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Google Video Not Ready for Prime Time?
elfguy writes "Ars Technica has a piece on the Google Video Store, and their opinion is that it seems a little rushed to market. The interface is very bad, with paid and free videos mixed together. While free videos can be viewed in Flash on any platform, their paid DRM'ed videos require a Windows program, and the page tells you the available formats only after you purchase it." From the article: "As I pointed out in my coverage of the keynote, for all of its evangelization of open standards, Google has done an about-face with the video store. Not only are the videos protected by DRM, but Google has gone and rolled its own home-grown solution instead of using one of the current solutions. On one level, that makes sense: Apple doesn't share its DRM, and Microsoft is Google's biggest competition. However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge."
Google is going to pound "new" technology after "new" technology at us, so prepare yourself for some that might not be useful or need polishing. I would blame this on the fact that: From this article and I think that would explain why we get so many premature ideas thrown at us as Google consumers.
As for the "too many flavors of DRM," when have these companies ever played nicely together? After all, several competing products that do the same thing are supposed to be healthy for capitalism, so be happy you have a choice to pick which DRM restricts what you can do. Multiple DRMs can only benefit you, the consumer. I'm joking, of course.
So some software was released without sufficient end user testing. It's not like there were any flipper babies as a result.
There weren't any flipper babies, right?
You do know how much I hate flipper babies!
My work here is dung.
..... Their "Do No Evil" mantra by coming up with such a crappy UI and yet another DRM?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
What part of beta do these people not get?
I wish there were even MORE flavors of DRM. That gives us more choices to not care about...
Always infringing upon my Rights! What? This has nothing to do with Rights online or otherwise? Well damn them anyway...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
. The interface is very bad, with paid and free videos mixed together. While free videos can be viewed in Flash on any platform, their paid DRM'ed videos require a Windows program, and the page tells you the available formats only after you purchase it.
:) )
The interface isnt bad, its just simple (which is good in my books). There are links which let you view only the free/paid content or both. The search works pretty well.You could call the interface minimalitic but what else did you expect from Google ? The DRM (working on Win only) is something they should work on (or lets hope eliminate all together
It's not just the fact that it doesn't look pretty.
1- When you buy the video, you are told "requires Windows XP and an Internet connection". You only find out AFTER buying it which format it comes in.
2- When you buy the video, you buy the right to stream it only. If you try to download the video, it will only download a small file and STILL stream the actual video from Google, so you cannot view it offline.
3- Because of the special DRM, there is no way to put paid Google videos on iPod or other mobile devices.
Look over there at the horizon. I think I see an E. And is that a V slowly coming up behind it?
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Consider that the average consumer doesn't really understand the larger issues surrounding incompatible DRM formats and policies -- perhaps Google is exacerbating the "DRM fragmentation" issues inherent in today's marketplace to make a point, and they're willing to spend some political capital ("mindshare", or perhaps "brand value") to educate the consumer.
For the record, no, I don't work at Google, or Microsoft. Just a free thinker...
Why would google go for a DRM that exists and people already know how to hack. Perhaps Google's approach will be a little better than others. Maybe not. But when it comes to DRM, I think each company should be able to use or create any DRM they want. That makes it a little harder for hackers to break the DRM since there are so many different ones.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, Flipper Baby of Goo-gle. No one but he has flippers for feet.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I love Google, but I am tired of this 'it's in BETA' excuse. They have had stuff in beta for years it seems. Look at their news and email services... they are still in beta! So if problems occur, they can just blame it on being in beta?!?!? I think not.
http://religiousfreaks.com/may just make it clear to all that DRM isn't going to solve Hollywood's perceived problem, and perhaps they need to look at the "problem" again.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The Register had a similar piece yesterday - pretty much the same complaints: "So far, it's just a really crap web site"...
I am not sure what the fuss is about...
:o)
The interface is not all THAT clunky, but releasing in BETA for a very long time is generally what they do for just about everything. The Google search itself was considered beta for, what, close to 3 years... GMail is still beta and they have millions of Gmail users.
Now they big fat wallets - does that mean they will do things differently?
Not likely.
Homer: Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!
What part of beta do these people not get?
Ahh, so you subscribe to Microsoft's definition of "beta", which means that it stays up long enough to do some amount of testing, so lets through it at the customers and let them bang the hell out of it.
