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It is interesting that youtube is silently removing the ability to watch old videos in HD after making it difficult to sort by oldest on a channel. I have vide

It is interesting that youtube is silently removing the ability to watch old videos in HD after making it difficult to sort by oldest on a channel. I have videos uploaded in 1080p 5 or so years ago now only giving the option to watch in 360p. Anyone else notice this?

noitpmeder 4y ago
I guess it's not exactly shocking... what better way to reduce their storage requirement than to downsample old and not-frequently-watched content. I bet 95%+ of videos on the platform fall into this bucket.
- litiholofan 4y ago
  Notification of this fact by youtube would've been nice to be honest - and perhaps a way to pay to keep them in high quality.
  - samtheprogram 4y ago
    Highly unlikely, we’re talking about Google here.
    - b112 4y ago
      One day, the future may regard YouTube, as BBC, who recycled and overwrote Dr Who tapes to save a few bucks. And lost handsomely as a result.
      - wolfi1 4y ago
        in fact, unfortunately, almost every TV station did that in that time, some of them preserved their material on film, but unfortunately not all of their material
        b112 4y ago
        TV station? Dr Who wasn't a daily, TV station talk show, and Studios tend to archive. The BBC gets the footnote in history, here.
        WeylandYutani 4y ago
        No it happened in my country too. Technology was pretty shit in the 60s, TV was a new medium for European public broadcasters and they had to budget.
ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
Yup, they are potentially ruining rare moments captured
farseer 4y ago
That should be a warning to people who think YouTube and Alphabet by extension has any interest in archiving knowledge for the greater good. This is commercial interest and commercial cost cutting.
- remus 4y ago
  While I have some sympathy with this position I think it's worth remembering that there's a huge long-tail of absolute rubbish on YouTube. The fact that they keep it around, for free, over years and years, and at no cost to the user is remarkable to me.
  - djtango 4y ago
    Expecting any company to store infinite content for free forever is a bit of a curious expectation
    - WeylandYutani 4y ago
      Yeah I remember when image sites all stopped their free tier a few years ago and it broke a lot of old forum posts. There's a reason why serious archiving of knowledge is left to government institutions.
  - handsclean 4y ago
    Yes, YouTube is quite good if your data is absolute rubbish and you’re pleasantly surprised by anything less than full deletion.
- nextlevelwizard 4y ago
  Is it actually anyways best interest to permanently store everything that has been uploaded to Youtube? I think it would be very reasonable to purge every video uploaded by non-partenered channels that hasn't uploaded in 5 years or the video hasn't been watched in 10 years.
  - Beaver117 4y ago
interestica 4y ago
There's some sort of change going on behind the scenes. I have a bunch of 5k (2880s) footage in YouTube that now maxes out at 4k (2160). YouTube silently removed all 5k versions of videos (nothing between 4 and 8k now). It really seems like they may put 4k and above into their YouTube premium offering or something? https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112 >Note: In 2022, we started removing support for playback at resolutions between 4K and 8K. For example, we may no longer support playback at 5K.
0cVlTeIATBs 4y ago
The most egregious example I know of is a "60fps audio video sync test" now only available in 30fps
maximus-decimus 4y ago
I should probably download all the old music videos I care about before it's too late
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ is your best friend.
- npteljes 4y ago
  A local copy is a good step forward for content you truly care about. I don't think there's any service you can really count on the decade long term. Meanwhile, I still have the music and photo collection from all my life. Is is a worthy pursuit? The more I grow, the less I think so. Does it work? Absolutely yes.

noitpmeder 4y ago

I guess it's not exactly shocking... what better way to reduce their storage requirement than to downsample old and not-frequently-watched content. I bet 95%+ of videos on the platform fall into this bucket.

litiholofan 4y ago
Notification of this fact by youtube would've been nice to be honest - and perhaps a way to pay to keep them in high quality.
- samtheprogram 4y ago
  Highly unlikely, we’re talking about Google here.
  - b112 4y ago
    One day, the future may regard YouTube, as BBC, who recycled and overwrote Dr Who tapes to save a few bucks. And lost handsomely as a result.
    - wolfi1 4y ago
      in fact, unfortunately, almost every TV station did that in that time, some of them preserved their material on film, but unfortunately not all of their material
      - b112 4y ago
        TV station? Dr Who wasn't a daily, TV station talk show, and Studios tend to archive. The BBC gets the footnote in history, here.
        WeylandYutani 4y ago
        No it happened in my country too. Technology was pretty shit in the 60s, TV was a new medium for European public broadcasters and they had to budget.

ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago

Yup, they are potentially ruining rare moments captured

farseer 4y ago

That should be a warning to people who think YouTube and Alphabet by extension has any interest in archiving knowledge for the greater good. This is commercial interest and commercial cost cutting.

remus 4y ago
While I have some sympathy with this position I think it's worth remembering that there's a huge long-tail of absolute rubbish on YouTube. The fact that they keep it around, for free, over years and years, and at no cost to the user is remarkable to me.
- djtango 4y ago
  Expecting any company to store infinite content for free forever is a bit of a curious expectation
  - WeylandYutani 4y ago
    Yeah I remember when image sites all stopped their free tier a few years ago and it broke a lot of old forum posts. There's a reason why serious archiving of knowledge is left to government institutions.
- handsclean 4y ago
  Yes, YouTube is quite good if your data is absolute rubbish and you’re pleasantly surprised by anything less than full deletion.
nextlevelwizard 4y ago
Is it actually anyways best interest to permanently store everything that has been uploaded to Youtube? I think it would be very reasonable to purge every video uploaded by non-partenered channels that hasn't uploaded in 5 years or the video hasn't been watched in 10 years.
- Beaver117 4y ago

interestica 4y ago

There's some sort of change going on behind the scenes. I have a bunch of 5k (2880s) footage in YouTube that now maxes out at 4k (2160). YouTube silently removed all 5k versions of videos (nothing between 4 and 8k now). It really seems like they may put 4k and above into their YouTube premium offering or something? https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112 >Note: In 2022, we started removing support for playback at resolutions between 4K and 8K. For example, we may no longer support playback at 5K.

0cVlTeIATBs 4y ago

The most egregious example I know of is a "60fps audio video sync test" now only available in 30fps

maximus-decimus 4y ago

I should probably download all the old music videos I care about before it's too late

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ is your best friend.
npteljes 4y ago
A local copy is a good step forward for content you truly care about. I don't think there's any service you can really count on the decade long term. Meanwhile, I still have the music and photo collection from all my life. Is is a worthy pursuit? The more I grow, the less I think so. Does it work? Absolutely yes.