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."

Comments

Google Video Beta

[bewmIES]

What part of beta do these people not get?

Re:Google Video Beta

[GweeDo]

Oh dear crap stop this!

If it is so beta that it just doesn't work then don't release it. So far any "beta" from Google has atleast been polished and worked well. This simply does not. And some of the issues aren't a "is it beta" or not question, like the DRM.

So please, I love Google to, but drop the "its beta crap". They are a corporation that is taking your/my money. I want quality products. This simply isn't.

Re:Google Video Beta

[drinkypoo]

If it is so beta that it just doesn't work then don't release it.

Except it does work. And it's labeled as a beta, which is a clear warning sign to anyone who's paying attention that it might have issues. Don't like it? Don't use it. Meanwhile, the people who do like it would like you to shut the fuck up.

Re:Google Video Beta

[0kComputer]

Google "Beta" doesn't carry a whole lot of weight with me seeing as how almost all their crap is beta. Case in point - Google news, that thing has been in beta for going on 5 years now.

Re:Google Video Beta

[Stelminator]

If you want to pay for something, go ahead. If you don't like it, don't pay for it; duh.

I don't usually have trouble with SkypeIn (also still in beta), but there are times when a call just cuts out. Heres the trouble: I don't know why; it could be from SkypeIn, someone calling me from a cellphone who's switching towers, or any other link that breaks in the chain.

I still pay for SkypeIn, because I can get calls while I'm abroad with people having to pay only local rates (which sometimes amounts to free). SkypeIn has paid for itself many times over.

Paying for something is your choice, so, if you don't like it, don't pay for it; the company will figure it out. BTW, every once in a while Skype sends me to give feedback about the last call I've had, I always fill this out, since it theoretically will make my service better in the future.

Beta's have their kinks, and usually reactions (the fact people have reacted) are good and welcome. DRM is stupid. However, a bad UI can't necessarily be Google's fault, they can't get everything right first try. They deserve a break on this one, and considering it's beta, I think it's ok. If it doesn't get fixed, bitch all you want. In fact, do it now so that it gets fixed. Just don't pay for it yet.

Re:Google Video Beta

[Irish_Samurai]

As I understand it, Google video is actually charging the People who sell the vidoes a fee for handling the transaction.

Google isn't charging any end users for the service. I didn't have to pay to browse the videos, and neither did anyone else. Your argument that "I want quality products" is completely misplaced, the only people who should be bitching about this being a "beta" are the people whe sell on it.

You may view it as a technicality, but it's very clear in a business sense. This software IS beta, it's not finished. Google is charging vendors who wish to participate in this beta a fee for handling the transaction. When Google gets adequate feedback, they will alter the software. When the software becomes extremely user friendly, Google will raise the transaction rate and possibly begin charging the end user.

The product is marketed as a service for selling and finding videos. You mistake the fact that you have to pay for a video with that of having to pay for a googles product.

Re:Google Video Beta

[eric0213]

Google News will come out of beta once they learn how to turn a profit on it. However, once they start selling ad space on it, their usual method of generating revenue, they're going to run into violations from the sites their scraping news from.

1. Create a sweet news site
2. Form a large following
3. ???
4. Profit
5. Come out of beta

Another DRM...

[Toasty981]

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.

Exactly!

[mrchaotica]

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.

Not the first

[Life700MB]

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

Re:Interface is ok

[jalefkowit]

The interface isnt bad, its just simple (which is good in my books).

If it allows you to purchase videos that won't work on your system without ever warning you of that prior to purchase, it is indeed bad, not "simple".

Imagine if when you bought a DVD from Amazon they would just pick-to-ship by title, mixing discs of all different region codes together. When you got your new DVD, popped it in your player, and discovered that you had bought a Region 3 DVD that was unplayable on your Region 1 player, would you thank Amazon for "simplifying" the process? Or would you be upset?

My bet is you'd be upset -- especially when Amazon could obviate the problem altogether by simply matching your address (or what local store you buy from) to the appropriate region - which they do.

"Simple" makes doing the right thing easy. "Bad" makes doing the wrong thing easy. Google Video's UI is bad.

I love this bit in the download FAQ

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

"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?

RFC: A Unified Approach to DRM

[ewhac]

I have a proposal for a unified approach to media copy protection. This approach is patent- and royalty-free, only requires technology that is already available, and can be implemented in a very short timeframe for very little engineering cost. The approach has already been tried on a fairly large scale in the computer industry, with tremendous success:

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

Beta = exclusiveness = demand

[bradleyland]

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!!!

Free clips are fun, but the paid stuff is "WTF?!"

[rklrkl]

I must say that it is fun to keep reloading the "Popular" Google Video page and loading in the interesting-looking free videos. Some of them are very well done, although there's some blatant copyright infringement going on (plenty of TV show clips and music video clips in there!). The fact that their Flash player works cross-platform for video and sound (yes, even on Linux!) is very impressive too.

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).