Beta does not mean that it is perfect, but beta is supposed to be that step just before it does ship, which means you would not expect any MAJOR issues. Not being able to tell if something is drm'ed or not until after you "purchase" it to me falls into the category of "never should have made it out of alpha, let alone into beta". It shows a complete lack of understanding of the users utilizing the system, and why they will most likely fail (even with their FOTM status) while Apple succeeds (it's all about the user experience).
And the longer Google keep screwing up their plans for a digital media monopoly, the better!
No wonder consumers are rejecting it.
using words like "inflict" and not pointing out that "against the desire of many in congress" also means that there are people in congress in favor tells me the author of this one is pretty biased.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
On one level, that makes sense: Apple doesn't share its DRM, and Microsoft is Google's biggest competition. However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge."
Good! Muddle up the field more. The more confusing this stuff gets for the average consumer, the more they'll become aware of DRM and its potenially adverse repercussions.
If Congress and the electronics lobby were successful, we'd be forced into a crappy DRM scheme with little recourse. More DRM is good for us consumers; we can go elslewhere if the DRM scheme of one provider is horribly crippled.
A unified DRM scheme would no doubt include some form of hardware "Trusted Device" nonsense that would make life needlessly frustrating. Companies have the right to protect their products and services, but we certianly deserve the freedom to walk away and try some other firm's DRM. Hopefully one that is minimally intrusive.
Please note that this post should not be modded down or criticised as it is a beta. Thank you for your cooperation.
I don't really care if Google is being evil or not; braindead conflicting "standards" and in-fighting among the DRM camp can only be a good thing for us.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You do know how much I hate flipper babies!
Why's that? Do they freak you out?!
Do they?!
I probably should have told you to cover your eyes...
It seems like Google's Video Store would possibly work for independent media, but it's so chaotic for mainstream media. I look at it and I cringe. It looks like those shady online stores that you are cautious about buying from, because of their look. I don't think the Windows only part is rushed necessarily. Google has always been a Windows only company. There are, of course, a few exceptions, but even their web applications are much better supported by Internet Explorer than Safari. Take GMail for instance. It doesn't surprise me that they require a Windows program to play the video.
I think Google needs to bundle all of their services together (Maps, Video, Print, etc.) into one packeage where you can go for everything. The new service: Google Master.
Of course, initially it would have to be Google Master Beta...
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
From The Article
Mac and Linux users are still waiting for a version of Google Earth and Google Desktop Search
Google Earth for Mac is already out.
I'm wondering if Google rushed this product out the door because of the timing of CES and because everyone expected them to. Google has carefully chosen places where it wants to compete, with the result that its product releases have mostly been a string of successes.
So we'll see if the article is right or not. We'll see if Google Video takes off. I'm betting it will.
...when you brush off the tremendous concerns with the "Google can do no wrong" defense.
A single, unified, fixed government standard for DRM is the way to go. Write your Congressman today! It would be awesome -- no more fussing around with every DRM d'jour. Maybe even a new acronym -- CORE -- Crack Once, Read Everything!!
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
This is a general linux/flash gripe, but here goes, the Linux flashplayer has, since it's inception forever, had a/v sync issues. It's not a big deal on most things like flash games, but in video it's dreadful.
Anyone have any tips on how to fix this?
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
I saw a piece on this the other day, so I checked out the Web site. I'm one of those people who is pretty critical of bad UIs (just ask my co-workers). I don't see any major problems with their Web site UI. It's nothing especially good or bad. I did not have any problem using it. I'm not too keen on the DRM, as it seems to be implemented and it seems a little deceptive if you can't actually download the files for viewing, only stream them. That isn't really buying a video, just subscribing to a service that will stream it for you. It makes it pretty useless for watching shows on your laptop while commuting, or on a drive.
My opinion is the service is technologically too limited to be useful to me, but the UI is just fine.
so far i am at -hate microsoft -hate sco -luv apple -?google
If they just want to make a point, they should have set it up as a different brand -- complete with a corporate philosophy of "do as much evil as possible." Since they haven't done that, I'm inclined to think they're serious (which is very unfortunate).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe it's not a bug that it neglects to inform you of the DRM restrictions after you pay? After all, the only 100% reliable DRM scheme is the one that entirely prevents reading the data. If he gets nothing in return, there's no reason for the consumer to pay. Obviously that makes no sense from a business perspective.
