YouTube Launches Multi-Angle Video Experiment

jones_supa writes YouTube is experimenting with a fun feature already known from DVDs: videos that let you switch between different camera angles while the video is playing. These multi-angle videos are only an experiment right now and there's only one demo video that actually showcases this feature so far. Provided that the user can supply multiple camera streams, YouTube tells that the multiplexing will be automatic, but that the technology is not ready to scale to everyone yet. If you want to give this a try, head over to Madilyn Bailey's channel. The YouTube team took her performance at the most recent YouTube Music Night and set it up as a multi-angle video.

Comments

Basic DVD feature

[xpax666]

Wasn't this one of the hyped features of DVDs back in the day? Didn't make a splash then...

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Chess_the_cat]

Sure was. My DVD remote still has the Angle button. I can't recall a single title that used it.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[monkeyzoo]

I just tried it out, and the playback skips/repeats a little bit when you change angles. :/

Re:Basic DVD feature

[rmdingler]

I believe there are advanced lifeforms hovering on just the blind edge of our ability to detect them

who may reveal themselves tomorrow now that we've passed this incredible technological threshold.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Scorch_Mechanic]

Animusic 2 is the only DVD I recall that had the feature. It was kind of cool to watch just one of the nutty instruments playing, but the guided camera standard versions of the songs were probably better.

Re: Basic DVD feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn, that feature is mostly used in porn.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[QuasiSteve]

I don't think I have any DVDs that have that feature - but last time I saw it demonstrated, there was no feedback for the various angles in the current view. Couple that with the delay before it would start showing that angle, and it was just not very impressive.

The YouTube demo seems a lot better (minor skipping aside) because it puts the various views on the screen so you can see what's happening on other views, and decide to change the view if you so desire.

I also think the subject matter works for this - concerts, maybe sports events, etc. I have no idea how this would play out for narrative media like a full length film. Why would I event want to watch an angle in which a punch can be clearly seen to miss, when the director-chosen angle looks somewhat convincing as long as I don't look too closely or start frame-by-framing the thing.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[rudy_wayne]

Sure was. My DVD remote still has the Angle button. I can't recall a single title that used it.

That's because it's a useless gimmick. And it requires lot of extra work to produce, with little or no real benefit.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a porno movie in DVD that I found in a DVD drive in a computer lab machine that I was fixing. It allows you to choose multiple angles for a bunch of scenes, but the reality is, there's a reason why the director chose the angle he did...

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Kohath]

Because the DVD's director and editor are a better director and editor than you are. Even if they are pretty bad. This feature sounded neat when it was first talked about. It's not a very good idea in practice though.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[enjar]

Didn't make a splash then...

Not true. It was widely used in pr0n DVDs, I'd say it did make a few splashes.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[ArmoredDragon]

I found in a DVD drive in a computer lab machine that I was fixing

Why must you turn this website into a house of lies?

Re:Basic DVD feature

[bill_mcgonigle]

Didn't make a splash then...

You could see the wide shot, his face, her face, the hotel-PPV version, or the real naughty bits. I had an Apex DVD player that would flash a little 'angle' indicator onscreen whenever a multi-angle scene was available and the remote had an 'angle change' button.

It was pretty much useless.

Editors know how to do their job. Having five cameramen increases costs by quite a bit but doesn't increase profits at all, even in niche markets. One of the benefits of editing is that you can do takes and retakes without having to have a different camera on every angle simultaneously.

I guess for science experiments it might be useful, but exactly at whom is YouTube aiming this feature?

Maybe if there are enough angles with some future gear then they can integrate it with some of the stuff they've been doing with StreetView and PhotoSphere and allow for some freespace navigation within a video. That might be neat, but it's a ways off.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[_merlin]

The only DVD I have that uses it is Cirque du Soleil's Dralion. On a few of the scenes you can switch between three crops. You're not even choosing different angles as such, just how "zoomed in" the view is.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Theaetetus]

Sure was. My DVD remote still has the Angle button. I can't recall a single title that used it.

