 1.4 years — from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The life expectancy data, compiled by the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics, are based on nearly 90 percent of the death certificates filed in the United States.

Doctors say that not only is lifespan increasing, but more important, the “active” lifespan is increasing as well.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/us-life-expectancy-at-all-time-high/

All of the data I saw suggested improvements in health.

Now I have something to laugh about, your assertions. Thanks!

:)

@the_OFFICIAL_jAPanese_teaBAG said:

Im sure it was 480p before but I dont mind anymore. I kind of cared after I went on Screened and they had better quality videos but its ok, you gotta do what you gotta do

They say video resolution has always been 640x360 since the dawn of the website.

@thebroken said:

@RockAction: They talked extensively about this subject on the radio show. They said the intention of the youtube change was to both lessen their bandwidth costs, as well as bring in a new crowd of people through youtube. They said that both of these have been successes although Dave and Vinny agree that video quality on youtube is shit.

Resolution on Giant Bomb and youtube are both identical at 360p, it just happens that youtube does bad shit to video compression. The only thing holding them back from upping that resolution for non premium members is that HD video was initially billed as one of the bullet points for subscribers. Taking that away from us and giving higher quality video to everyone would kind of mean some people would feel the need to stop paying because all they wanted was HD.

Also Vinny said everything they record is natively only 720p, so they don't really have the option of giving 1080 content to anyone. They did conclude that changes were going to be made for the youtube stuff in the future.

I hope that all makes sense.

Thanks, though i wasn't confused about anything just wanted to say i'm glad they are aware of the poor video quality

my point was that the video quality noticeably lessened since the move to youtube which went against what they originally stated in that nothing would be taken away from anyone non subs.

and i understand and appreciate their reluctance to make HD video for everyone as it is a key feature of a subscription for some (and along with the added content, for myself in the future) but if you compare it to other websites HD is standard,

obviously this site is different in that it is presumably more about subscribers which is fine but i just thought its something to consider - although i didn't know about the video capture at 720p so 1080p doesn't make sense which is why i suggested raising the quality to 480, which would account for the compression caused by uploading to youtube.

either way i'm just glad they are aware of the reduced video quality (its nothing terrible and i'd be happy to remain with it but i like to watch the videos full screen and i find it pretty much unwatchable - and with reduced time because of uni i've stopped watching videos as much)

If it saves Whiskey some money why not just offer HD to everybody via YouTube and just eliminate the house video player altogether?

Subscribers can still download the original source material. Everybody wins.

360p youtube: http://i.imgur.com/uNgfP.png

High quality in the GB player: http://i.imgur.com/ve3QQ.png

They look the same to me. Stop complaining when you won't even support the site.

edit: Let me amend that. They look almost the same to me. The difference is there, but subtle enough that complaining when you won't even shell out $5 a month (skip a happy meal or two.) to support a site you like.

They also said there's no way you'll see 480 ever, because it and 520 are dumb made-up resolutions.

Dont bitch if you cant pay to support the site. Until you support the site then dont complain about things as YOU HAVE NO reason to complain since you have not invested Anything into it.

I'm kind of disgusted with myself for trying to talk with sycophantic fanboys like McShank who don't have anything thoughtful to say but plenty of weird angry attacks aimed towards people who like the same website he likes. I mean, a guy tried to prove 360p and the GB player in high quality were the same by posting non-fullscreen screenshots of a video :|

Shelby Bonnie invested 2.5 million into Whiskey Media, the average employee salary is 72k (For those of you living off mom and dad right now, let me say 72k is a decent living) if you can find more accurate numbers post them so I know I'm wrong. But the numbers I could find tell me that Whiskey is doing pretty well and could afford to throw a bone to the dedicated fans who, like it or not, contribute to the site's popularity and income.

Paying members are not shareholders, you haven't invested anything into this site. You paid a fee to enjoy content, which is obviously perfectly acceptable.

Edit: Forgot to include that they secured 1.5 million back when they were trying to start Political Base, but I don't know how much of that money got folded into the current websites.

@Syntax12345 said:

360p youtube: http://i.imgur.com/uNgfP.png

High quality in the GB player: http://i.imgur.com/ve3QQ.png

They look the same to me. Stop complaining when you won't even support the site.

edit: Let me amend that. They look almost the same to me. The difference is there, but subtle enough that complaining when you won't even shell out $5 a month (skip a happy meal or two.) to support a site you like.

That isn't fullscreen...Fail.

Everyone is going have 720p on Youtube, why are you still arguing about 360p shit ?

@Liber: Something to do until Skyrim gets some patches and a price drop :)

@artgarcrunkle: I am waiting for a price drop and I am lvl 15, the internet is great.

Something that is becoming evident from this discussion is that there's a large amount of "fanboys" in the subscriber community. I swear I never thought of GB in those terms and otherwise I always considered this site quite relaxed for internet standards. Instead some of these guys have serious anger issues....

Here's one of the late examples:

@McShank said:

Dont bitch if you cant pay to support the site. Until you support the site then dont complain about things as YOU HAVE NO reason to complain since you have not invested Anything into it.

Thank god there are people who knows how to reason, maybe because they are a little more mature.

@hejklyscha said:

Paying member here. I dont pay to get HD, i pay to get the extra content. I see HD as a standard today and it should be available to all.

Edit: Actually, I AM paying for HD content. I watch it on my tv and anything less than 720p looks bad. But i still think it shouldn't be a feature for paying members, it should be free.

I, for example, think that they can easily give 480p content to non-subs, I get the idea that you have to give a treat to paying costumers. Trailers though should be in their original resolution. I mean, they could even spare the time of re-encoding the video in 360p.

By the way,

@Syntax12345 said:

360p youtube: http://i.imgur.com/uNgfP.png

High quality in the GB player: http://i.imgur.com/ve3QQ.png

They look the same to me. Stop complaining when you won't even support the site.

edit: Let me amend that. They look almost the same to me. The difference is there, but subtle enough that complaining when you won't even shell out $5 a month (skip a happy meal or two.) to support a site you like.

Even embedded, those two screens are evidently different. I mean look at the muddy floor, the hair... The youtube player is a mess in 360p. They are not the same at all. Then add to that the fact that in motion it could even look worse. I think you easily proved the point that 360p youtube is way worse than the previous GB player.

@Liber: Gosh I hope you're not suggesting what I think you are...Robert Altman needs that 60 bucks to buy Lynda Carter a new Mercedes and facelift.