DRM is the most asinine, anti-capitalist effluvium ever to come down the pipe. Only in Hollywood, California could someone think that preventing their customers from owning their product is a good way to make money.
Some commenters have said that, althought every Google is working on is labelled as Beta, all of them seem to be very polished and ready.
They must have forgotten that little cache app fiasco, the web browsing accelerator that was so crappy it had to be removed from the public access.
Not because is by Google it has to be good by definition.
--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
You are free to leave the religion anytime you want.
I like the current interface as it is, but even if it is not yet for everybody I'm sure Google is working on improving it. A major initiative like Google Video would typically be launched in a polished product and only be slightly improved over time later, but then again Google isn't a typical company.
Most online music stores, including iTunes, post any album sold by CD Baby, unless the artist opts out of digital sales. CD Baby will sell anyone's music -- all you have to do to get on iTunes/Napster, etc., is to send 5 CDRs of your album to CD Baby, and wait for the music stores to update their databases.
No I am talking about the "free" content Google has put online and is even hosting. Oh it probably won't last but for now I can download an awfull lot of japanese music videos for free and without some poor fan having his website raped.
The only oddity is that opera under linux refuses to load the movie file while firefox does work. Then again Google always has had something against Opera.
Bitching about yet another DRM standard is a bit silly. There is no DRM standard so how can there be another one. All you got is a lot of DRM crap all of wich hopes to become the standard.
And google can't support other platforms if the other platform is linux. How the hell can you have opensource DRM? I always been led to believe that DRM itself is silly (because you give people the message, the key and the cipher wich means they got everything they need to crack it) and opensource DRM is even sillier. You give them message, the key, the cipher AND tell them how it all works. Would take about 1 second to hack an opensource DRM, CheckDRMIsSecure() { return true; /* rest of code */}
For now video google has given me a lot of new stuff to watch for future. The pay system? Well we will see, the only thing I seen that it might be a whole lot easier for individuals to get google to sell their own vids. You can actually upload your own stuff and google will either hosts it for free or sell it for you. That alone makes Google a very intresting new player in the field.
Windows only? Pah, if we slam every company who releases windows only software in this world we be awfully busy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I respectfully disagree with the topic post. It was a perfect success for me.
I went to video.google.com, typed in Paris Hilton, and 5 seconds later I was watching a video of her in a skin-tight suit washing herself down with soapy water.
What's not to like about that?
;-)
When I went to video.google.com the videos for sale seemed clearly marked and seperate from the free videos. Also the interface seemed very nice and clean, worked in multiple browsers, and utilized AJAX for a warm-and-fuzzy feeling.
It seems quite nice to me, I think the fact that it is more simplistic than other online stores is a good thing.
Not to mention it's a beta, so they are likely still changing things.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
As if a million Google supporters cried out at once, and then were silent.
It's Friday the 13th, I think good has taken it's first serious step towards the dark side.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I was reading an NBA related blog where someone was speaking about their experience purchasing NBA game videos from Google Video. Apparently, many of the videos are cut off prior to the end of the game, in the 3rd quarter frequently, with NO 4th quarter coverage. This seems to defeat one of the purposes of offering NBA game videos: so the consumer can watch the game and find out who wins. The purchaser contacted Google Video, who told him "sorry, all sales are final." They definitely have a lot of kinks to iron out, one of them being ripping off consumers buying NBA game videos. See here for the blog post I'm speaking about.
"If I buy a video once, do I need to buy it again to watch it on another computer?
No. Once you buy a video, you can download it to other computers up to several times."
I wonder how many "several" is?
It's clear that before the public and any legislators start to notice the problems we already see, the problem has to become much bigger. Could it be that since (a) the media licensors will not license without DRM and (b) they don't want to assist either Microsoft or Apple, making their own DRM is the only solution.
This is about the only solution if they want to participate in the market without helping anyone else. I'm sure that the UI deficiencies will be resolved eventually.
And so Google began its journey to the dark side.
Give in to your investors...feel the equity flow through them...all things can be financed with the equity...
Beware those that say they can do no evil. They almost always do the opposite, its just that they don't consider it that personally.
