YouTube Adds Full-Length Television Shows

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!"

Comments

As a non-american...

[Tx]

...Hulu sucks, since it won't stream outside the USA. No mention in the article as to whether YouTube will add regional restrictions on these full-length shows, but let's hope they can convince the studios otherwise. If not, well, bittorrent works just fine.

Re:As a non-american...

[FireFury03]

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

If you say so... I have yet to see a YouTube video encoded anywhere close to 768x576 (SDTV resolution), and resolution aside, they don't come close to broadcast quality from the encoding point of view either.

In an era when people are interested in HDTV (1920x1080), making a big deal about a crappy sub-SDTV streaming service seems a bit nuts.

(Note: I'm not one who believes in bothering with HDTV for most stuff - maybe nature programmes, etc, but certainly not worthwhile for anything with a story - but I do draw the line at watching significant amounts of YouTube quality TV).

Re:As a non-american...

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Don't be so obtuse.

If you haven't noticed the BBC isn't ad sponsored, it's UK license fee paid. How are they meant to cover the costs of international streaming? Youtube does streaming of their video internationally paid for by advertising with a well built back-end that can handle it.

Comparing the BBC's iPlayer license fee paid service to the ad-sponsored Youtube is like comparing Apples and Oranges.

Hulu vs. The World

[junglee_iitk]

The new services also put YouTube head to head with Hulu, competing directly for the full-length television show viewer. Hulu currently has more of this sort of content than does YouTube, but YouTube has the lionâ(TM)s share of the Web video audience. It is estimated that YouTube has 100 times the viewers that Hulu has.

It might have to done something with the fact that Hulu's "video library can only be streamed within the United States".

Some people go to great lengths to put their feet over an axe, just to see if it hurts or not.

Region-locking is an abomination.

[EWAdams]

It's called the WORLD WIDE Web, assholes.

Re:Region-locking is an abomination.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if they used a medium of delivery beyond HTTP, you'd be happy with it? Or would it just ruin your witty one-liner?

Seriously, just because licensing agreements haven't yet caught up with the global nature of the Internet doesn't mean we should disparage the positive steps being made in the direction of having content available on the Internet AT ALL.

Re:Region-locking is an abomination.

[electrictroy]

Yes this is the WWW, except that the American owners don't want non-americans looking at A-Team, McGuyver, et cetera. They want to sell those programs to Japanese stations for reruns, or on DVD directly to European citizens, and thereby maximize profit. If they gave this stuff for free via the web, they'd be killing their non-american market.

Everything makes sense if you just follow the dollar to its source and assume the owner is greedy.

CBS only?

[themightythor]

The shows and their original networks:

Star Trek: NBC
MacGyver: ABC
BH 90210: Fox
Y & R: CBS

I guess I don't understand how these things work...