Slashdot Mirror
Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SlashdotTV! (Video)
You may have noticed that we've posted quite a few original videos on Slashdot in the past few months. Rather than being the work of a few rogue editors with newly-acquired Christmas cameras, this was part of the groundwork for a new site we're launching today. SlashdotTV, found at http://tv.slashdot.org, will let you easily find and watch all of our videos in one convenient location. In addition to Slashdot content, you also can watch videos from our sister sites, SourceForge and ThinkGeek. The site is brand new, and we're interested in hearing your feedback -- what you think about it, and what kind of videos you'd like to see. Currently, you can embed our videos on your own site or show them to your friends with our share feature. Commenting is coming soon. Check back often for new videos, and keep watching!
Timothy checks out Ubuntu TV
Timothy Gets a MakerBot Replicator Demo at CES
Timothy Lord Checks Out Keyboards & Tech At CES
Timothy Lord @ Metrix Create:Space in Seattle
Timothy Lord Checks Out Steve Jackson Games' Latest
what you think about it, and what kind of videos you'd like to see
We want more videos were timothy checks out and looks at things!
Are you sure this isn't intended as an April Fools article?
Stop doing the videos in Flash. It's a proprietary wrapper usable on a decreasing number of platforms. Better formats for video already exist. If you want old, then go with MPEG. If you want new, go with WebM. Either way, you'll both reach a larger audience and future-proof your work.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
This is about 12 years too late.
I think that having a new tv.slashdot.org is completely fine and even a little cool. However, my preference is that these videos should only be posted to that site, and not to "regular" Slashdot. Or at least provide a standard tag or category which we can filter out if we choose. We know where to go if we want to watch videos - the TV icon at the top (nice job on that btw, it was immediately obvious to me what that new icon signified even before reading this article). Otherwise, I'm just looking for text blurbs and snarky/humorous user comments, sometimes with optional videos behind the summary's links. Maybe we can just get the story summary text, with a link below the summary that says "Check out the video over on Slashdot TV!"?
Oh, transcripts for all videos on the TV site would be helpful for many as well.
Does this bring back the chat roulette feature?
I was curious if the sites that the sharing button has will be expanded? I specifically was not seeing google+ in there, but I'm sure there are other sites that might be wanted. I'm sure that as a tech site there is a bit more g+ users here than on a normal site. Slashdot tv looks like a neat site and I'll have to check it out when I'm not at work.
I actually don't like video content on the web; for a variety of reasons, but the primary one is that the audio from the video would give me away at work.
I mean, I hope this works out and is the revenue generator you hope it is, but as I think many of us are viewing the site from work, I don't know how popular a destination it's going to be.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
what kind of videos you'd like to see
Rickrolls and pr0n? Mostly the latter?
Seriously, short videos. TLDW = too long didn't watch. Please no "I recorded this rant because I can't be bothered to transcribe it"
Even more seriously you're not going to displace youtube as the home of precious kitty videos. Or even pony videos. On the other hand, as far as I know, the "screencast" market is unserved. Yes there is "A" site for ruby screencasts, and "A" site for vim screencasts. But there is no "the tech screencast" site... that I know of.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Does not work in Safari, unlike youtube and 99% of all other online video sites which work fine in Safari (Mac OS X)
-- Boycott Shell
I like the Related Links that Slashdot gives for this.
Linode Exploit Caused Theft of Thousands of Bitcoins
European Parliament Blocks Copyright Reform With 113% Voter Turnout
Microsoft's Azure Cloud Suffers Major Downtime
Foxconn's Other Dirty Secret: the World's Largest "Internship" Program
Sony's New CEO To Look Beyond Hardware
Which boils down to theft, fraud, downtime, unpaid labor and Sony (always a winner). Nice to know what we can expect.
It always make me laugh the way slashdot posts all these supposedly technologically progressive articles but then uses some obsolete proprietary tech like flash for its videos. Did Adobe give you some payola to use that crap or what?