Yes, lets not learn anything from M$! Lets bundle everything together irrevokably so that everyone has ALL of our stuff!
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
... since their inception. That has been part of their success. Search, News, Blog Search, etc. were or still are "beta" and yet they still add tremendous value to the brand.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
This is not the only non-open Google product to date. Pretty much all of Google's portfolio that doesn't come in or out of the main search page is closed-standard. Google Maps is one of the rare recent shining examples of openness, but Maps as a resource in itself was orphaned by Google when it stuffed and devalued it into Google Local.
In the meantime... Google Earth, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Desktop, Google Deskbar, and now Google DRM Video are notoriously limited to commercial platforms and/or tools. So much for Google being the preferred choice of the O/S world.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Apple should license its DRM. They could make a lot of money off of licensing fees, and I don't see how it would negatively impact their sales. I doubt many people buy iPods for ITMS right now, especially since there are alternatives to ITMS which are (almost) as good. Apple should be trying to cement its standard for digital media so that customers won't need to worry about their purchased files becoming obsolete.
Either Google recently updated this or people need to learn to fucking read: Man In The Attic iWatchNow.com 1 hr 22 min 15 sec - Dec 20, 2005 www.iwatchnow.com Back to video details Resume purchase Sorry, purchasing this video requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP. That's the description beside the video window.
There's a feature built right in to make iPod compatible videos. I have no clue where the parent is coming from.
None at all.
Seriously. Copy protection is completely unnecessary. While media vendors wait for the Perfect Copy Protection (which will never come), they are leaving money on the table right now.
So, you can wait for the major industry players to settle on a common framework for media copy protection which will work across computers, media centers, PDAs, cell phones, portable game systems, etc. (not bloody likely; they all are jockeying to get single-source lock-in); or you can forego the copy protection "requirement" and start making money now by selling media in common media formats now.
Better get moving; your fickle shareholders aren't going to wait forever for you to get your asses in gear.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Everything is "beta" at Google. It's an inside "joke". Fact is, it's a product, a shitty product, a product that shouldn't have bee released. The whole Google "beta" thing is old already, and it's no excuse except a silly bad one.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
...However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge. Not to mention going against their mission to organize the world's information...
I don't see the big deal. By the time I'm ready for this I should be able to run each DRM system in its own virtualized partition well away from everything else.
And I'll keep another partition available for running DRM-laden Sony CD's, all of which I will only purchase at secondhand used music stores.
Afterwards, bye bye DRM crap until I'm ready to watch something new.
What I don't want is Congress legislating the DRM we all have to use.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For those witty people who've pointed out it's in Beta and therefore should not be judged too harshly .... NEARLY EVERYTHING BY GOOGLE IS IN BETA.
Google uses the term "Beta" they way regular people use the term "final release, further development will not occur ever".
I think Google News is the oldest service they offer that is STILL IN BETA - from memory it's 6 years old now.
If there's any tweaking on one of their (many) Beta services it's most likely going to be the advertisements tweaked to perform a little better.
Anyway. Google Video (the buying bit anyway) is a joke. I went there with the honest intent to purchase a flick, and couldn't find anything I wanted to see. Where's all the popular movies and tv shows??
Why they even bothered launching without amassing a huge amount of movies and shows (that people would pay money for) is beyond me.
Sorry, the interface is bad. It's clunky, inelegant, and wastes bandwidth on images whether you want them or not or even whether they're useful or not.
Compare Google Video with iTunes (and "Beta" doesn't excuse them, beta is supposed to mean feature complete -- it's really more like Alpha). I can browse iTunes by search, from the main window (w/images), or from the "browse" facility, which gives me a nice, fast, information rich list of genre/subgenre/artist/album.
The iTunes experience was clearly "designed", Google Video was just thrown together.
The push to make the investors happy has come up with some interesting and not so interesting things. Personally, could see myself NEVER using this!
Sure, so far Google has some cool things out but does anyone else see it becoming more and more a slave to the investor "$"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
IMHO, the worst thing is that when a video is rejected, there's no reason given. It could be a copyright issue, or the wrong video format, or the wrong audio format, or any number of other potential problems. After being left to guess why my video was rejected, I just gave up and deleted it.
No comment.