That's because it's a useless gimmick. And it requires lot of extra work to produce, with little or no real benefit.

On a DVD, sure. On live TV? Particularly sports? It's awesome. One of the stations - NBC or CBS, I think - streamed an NFL game on their website last year and let you select either the broadcast stream or any of the individual cameras, including sideline, overhead, QB close up, etc. That was really fun. I could see the same benefit for anything where different viewers may be interested in different things happening simultaneously - sports or concerts, primarily.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[mrterrysilver]

Just because it wasn't delivered properly back then doesn't mean it can't be re-imagined today. Think about easily being able to play director and sharing your cut of the performance / event easily online or on your youtube channel. There is a lot of room for innovation there.

Re: Basic DVD feature

[beav007]

It will be very useful to those who do music tutorials. The user can choose which hand/foot to watch.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've seen a lot of foreign (non-US) movies on DVD that use the angle in conjunction with the audio track and subtitles. One angle will have English opening and/or closing credits while the other has the native language credits.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[davester666]

I did find a porn DVD that had multi-angle support...didn't make it better.

And I find the up-skirt angle a curious omission...

Re:Basic DVD feature

[tigersha]

Maybe he is not lying. Maybe he did steal a DVD from his customer.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[vinaychittora]

Agreed, may be this feature isn't useful watching movies, but just think about when you watching a football live stream and you can switch camera angles yourself. That is going to be epic.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[Zaatxe]

Sometimes it was used and you didn't even notice. One notable example is Toy Story's DVD from region 4. It had dubbing and subtitles for english, spanish and portuguese, and since Pixar had the trouble to translate some in-scene texts (like the text in Buzz's box/spaceship), the DVD changed the "angle" for the right language and match the language you picked at the start of the movie.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[drinkypoo]

It was pretty much useless.

The place I can see it being genuinely useful is in car videos, and this would be useful for them on youtube right now. Some of the car video guys are now doing one takes and if you could select camera angles, that would be nifty.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[gstoddart]

The only titles I've ever seen^Wheard of which used multi-angle were porn. It was^Wsounded gimmicky and didn't really add much. Or, so I'm told. ;-)

The only other places I've seen it used was in some special features on DVDs so you could see the movie, and the original story-boarding side by side, or just one of them. But it was actually a nuisance to use.

It was one of those things which they added to the spec, and then everybody found themselves doing "OK, we have to use this feature ... but what the hell do we do with it?".

The fact that it didn't ever catch on with DVDs tells me it's probably just as gimmicky and pointless when YouTube tries it.

It's a feature which was a solution in search of a problem.

And I predict it will be just as underwhelming this time around.

Re:Basic DVD feature

[AAWood]

Depending on how it's implemented/used, I can definitely see use use for it nowadays. Example: Their are gaming communities who upload videos where a bunch of people play the same game at once, either through co-op or just racing through the same single player game separately. Currently, they either just jam all the videos in little boxes on one screen at the same time, (usually with the individual games' sounds removed), which can get very crowded, or switch perspective between players, which means you potentially miss a lot. With this you could switch between the two 'traditional' views, and have individual feeds for each player (possibly with their game audio included?).

Re:Basic DVD feature

[dj245]

Sure was. My DVD remote still has the Angle button. I can't recall a single title that used it.

That's because it's a useless gimmick. And it requires lot of extra work to produce, with little or no real benefit.

It isn't a ton of extra work. If you are doing a multicamera setup anyway, you should just be sure to use a clapperboard so that you can sync the videos up easier. If you are working with multiple cameras anyway, the extra steps in Premiere (Elements or otherwise) to put different angles in Picture in Picture boxes (PIP) is absolutely trivial. For sports and porn the resulting videos are a lot more interesting. I've used it for family videos too- with young children you never know which way they are going to look, fall down, or throw birthday cake. You don't even need fancy equipment. 2 modern smartphones and someone clapping their hands at the start of filming (for ease of syncing later) is the minimum requirement.