... oh come on... you know where I'm going with this! ;)
I'm glad there's an announcement, I noticed a new tab at the top this morning and said ".. hey... that wasn't there yesterday!"
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If it was ad-free, and therefore a paid service, few would buy it. As long as they clearly mark the sponsored content I'm fine with it.
Developers: We can use your help.
I find text to be 10x faster to process than watching a video. Text is easier to skim, it's easier to search, a page of text can explain something in more detail and more precisely than 10 minutes of video, and it probably takes up 1000x less space/bandwidth, etc. When I watch video documentation it feels like everything is in slow motion compared to reading. As a bonus, text is also usable by people with visual and/or sound impairments, when using the right equipment.
Resorting to video is like the equivalent of GUI operating systems versus command-line: it's easier to do in some ways (just sit in front of a camera), and sometimes it's the better way to go (so feel free to experiment with new ways of doing things), but often you can be vastly more efficient with the old way of doing things. Personally, I've skipped every video that has been posted on slashdot in the last few months. I'd rather read the comments. Considering the extra time and effort it takes to set up a video shoot and process it afterwards, and the extra bandwidth to deliver it, I'll be surprised if it pays off. But keep experimenting. It's healthy.
If I watch, I think it will count against my Bandwidth Cap
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
Why use the hosts file when you could just switch to Gamemaker?
Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the video on the STV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it /.TV
You play the keyboards on the
Now Slashdot is going to be come synonymous with something people use to waste time, except for nerds.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I heard my Congressman (I'm from Texas - take your pick) say that posting videos on the Internet was piracy and cost Americans jobs. I guess we should have had them pass SOPA after all.
How about an initial commercial and then 1 per 15 minutes of video content viewed.
Slashdot TV is what happens when more than one person tears off calendar pages in the office.
I find that unless there's actually something cool which you really need to see in action to understand, I'm much happier reading than watching something. So if you're doing an interview, provide a transcript.
Flash 11.1.102.63 here on Fedora and none of the slashdot videos have played on this machine. :)
Good luck with the "linux" category
I'd like to see a time-based analysis on the use of exclamation marks in article titles (such as this one). I reckon that it'll be indicative and illuminating :|
Slashdot TV looks great and it looks like you'll do something good with it.
Here is my concern however. Eventually, all internet sites try to become Facebook or Myspace or whatever the "it" network is that week. The problem with this is that what makes Slashdot great is that it's not for general consumption. It's for a higher standard of technical knowledge or those with the desire to attain that.
If you try to make Slashdot into a cash cow that behaves just like Facebook, you will fail two ways. First, the people who are already using Facebook aren't going to come here. Second, you will drive away your faithful userbase.
You cannot be what they are. You are born different (apologies to Lady Gaga).
Will never visit.
Just like idle.slashdot.org (whose sarcastic "Waste of your time. Don't ever go there" I feel is the best advice I've heard).
Whenever there's been a video post, I've been quite quick to complain about it (and I'm not the only one), so yeah, shove them off into tv.slashdot.org so I can ignore it totally.
Sorry, but I (used to) come on here for information and news. It takes HUNDREDS of times longer to convey that information in a video than it does on a text page, which is why I don't watch TV News, and why I came to Slashdot for some techy/geeky news that other online outfits were lacking in.
Separate it off, but don't be shocked that nobody goes on there. And I'd have preferred your developer time and bandwidth to have been put to some better use all along, if I'm honest.
I hate watching videos on a conventional computer. I prefer to watch them on a tablet or real TV.
If you were to partner with either YouTube or Vimeo, I could use existing integrations for set-top boxes or the app on my iPad to view the stuff.
If you were to just to HTML5 video, I could at least bring the video up on my iPhone and "AirPlay" it to my TV.
As it is, I can't even watch it in Google Chrome. I've removed the generic Flash player from my computer, but I do allow Chrome to maintain and use its own internal copy. But even that copy can't play your videos. I am guessing that this is because I've got paranoid security settings, forbidding Flash from ever using any local storage at all (because I don't trust advertisers).