It seems like the trend in broadband video access is towards small fees for ownership. Apple charges a few bucks for a TV show or music video, google's doing the same thing with media partners, News Corp. is doing the same thing. It seems like they're all trying to take the ITMS model and use it for video. The thing that's different here is that there's widespread usage of legal free video already. Before iTunes sold music videos you could watch them, full length, for free. A lot of web sites let you watch music videos for free. Digital cable (I've used RCN and Comcast) offers video on demand for free. My question is how are these services going to affect the existing offerings? If HBO sells their shows on DVD and as downloads why would they offer free video on demand? Another problem I see with paying for video is that DVR is becoming wide spread. If you have Lost auto-recorded each week why would you need to pay for it in a few days? I'm sure there are people who'll pay for this, look at how many people pay money for ring tones, but I have doubts that video will be as popular as ITMS has proved to be with audio.
I've tried 2 different video files, one last night and one this afternoon. Both get about 3/4 of the way through then my whole system freezes and I have to power totally off. It's too bad, because I have really enjoyed Google Earth and Talk and most of their offerings.
I see no issue with another DRM.... not only does it help to throw a monkeywrench in the ol' database that the government and Hollywood are trying to create, but the user is still able to watch it. I say go for it!
Not a fair comparison. iTunesMS runs in iTunes, an application which you download. Google's video store runs inside a browser window. As for wasting resources, iTunes is the one to complain about, with its iPod services running in the background, even if you don't have an iPod.
Definition of Beta:
"Not Ready for Prime Time"
are we there yet?!?!
The Paris Hilton part?
Maybe it is a good thing that there are different ones, just like how it's a good thing that there are multiple competing operating systems. Having different OS' is good because if a major virus is released, then chances are it won't infect every computer because of their differences. So, different DRM's might be good in preventing people from cracking them.
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
No way to categorize...
Not to repeat myself: http://mark-watson.blogspot.com/
I am used to seeing Google's beta release systems reasonably polished and almost always useful, so their video store is a real disappointment. But, wait 6 months and it might be awesome.
IT'S A J-O-K-E.
Say this slowly, over and over, then reread his post:
owa - tado - piam
The instructions given for downloading/transferring videos onto PSP are simple at best, and provide no instruction on where they should be placed. As a little background, there are separate locations for original PSP video as well as the AVC format that is allowed by the 2.0 firmware (Both are MP4 format). It's not specified that these are AVC videos, and as such need the new firmware. Furthermore, they must be renamed in a correct format in order to be played on the PSP.
/MP_ROOT/100ANV01/
-----
Anyone looking for this information, get ready:
PSP videos downloaded from Google Video *are* AVC.
That means:
* you need firmware 2.0 or higher
* files are put in
* name them to follow the MAQ#####.MP4 convention
-----
Many people keep their firmware at 1.5 in order to play homebrew software, as well as use emulators, etc. Spare me the talk about piracy issues and the like, I have a 1.5 and don't expect to have my cake and eat it, too. I just wish they'd make it clearer what format the video is in, and where it has to go.
FYI, I'm going to post this over at the Google Video group.
I'm not here. This isn't happening.
It's called beta because 'it's beta than nothing'.
And frankly, if you're not happy with beta software than stop testing it. And if you're having problems maybe you should try and report them to Google - after all that's what beta is all about?
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
I knew one day I would see someone using the words 'iTunes' and 'fast' in the same sentence without the words 'is not' in there somewhere - I just didn't think it would be so soon.
Google isn't stupid. They've turned beta into a marketing ploy. Every body wants to be "in". Google Betas have traditionally been "in", so Google releases everything as beta to ride the wave.
How many people beat their door down to participate in the Gmail beta? Why not roll the same effect into their other services.
Soylent green is people!!!
I think i is good what google are now developping. I try the beta version and I think it will be very useful to a lot of people that wants to stay on their chairs!
Thanks for visiting my Web site! Post your comments on my forum!
Paris Hilton? WTF?
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
google video is a great platform for video distribution, but it is lacking when it comes to finding content that is watchable/interesting. Our site http://jimmys.tv/ is intended to solve this - we've created a free social video catalog, sort of a slashdot for video.
It's funny I've used this "sub par" feature of google to watch about 30 videos in the past 30 days. I like the fact it uses flash as my Gentoo at work doesn't do windows media, or any streaming video. What more do you need in the interface? I only require a direct link and play button.
