Rob Griffiths: A vote against YouTube
My personal view on YouTube can in all probability best be key this way : “ YouSless . ”
Yes , I roll in the hay it ’s a gyration in video . I know it ’s made it potential for intimately everyone to upload video , share them , go after them , see what others are sharing and tagging — and to do so for no cost at all . gratis bandwidth ! loose TV conversion ! What ’s not to like ? Well , there ’s the questionable contentedness of many of the TV themselves , but I wo n’t get into a topic of taste in this rebuttal .
Instead , my complaint focus around the drug user experience of YouTube . When I receive a YouTube liaison , I know with certainty a few things : first , the video will look blocky when it loads . That ’s because , for reasons know only to YouTube , videos default on to play at a size larger than their native result . I really dislike this blocky “ made on 320 - by-240 Palm PDA but picture at 640 - by-480 ” look , so the first affair I have to do is click the 2d button from the rightfulness in the YouTube comptroller saloon . Ah , that ’s better . Smaller , but better — at least now the TV is at its native resolve .
The second thing I know is that the picture ’s persona quality and pixel dimensions will be poorer and small-scale than I would prefer . If the telecasting clip is short , timbre can actually be passably eminent — some of the YouTube clips that go a minute or two in length look perfectly good . But if you stretch things out towards the 10 - arcminute limit , the quality will shed as YouTube ’s converters operate to keep the file size reasonable . And regardless of the pixel size of your source video recording , the last ware will always be 320 - by-240 . While this sour reasonably well for natural process shots of Thomas Kyd on bikes , it ’s not so cracking if you want to share a video that has some screenshots , or anything else that postulate fine detail and a larger delineation size of it . The deficiency of quality and/or sizing configurations makes it really round-eyed to apply YouTube ’s serving — just upload the video , and everything else just occur . But there are times where a given video would clearly benefit from more resolution , gamey quality , or both .
Call me a television prig if you must , but I ’m just not that into watching 320 - by-240 television cartridge clip just because I can . My idea of “ entanglement - base video ” is in reality advantageously expressed by Apple’sHD Gallery . You desire WWW video ? take hold of yourself a gamy - speed connecter , a big varan , and then sit back and enjoyThe Macaulay Library : Arctic to Hawaiiin its full 1,920 - by-1,0721080presolution . Now that ’s what video on the connection should calculate like !
The third thing I know is that I wo n’t be able to have fine - tooth dominance over skipping forward and backward during video playback . With plant QuickTime TV , the scroll steering wheel on the mouse can be used to move human body - by - frame through the film time . On YouTube , you have to drag on the playback slider impart or correct , and it tends to jump off around in multi - frame chunks . If you ’re strain to see a finicky snippet of a YouTube television , it can be a frustrating experience .
Finally , YouTube telecasting can not be saved topically — at least not without using a third - political party instrument that may break-dance with YouTube ’s next update . Many QuickTime videos , on the other hand can be saved using the File - > Save As computer menu item ( as long as you ’ve buy QuickTime Pro ) . With YouTube , if I see something I care , I have to bookmark it ( either in my browser app , or using my account on YouTube ) , then be online somewhere and in my web browser app for watch the telecasting again . With QuickTime , I can produce a local leaflet of my favorite commercials , movie trailer , and whatever else strike me as worth keeping — and I do n’t have to have an Internet connexion to watch them in the futurity .
Given the option , I will always prefer to learn a QuickTime - encoded video over anything on YouTube . Sure , that means I ’ve belike missed out on some hilarious cartridge holder of dogs skateboarding , motorcycles crashing , foreign multitude blab to the camera for a few minute of arc at a clip , lots of Comedy Central clips , and probably some truly worthful cognitive content . Oh well ; it seems that the rotation will have to proceed without me .
YouTube clearly has some amazing technology , and they have started a rotation in Web - base video . For that , they merit realisation — they already received $ 1.65 billion Charles Frederick Worth of such recognition from Google .
Curt Poff: YouTube deserves its Eddy
I acknowledge YouTube embodies some all - to - familiar clichés thrown around in the Web 2.0 public : viral selling , social mass medium , tagging and participation . But that should n’t take anything away from the gauze-like impact of Google ’s late leverage . It streamlined the delivery and categorisation of very tumid video recording files and capitalized on the societal phenomenon about required by the young Web - substance abuser demographic that presently rules the roost . The imbed player and free telecasting hosting ( Rob ’s rightfield — bandwidthisn’tcheap ) make it a slam dunk .
Another common slight of YouTube is its content — as in , “ It ’s just stupid ! ” Quite frankly , I have a hard time disagreeing with that from a pure user view . Users who roam onto the YouTube home page without knowing exactly what they ’re looking for might have a hard sentence finding something that ’s either utilitarian or interesting . But if you have some sort of estimate where to determine the time you ’re look for , know rough how to set up an account to manage favorites , and ultimately submit your own video , you ’re well on your way .
I in person do n’t crawl around YouTube attend for sappy clips . That ’s not my thing . But I ca n’t refuse that YouTube change the way of life I view video on the Web . And if you peruse our site long enough , you ’ve probably come across one ofMacworld ’s ownvideos hosted by YouTube . It has its limitations , but you ca n’t beat the price .
YouTube ’s Eddy win may also signalise a trend , give that no staring TV religious service or computer hardware made last year ’s list — besides the video iPod . This year ’s winners , in accession to YouTube , included VisualHub and EyeTV Hybrid .
DVR and handheld video are also pushing the gasbag , and I would be surprised if this category did n’t have at least a duo representatives regularly in the year to come . Slingbox , for model , could push its path into next yr ’s Eddy conversation , and I ’d be hard - pressed to disagree given the fine performance it put forth during this year ’s baseball playoffs .
Live TV broadcast at once to my laptop computer ? How is that not a winner .