So, in short, I certainly can't see the videos in my preferred way, and when I try to view them the way I'm "supposed to", I get a blank screen with no warnings or errors or anything.
Do Not Want.
The contents of a three-minute video can generally be typed up into a half-page of text and read in thirty seconds.
The exceptions are walk-throughs that are difficult to describe in writing, or content that requires visual or audio.
For me, it's not a matter of being seen goofing off. I have headphones. But it's more a use of my time. If I'm going to goof off, I want to goof off *efficiently*.
As long as you fill it with tons of ads, that's cool with me. I love slashvertisements! Maybe you can even couch a few of them in "product reviews"? That may squeak a few more ads in front of people, what do you say?
In the video, they explicitly said they are going to run slashvertisements. Maybe if you WTFV...oh nevermind.
I appreciate they're up-front about it at least.
I think that may just be in the pipeline ;)
For now, here's the Transcript for this video.
-----
Title: Welcome to SlashdotTV
Description: Welcoe to SlashdotTV, the / dedicated channel for all video on / Slashdot. This new site lets you / easily browse and watch videos / based on a number of criteria, / including title, subject keywords, / popularity, and those handpicked / by the site's dedicated editors.
[00:00] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar slides down from the top of the screen over a background that shows the SlashdotTV page, and "Welcome to TV.Slashdot.org" fades into the bar.
[00:01] Timothy>
Introducing SlashdotTV, where we get up-close and personal [...]
[00:03] <TITLE>
Various shots from interviews quickly pass by at this time.
[00:03] Timothy>
[...] or drop in via video chat with interesting people from all parts of the tech spectrum;
[00:09] Timothy>
From hobbyists [...]
[00:10] <TITLE>
A shot from the Qu8ke interview video is shown in which a 'hobby' rocket is launched.
[00:14] <TITLE>
Various shots from interviews quickly pass by again.
[00:14] Timothy>
[...] to entrepreneurs to project leaders - and sometimes, all three at once.
[00:18] <TITLE>
The shot at this time is of Chris Qiu with the his name and title "Senior Architect/Lead Developer for the Trove Insight Solution" displayed in the bottom.
[00:18] Timothy>
There's also a corner for sponsored videos, which means supported by advertisers.
[00:22] <TITLE>
Shots of the SlashdotTV webpage pass by, relating to the spoken words.
[00:22] Timothy>
You can explore our current categories or search for videos by keyword.
[00:26] Timothy>
You can comment on videos right from the Slashdot page, or watch or re-watch them at any time from this page.
[00:32] Timothy>
We're looking for good ideas of what should make the cut.
So please help us shape Slashdot's future with your suggestions, [...]
[00:37] <TITLE>
The shot changes to that of several pinball machines.
[00:37] Timothy>
[...] and keep watching for more.
At this risk of sounding like a troll, or maybe just a fuddy-duddy: I think there are more important things for Slashdot to work on than adding new features.
There are a lot of bugs and limitations on the site. The last time Slashdot posted one of their "Hey, look what we did!" stories there were a lot of good positive often-repeated suggestions - many of which were ignored. Unicode support was moderated to 5 many times in that story. Instead we get achievements, idle, and Slashdot TV. Unicode support, working & faster preview, better comments section, etc. were top suggestions that have been ignored for years. Maybe I'm biased: I use Slashdot because it is entirely text based so this feature doesn't excite me terribly. Nonetheless, I think priorities need to be straightened here.
Maybe you shall focus on enabling IPv6 on your existing sites before launching new ones.