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
However, the paid video stuff is a total embarrassment and arguably the worst thing that Google have ever released in their entire history. It's overpriced, not available outside of North America in many cases [yes, Google blocks some paid content to non-US/Canadian countries!], DRM-restricted (often with "you can only watch for a day" limits too!), requires Windows, can't be viewed offline (online streaming only), is often "old" material and is annoyingly mixed in the "Popular" page with the free ones (are you *seriously* telling me that the most popular paid ones are loaded anywhere near as many times as the most popular free ones?).
Apart from the utterly lousy presentation/DRM/etc. of the Google Video paid material, there's not much of it either (I mean, one episode of CSI so far for $1.99 - one-day pass on Windows only, blocked to European users (!!) and you've got to be online and can't copy it to any other device? How many times can you say "WTF?!"?).
And, of course, we can't go without mentioning BitTorrent/P2P - which is the #1 rival to *any* paid video streaming business. We're seeing downloadable, DRM-free, HD/widescreen, DivX-encoded TV content literally 2 or so hours after the programme finishes. I know which one I'd prefer to see (and if it could be done legally, I'd be willing to subscribe on a per-month basis).
I disagree with this article. I find Google Video to be wildly entertaining. They provide endless amounts of entertainment without charge. Yeah it would be nice if the people who hold the video would give us complete access to it, but Google Video just provides a way to share. I've never bought anything from the site and I think the prices are high. But, Google just provides the way to share, and the market should work the prices out. I also like that when you visit the site, you don't feel like they are pressuring you to buy something.
Perhaps
However, there is money. People are willing to invest in DRM. Content providers are willing to use DRM that are less than 100% effective. So long as there is money in DRM, as in any other business, there will be people working at it. (You think Google, Microsoft, Sony, et. al. are doing this at a loss?)
I am curious to see if it's going to take off without pr0n...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage#Bet a
... that sucks.
The summary version:
alpha -- feature complete
beta -- first pass through full QA process
final candidate -- no known showstopper bugs
These days "beta" seems to mean "meh, just send it live", but really -- if it doesn't tell you WHAT you're getting (e.g. available formats) until after you've completed a purchase
Umm no.. we dont.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I tried it out. Watched an episode of CIS - no complaints. It was totally awesome. Best part was the "no commercials" aspect.
Read more on my bloggy
directory of tech articles
The interface is very bad, with paid and free videos mixed together.
Click "free movies" to see only free stuff, click "commercial movies" (or whatever it said) to view those.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
blocked to European users (!!)
v ideo.google.com
Actually, even the free stuff is curiously enough blocked from India, France, Germany, South Korea, and China due to "legal issues". I could imagine China and their shitty gov't, but some on this list is a bit strange, and I wonder what it's all about, and if it's about the same legal matter.
Ironically enough, you can use Google to view Google Video in countries blocked from this service. Just go here: http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Bah. The Slashbusted link should be this. Come on, Slashdot. | isn't an invalid character in URL's...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Granted iTunes is an application, but when you're just browsing the music store, most of what it does is rendering that any browser could do. Considering the AJAX services Google has created like GMail and auto-completion in search, I have no doubt they could significantly improve Google Video if they wanted to.
As to resources, iTunes seems to be more of a resource hog than Safari, but less than Firefox on the Mac, so I don't see anything to complain about there.
Is it just me, but all the video/video blog/etc sites that are not supporting Quicktime, their videos look HORRIBLE! Is it just me? Can't anyone at least get near QT quality? What's up with that!
Don't buy anything with DRM, ever. We are the customers, they should supply what we demand. Don't ever ever comply, whoever is pushing the DRM, DRM, DRM or DRM.
.... the "Don't be evil" part?
Granted iTunes is an application, but when you're just browsing the music store, most of what it does is rendering that any browser could do.
To a point. I actually wrote a GTK version of iTMS a while ago. My first attempt was to translate their XML into HTML. It didn't work out too well. They have a View element which allows you to have multiple elements in the same physical space. Browsers don't really support that. Also their MatrixView (which is their version of a table) handles requisition and allocation in a really strange way.
Ah yes this is great to see. Very satisfying to see you go nuts on google because it doesn't support Linux. And because you might have to pay for something.
