MGM First To Post Full-Length Features To YouTube

Lithal13 writes to tell us that MGM studios will soon be the first major movie studio to post a complete feature-length film on YouTube. Some credit commercial video site Hulu.com for the mended relationship between YouTube parent Google and Hollywood. "YouTube has developed systems that help keep pirated clips off the site and is developing video players that present clearer images than the site's standard player. When it comes to financial terms, Google has proven much more flexible than in the past, according to three studio sources. [...] The only obstacles to Google and YouTube getting more studios to post full-length movies is Google's insistence on a particular ad format, say the sources. They declined to say which ad unit Google prefers. The other hurdle is that some studios are skeptical that users will accept all the ads that need to accompany a feature film in order to make it profitable."

Comments

Re:Just what nobody needed

[corychristison]

Come to think of it, ever tried to fast forward through an flv file? Just doesn't work properly -ever

Youporn.com has done something right, then. Seeking to the 75% mark of a video (before any buffering) jumps to and loads quite quickly and easily. ;-)

Re:What about limits?

[Tx]

What about people from other countries (other than the US) that have even less than Comcast limits?

I confidently predict that it won't be available for us, so that part is a non-issue.

However a lot of ISPs here in the UK are bitching and moaning about the BBC's iPlayer (online TV catchup service), which they reckon has significantly increased their bandwidth usage. Of course they would like the BBC to pay them as well as the end user paying for their broadband (less enlightened debate over net neutrality in this country, but the same old issues). I can only see increased capping/tiering on broadband if this sort of service becomes more common.

Not up here...

[gravyface]

Except in Canada, where Bell has to play nice and share their copper with the other kids. In my city, there's no less than 18 DSL providers I can pick and choose from:
http://canadianisp.ca/

What about quality?

[Ostracus]

I don't see it as a given that "quality := large amounts of bandwith".

Re:What about limits?

[squiggleslash]

You're not going to use it at "full usage" though. You need to look at the applications you'll be using and how they use bandwidth. The reason you need 3Mbps for something approaching DVD-quality video isn't because it's a constant 3Mbps stream, but because when there's a lot of action, the stream will need to "burst" up to rates that high.

Like I said, the current standard is around .5Gb per hour for DVD quality video, and around 2-3Gb for HD (720p) - that's based on what services like Apple's iTS and Netflix are doing. At those speeds, you're talking about 120 hours of DVD quality video (four hours a day), though only about 20 hours of HD quality video. But HD isn't really an option on 3Mbps except for buffered downloads, so the chances of you actually wanting to watch 20 hours of HD a month on your current connection is fairly small.

I'm not saying I agree with the 60Gb cap, I don't and I find the caps a completely wrong solution to the problem. But I don't think it will impact you in any way in terms of your use of DSL for watching movies from legitimate download/streaming services.