The Apple-Juice Pill

[Tablizer]

"Look, our toddler's in The Matrix!" [swish swish swish]

Already sex is hinted at

[Trax3001BBS]

Just after she's introduced to sing I hit left twice just to test it out, and it was of her rear which works up to her head. I LOL'd

Re:It's garbage

[monkeyzoo]

Yep, it's not really ready for primetime. I'm surprised they released it like this!
In a couple moments, I quickly spotted two issues:
1) The majority of the time that I switch camera angles, I get a little repeat/skip backwards in the audio.
2) When changing between cameras, it seems you get a real quick shot of the last frame you were on with that camera. So as the scene progresses and you change cameras, this causes some subliminal-style image flashes.

Yay for YouTube

[Trogre]

Now we can change angles just like a DVD!

Setting the stage for sports

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Watch the game from a bunch of different angles. Put several different TVs in a sports bar with all the different angles, get way more customers. Then mic up all the players and choose the channel you want to listen to. It'd lead to famous trash talk segments when video with sound are linked on forums.

Re:Setting the stage for sports

[oodaloop]

Wow, what a great idea. That's already been done.

ooh, my eyes

[binarybum]

I tried to watch the sample video thing. Terrible issues with audio-continuity between the views. Seeing that dude's fanny pack was a great example of why nobody needs \ wants this. I might have had some degree of respect for the guy despite his annoying voice if I hadn't switched to the view that showed the bejeweled fanny-pack. Editing exists for a reason, just like elected political representatives. This is like those people that show you their completely unedited vacation photos- all 568 of them. It kills the magic. If done very very well, I could imagine this maybe being useful for porn (but only until good holograms become available).

Worked really well for concert DVDs

[SuperKendall]

The U2 Elevation DVD used multi-angle really well - you could switch between different views of the concert, from the control room to BonoCam (yes really, even before Google Glass there were cameras in glasses) and general wide angle views. The control room view was especially fun.

I have to admit it never caught on generally but there are some select subjects where it can be really great - personally I think it could really flourish on a place like YouTube with and endless array of specialized subjects and millions of people to think up some creative use. I'm interested to see what comes of it.

Re:It's garbage

[gnupun]

Why can't the morons who upload videos to youtube use multiple angles in a single video stream so we don't have to switch? It's simply annoying and unpleasant to watch the same angle for even 5 minutes (eg: see professional music videos, TV shows, movies etc.), let alone the whole video length of 10-50 minutes. How come people are allowed to upload without learning this basic skill of filming?

NBA's TNT OT

[antdude]

http://www.nba.com/tntovertime... started this years ago. Very fun.

Meh

[Stephen Chadfield]

Meh

Re:It's garbage

[drinkypoo]

How come people are allowed to upload without learning this basic skill of filming?

A lot of these people don't have someone else to handle the camera. Yeah, it's sad, but it's true. I don't have anyone who wants to operate a camera while I pontificate about something that might be interesting to a handful of people. If I make a video like that, you can be sure that it will have a static camera.

Re:It's garbage

[NJRoadfan]

Not only that, many don't have the equipment to run a multicam setup. Cameras and a time code generator cost money.

Beastie Boys Video Anthology

[Dusthead Jr.]

One of my favorite DVDs, not movies, has got to be Beastie Boys Video Anthology. It's one of the most feature rich DVDs that I own and if a group were to release a collection of videos this is how it should be done. Some of the video not only include multiple angles, but multiple remixes on the language tracks.

Re:It's garbage

[dj245]

Not only that, many don't have the equipment to run a multicam setup. Cameras and a time code generator cost money.

I've done multicam with 2 smartphones. You don't need a time code generator. Start the recording on both cameras at approximately the same time, and make a loud, sharp, noise (like a single hand clap or banging a table) to emulate the clapperboard that you are too poor to buy. Don't stop the recording until the scene is done. Use the loud sharp noise at the beginning of the clips to sync up the videos. Make your video PIP and throw away one of the audio tracks, or do proper cuts if you want to be fancy. Done.

Does that mean we'll finally get to see

[mark_reh]

Nicki Minaj from an angle other than the one with the camera pointing at her butt?