I wait for them to support linux but only KDE and wait for the REAL flamewars to begin!!!
VD
This piece should have been titled "Google Free Video is Ready for Prime Time, payed isn't"
Its a misleading title and therefore inaccurate. It doesn't do anyone any good and especially Slashdot readers to post stories that have titles that are misleading. Many people don't read past the teaser and often not that.
To be clear. Google free video IS READY FOR PRIME TIME.. especially if you consider the alternatives -- i.e. NOTHING other than specialty sites like Ourmedia.org [note this isn't a knock on ourmedia.org which is nice but a bit limited in scope compared to Google video].
Even if it is judged on its own merritts Google video is B+ or A- in user interface and clarity of purpose.
The problems alluded to in the piece can be summed up as WINDOWS DRM. When DRM comes into the picture things get messy and nearly useless.
The biggest surprise for me was the quality of the video I downloaded. It was horrible and nothing like the teaser video. I even posted screen captures at http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-vi deo.html
I laughed when I read the part of about "rushed to market". That's a stock phrase that just doesn't apply to Google products. They can't "rush to market" because they pay zero attention to the market. They only have one profitable product (AdSense), but that product is so profitable that nobody has to pay attention to "the market". So they just keep inventing Cool Stuff, and pushing it out. That's why new features keep appearing on Google.com with no advance notice.
Right now, you're saying, "What's wrong with that?" Well, if all you want is hacker toys, nothing. But some us get a little impatient that Google products stay "Beta" for years, and never get their rough edges polished off.
Take Google maps. Yeah, it's a great app. I always try it first for directions. Sometimes I just sit and play with it, it's so cool. But it's how many years now and it's still "Beta". And even though Yahoo Maps is much less fun to work with, I still go back to it sometimes, because Google maps still doesn't memorize addresses for you or plug in Yellow Pages entries.
With Google, "Beta" doesn't mean "This is a preliminary version." It means "Here's as much of the product as we feel like working on. We won't bother with all the boring stuff that makes a mature application, because just thought of some other Really Cool Stuff we'd rather be working on."
As far as I'm aware it's still NTSC only. So european users have to convert their videos to NTSC just because google is still stuck to NTSC only.
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Google Video is beta so it cant be expected to be perfect. But still I have used Google video and found it very good, I watched many funny clips. I am sure Google video will get better by time. Gmail is beta, it is very very good and it is getting better by time.
I think it is bad that they have decided to use DRM, but it is good that they use their own DRM, because if everybody use different DRM, then DRM will never work.
I think they definitly needs to list the avaible format, before you do the purchase. And they need to separate free from payed content. So I dont stumble upon that payed content because it does not interest me.
Now if they could flag the videos, then it would be great since they could use a creative-commons search like Yahoo have.
If they used open formatds such as Ogg Theora then that would be great too.
I can understand them wanting to use a proprietary solution for the DRM stuff but it sucks that they didn't use something more open for the free ones. MP4, theora or anything would have been better (and compress better too). I guess it has to "just work" for windows users which means flash or wmv... *grumble* What a stupid, crippled OS...
"Foo is not ready for prime time" has been nominated as one of the most annoying, overused phrases currently used by English writers. Please do your part to save English from the horrors of recycled and unimaginative prose construction, by helping to stamp out this old, tired phrase.
I gotta say... For a long time I've been wondering why exactly Paris Hilton is always talked about on TV and wherever as if she's really sexy when she is actually not very attractive at all. But you've just confirmed it for me... There are in fact men (you are male, right?) who find Paris Hilton attractive. Astounding.
Do a Google Image search for Vida Guerra, Esther Baxter, Michelle Ford, and Ki Toy Johnson... Study their pictures for a while. Then do the same for Paris. Notice how Paris looks like an 11 year old boy made up to look like a 50 year old whore?
Paris
Melyssa
Vida
Vida
Got it? Good. Now don't fall down on me here... It's your fault that whenever entertainment people want to show off a sexy girl, they tend to put some stick like Paris Hilton or Uma Thurman or whatever in their movie/show/whatever. Get on the ball and maybe some females who are actually attractive will start showing up on TV/movies.
(I have a confession to make... I've seen the video you're talking about, and it actually is uncharacteristically (for Paris) reasonably hot. 97% of the time though she looks like an ugly skank.)