In and by itself, video: why not. But the "essence" of Slashdot, if I may use so vague a term, seems to reside in two strongly defined and profiled points: tech news in text format, and user-user-moderation. Video does not enhance either of these. Nor is it "stuff that matters".Therefore: irrelevant. Does not add any value to the core business. It MAY increase the site's worth in the eyes of a potential buyer. To me as a loooooooooooooong-time slashdotter, however, video on /. is... well... howshalliputit.... of no use.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Sigh.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm forced to use IE7 at work. Yes, it's old and it would be nice if I could upgrade but I can't. This is a news blog with some forum functionality though. I expected it to at least let me read without a crazy layout. The change from last summer meant I was no longer able to moderate with that machine, and now with this TV icon, it's entirely unusable. Can someone enlighten me as to what all these changes improved? Visually the site isn't much different, green with white and black text. Links on the left, info on the right, posts in the middle. I never thought I'd be posting one of these "but... slashdot sucks now..." posts, but here I am. Please change it back.
I think each video should have subtitles. There's many deaf readers here on slashdot and also many like to check in at work where they have to keep sound off.
Really it's a basic accessibility feature that is often ignored. Not to thrilled about Apple's digital textbooks containing non-subtitled videos. Yay the first book I can't "read", now THAT'S thinking differently. So as more of the web becomes video more people are finding themselves shut out.
So please add subtitles to all videos.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Yeah, well, HTML5, whatever.
I believe ALL videos should be done in ASCII (3D ASCII for things like Avatar).
You can't handle the truth.
how about a story on the technology behind the site.
I have videos on my site and it is not easy to implement (without using an external provider)
I have enjoyed the videos so far and I think this is a great idea.
This will be added to the stuff I watch on PATV as well as Geek And Sundry. (Which has a slew of great shows - though I'm most stoked about Wil Wheaton's tabletop gaming show and The Guild.)
Here I'd love to see stuff that shows off what slashdot is about - tech (especially FOSS tech) at a deeper depth than the 'non-technical' folks are interested in. I enjoyed the HD tv bit - since I don't know jack about tvs. But it did feel awfully fluffy. A lot of people complain about slashvertisements - and I don't think every mention of a physical product or software that can be purchased is an abomination - but I do want to dig a little deeper than consumer level.
Being able to have user submitted video would be cool - though I have no idea how that would work. Based on what I see here in comments, I wouldn't dare go through a video firehose to look for stuff to recommend. So maybe that's just a non-starter unless there was a way to filter out the obviously horrific stuff that I anticipate would be submitted.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You need to seek psychiatric help.
This is not a joke. I am not aiming to get a +2 Funny, nor am I insulting or trolling you. You seriously need to get some professional medical attention.
Suck for you but what do you know works fine on my preferred ways like on my laptop and HTC Amaze.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
How about fixing the glaring UI problems with the main site before wasting time on this crap? Broken AJAX and horrid android support. Let's move that archive link more than a millimeter away from the 'many more' link.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
Will it be all repeats, just like the main site?
Why does the Slashdot TV have antennae?
i give you, ZDnet 2.0.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Do not want.
Over 50% wasted white space when I go full screen is not going to make it an enjoyable experience.
Slashdot has a chance here to one-up YouTube and get it right.
-
Lotto - A tax on people who are bad at math
If the slashdot admins wanted to keep APK out they could compile a kind of blocklist of IP addresses that he posts from. But what to keep it in...? Some kind FILE full of HOSTS maybe? I'm sure APK could weigh in with some suggestions...
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Now with blackjack and hookers!
"You may have noticed that we've posted quite a few original videos on Slashdot in the past few months"
Yes, and I hate them. Please stop putting them in the stream.
Enough with the videos!
Take a dollar, divide it by 100, take two and call me in the morning.
Yup. I am now officially old. I've been ranting for quite some time that video is replacing everything, and for no good reason. For almost everything useful, text is so much more efficient. For you half braindead so-called "developers" out there, the reason is simple to grasp: text can be random-accessed, can be easily searched, and can be grasped pages at a time with proper training. In contrast, video is sequential. It forces me to watch things in whatever order the person making it wanted me to. For us old timers, watching video when compared to reading documentation feels like what e-mails feel to you, when compared to texting. Slashdot, you are becoming less and less relevant to me as time goes on. I get that that's the point, though. You need to attract nerds who grew up watching, not reading. It's sad, though.
