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YouTube Adds Full-Length Television Shows

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-magnum-pi-and-square-pegs? dept.

thefickler writes "YouTube has moved to put full-length television shows on its site for the first time. Historically, YouTube has hosted a bewildering and attractive variety of video clips, the vast majority of which have been under ten minutes in length. YouTube has announced that it had finalized a deal with CBS to offer shows such as Star Trek, MacGyver, Beverly Hills 90210, and The Young and the Restless. I can't wait to watch The Young and the Restless!"

5 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:As a non-american... by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is region-locked the US also.

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  2. Re:As a non-american... by kentrel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Youtube offer better-than-TV resolution. Check out their high-quality option, which you can view full screen.

  3. Re:As a non-american... by Tx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hate replying to my myself, but went to find one of these full-length Trek episodes, clicked on it: "This video is not available in your country". So much for that.

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    Oh no... it's the future.
  4. Re:Still using Flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't disagree that I would like to see that happen, but think about it from the perspective from someone who works at GooTube and wants to keep that job: would it really make sense to switch to a brand-new standard only supported by [let's be generous] 25% of the market?

    Ok, you may respond, why not maintain two parallel versions of the site: one for legacy users and one for browsers that support the new standards? And to that I say, it's a little bit hard to go to management and ask for the resources and time to implement a second parallel version of a service that already works splendidly well.

    I would be just as happy as you if YouTube started offering video streams in other formats and other access methods. Until they do, though, I'll continue watching their FLV streams directly with VLC. The newly-released 0.9.2 even has a Lua scriptlet specifically designed to allow you to drop a YouTube URL directly into the playlist.

    Not good, but good enough. At least you don't need Flash.

  5. US-ONLY! :( by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, this means I won't have to pirate the videos to watch my favorite shows?

    Think again.

    "This video is not available in your country."

    Oh well, at least I know a site that DOES let me play the videos in my country - and without ads.