If you shrink the width of your window, the Slashdot TV icon "wraps" and goes over top of the user name link. At that point if you click on your user name it takes you to Slashdot TV. This is on Firefox 11.0.
Normally the upper-right of Slashdot looks like this;
[TV icon] Library Newsletter Jobs Submit Options Account Mobydisk [Power icon]
if I shrink the window I see:
Library Newsletter Jobs Submit Options Account [MESS] [Power icon]
where [MESS] is my account name and the TV icon on top of each other.
Amen.
What kind of brillionaire would walk into Slashdot HQ, take a look around, and declare "What this company REALLY needs is its own video channel!" ??
Good video is expensive to produce, expensive to host, and completely at odds with the core functionality of Slashdot (commenting on articles you didn't take the time to read). Who is this for? Advertisers? Editors who want to be famous, or like the sound of their own voices? It isn't for me, I can tell you that much.
I don't ultimately care what /. does with their money and resources, but I will miss all of you who decide you're allergic to this kind of bullshit and move on.
Well, people have been saying for a couple years now that Slashdot has jumped the shark.
Nothing like a big TV icon (with rabbit ears!) to really hammer that message home, guys. Say hi to Fonzi for me!
Maybe we could call it b.slashdot.org.
Let's turn off accounts and all just post as Anonymous Cowards, too.
APK reads a lot better if you imagine the voice of Daniel (Gyro-Robo) from Robot Chicken speaking it. :)
This shouldn't be rated up and if it was it should've been rated as funny or trolling. Don't believe someone merely because they say 'they're serious' and throw in a bit of reverse psychology.
For an open-source centered site such as Slashdot, I am very surprised that you're using Adobe Flash for video delivery.
Please support HTML5 video. Or anything other than Flash. I've been "working" with Flash for the past 10 years on the Linux desktop, including standalone installs of all varieties, LTSP networks, ... and Flash has always been the bane of my existence. To have my favorite site since 2000 use Flash is...blah.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Hey APK - why do you talk about yourself in the third person? Does your hosts file block your meds?
This is just as bad as news sites such as CNN. I click on link to Ubuntu video, I get a mandatory commercial at first. Fine, gotta pay the rent, I understand. But then, the video goes so far before there's a pause. Great, I hit pause, let the whole thing buffer. With the progress bar of the whole thing buffered, I hit play again. It starts back up where I left off. Then, it pauses again. Followed by rewinding back to the beginning silly Slashdot robot voice crap. then bounces back to where it paused to play again. Repeat eight or nine times through the course of a lousy 3-4 minute video. It's as bad as Yahoo! Please leave the video technology to YouTube; they seem to be the only ones who ever get it right.
Thanks for verifying this for me. You inspired me to conduct another experiment.
Big established video platforms are often motivated to make their stuff work on iOS devices. So I brought up "tv.slashdot.org" directly on my iPad.
I went to ooyala's own site and was able to play some bits of video that were backed by flash on the desktop version.
But when I went to "tv.slashdot.org", it looked like it was supposed to work, with the conventional "press this thing to start the embedded video going" controls and all, but it always simply failed.
So, it appears to be Ooyala, but broken and less functional here.
Ah, well. They must care more about advertising revenue and viewing metrics than about ensuing that their "news for nerds" is seen by, you know, nerds (who are generally the ones disabling flash or turning off its local storage).
There's certainly more I'd like to take on as we're given the engineering bandwidth to get them done. If you have specific suggestions I'd love to hear them as a reply or sent to feedback@slashdot.org. We certainly have our list but I want to make sure your most pressing concerns are part of it. Thanks for being a longtime Slashdot reader!
Here's a deal - I'll start maintaining my own hosts file if you can have a conversation with yourself about the benefits while pretending to be 5 different anonymous cowards. Every sentence has to be a non-sequitur and there must be a link back to a similar conversation you've had that's at least ten years old
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons