8 ms·

They do encode old content but also add the biggest and ugliest watermark in the lower third of the media advertising their website in everyone of the videos. D

They do encode old content but also add the biggest and ugliest watermark in the lower third of the media advertising their website in everyone of the videos. Doesn't preservation usually mean not destroying the works with tacky advertisements that can't be removed without permanently altering the original content? I consume (and share) a lot of old video and I don't see this as a big loss since you can't enjoy the original works as they were intended to be.

throwaway_ab 3y ago
Exactly my thoughts. I had a look at the channel and wondered why there was no true archival version provided by either: 1. The channel org itself via "Internet Archive" and/or torrents. 2. The community. It is trivial to create archival copies of youtube channels and most rare true archival footage on youtube will be mirrored elsewhere, even if "illegally". (1) does not exist and (2) is non existent either, no one considers these encodes valuable enough to preserve, which does seem odd considering it is unique data. Load up the videos, and you see a giant watermark, thus destroying any archival usage. No one will fight for this channnel, no one will bother mirroring it, because every encode is ruined and flawed. If the channel/org has the originals, consider talking to Internet Archive
- saurik 3y ago
  Oh come on... I read these comments and was thinking I'd see something ridiculously large--maybe even taking up a third of the video--not something that's only like a tenth the vertical space. Yes: it would be better to not have it, but a lot of TV stations had watermarks on TV shows at the time! This isn't that large, I can see through it, and the audio is (of course) fine. The reason no one is mirroring these things isn't because of the watermarks: it is because all of this content was already just ephemera that most people consider trash in the first place. Hell: I care a lot about this stuff... but do I want to personally spend the money to carry it around forever? This is a lot of content that I will never personally watch much of. But is that because of the URL watermark? No. (edit: Oh god... I started watching some of this stuff and realized it isn't just commercials but local Chicago news reporting on important historical topics and now I am in fact frantically archiving parts of the channel, though I am definitely doing so selectively; but like, they clearly themselves were uploading somewhat selectively, so the hit rate is higher than I had initially hoped even though it is still certainly a small fraction of the channel.)
  - mopenstein 3y ago
    It's not high art, I'll concede that point, but it has some value in its unaltered state. There's been countless times I was looking for something only to have my hopes dashed because it was being made available from this channel alone. I'll also concede I'm not the average consumer of entertainment. But if this stuff isn't for people like me, then who? If no one cares, why produce it all? If all it does is frustrate the people that do care, why produce it all? Watermarks have their place, if you're the original creator, but to take works from others and slap your ad on it is pretty despicable (relatively).
    - saurik 3y ago
      Sure: I am not defending that they added the watermark, and agree that that sucks (and would even accept "despicable" as a good adjective to describe it)... I am merely defending that, if the only copy I have access to has a watermark, it has effectively zero impact on any use case I can fathom for the video.
  - justin66 3y ago
    The watermarks signify that these are trash, and the real copies are archived elsewhere. That’s why nobody is rushing to mirror them: it’s inconceivable that anyone would go to the trouble of making these and not preserve the non watermarked versions.
    - saurik 3y ago
      And are they going to upload it somewhere we can find it easily later? I dunno: I ended up hand selecting just over 200 of these videos that I'd be sad to not have access to later, and am downloading them (almost half of those are going to take me hours to finish) so I have a copy.
      - justin66 3y ago
        I do think that's a reasonable thing to do. Higher quality copies almost certainly exist but too much of digital archiving is fragile in the sense that someone might have taken all the precautions and... that single person might just pass away at some point.
FpUser 3y ago
>"I consume" I prefer to watch (talking about video)> I mean those marketing vultures can call me whatever the fuck they want but I do not give a shit. I do not consume, I watch, read, eat, drink and so on.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Mod parent up!
- izzydata 3y ago
  Also the video still exists after watching it so it has not been consumed.
  - hypertele-Xii 3y ago
    Though its corresponding anti-video in your mind is consumed when you watch it. As in, you can't watch it twice "for the first time", and the first time is always special.
- mlyle 3y ago
  "Consume" is a generic economic term that encompasses any use of a good or service.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    I know that. And I understand when marketers use it in their business internally. When the person says I consume in relation to say watching a move as in this case, reading a book etc. it is different in my opinion.
    - account42 3y ago
      Perhaps such a person has been consuming too much marketing speak.
- criddell 3y ago
  I also feel a little sad whenever I hear somebody describe themselves as a content creator. They are giving in to the idea that their work exists just to sandwich ads around in somebody else’s CMS.
hluska 3y ago
[flagged]
LocalH 3y ago
Few people who upload old video to YouTube have any clue what they’re doing, and even without the watermark, these videos were most likely not archive-quality. It’s exceedingly rare to see all 60 fields per second preserved.
- mike50 3y ago
  It's impossible by definition interlaced footage has to be de-interlaced to work on YouTube.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Not entirely - you could upload a 50/60 frames per second video where every other frame only has half of the lines. It would probably look terrible without the smoothing effect that a phosphorescent display offers, but it would accurately preserve the information to as high a level of precision as you design the recorder's ADC to measure.
  - LocalH 3y ago
    So you deinterlace to 60fps with something at least yadif quality. Done and done.

throwaway_ab 3y ago

Exactly my thoughts. I had a look at the channel and wondered why there was no true archival version provided by either: 1. The channel org itself via "Internet Archive" and/or torrents. 2. The community. It is trivial to create archival copies of youtube channels and most rare true archival footage on youtube will be mirrored elsewhere, even if "illegally". (1) does not exist and (2) is non existent either, no one considers these encodes valuable enough to preserve, which does seem odd considering it is unique data. Load up the videos, and you see a giant watermark, thus destroying any archival usage. No one will fight for this channnel, no one will bother mirroring it, because every encode is ruined and flawed. If the channel/org has the originals, consider talking to Internet Archive

saurik 3y ago
Oh come on... I read these comments and was thinking I'd see something ridiculously large--maybe even taking up a third of the video--not something that's only like a tenth the vertical space. Yes: it would be better to not have it, but a lot of TV stations had watermarks on TV shows at the time! This isn't that large, I can see through it, and the audio is (of course) fine. The reason no one is mirroring these things isn't because of the watermarks: it is because all of this content was already just ephemera that most people consider trash in the first place. Hell: I care a lot about this stuff... but do I want to personally spend the money to carry it around forever? This is a lot of content that I will never personally watch much of. But is that because of the URL watermark? No. (edit: Oh god... I started watching some of this stuff and realized it isn't just commercials but local Chicago news reporting on important historical topics and now I am in fact frantically archiving parts of the channel, though I am definitely doing so selectively; but like, they clearly themselves were uploading somewhat selectively, so the hit rate is higher than I had initially hoped even though it is still certainly a small fraction of the channel.)
- mopenstein 3y ago
  It's not high art, I'll concede that point, but it has some value in its unaltered state. There's been countless times I was looking for something only to have my hopes dashed because it was being made available from this channel alone. I'll also concede I'm not the average consumer of entertainment. But if this stuff isn't for people like me, then who? If no one cares, why produce it all? If all it does is frustrate the people that do care, why produce it all? Watermarks have their place, if you're the original creator, but to take works from others and slap your ad on it is pretty despicable (relatively).
  - saurik 3y ago
    Sure: I am not defending that they added the watermark, and agree that that sucks (and would even accept "despicable" as a good adjective to describe it)... I am merely defending that, if the only copy I have access to has a watermark, it has effectively zero impact on any use case I can fathom for the video.
- justin66 3y ago
  The watermarks signify that these are trash, and the real copies are archived elsewhere. That’s why nobody is rushing to mirror them: it’s inconceivable that anyone would go to the trouble of making these and not preserve the non watermarked versions.
  - saurik 3y ago
    And are they going to upload it somewhere we can find it easily later? I dunno: I ended up hand selecting just over 200 of these videos that I'd be sad to not have access to later, and am downloading them (almost half of those are going to take me hours to finish) so I have a copy.
    - justin66 3y ago
      I do think that's a reasonable thing to do. Higher quality copies almost certainly exist but too much of digital archiving is fragile in the sense that someone might have taken all the precautions and... that single person might just pass away at some point.

FpUser 3y ago

>"I consume" I prefer to watch (talking about video)> I mean those marketing vultures can call me whatever the fuck they want but I do not give a shit. I do not consume, I watch, read, eat, drink and so on.

loloquwowndueo 3y ago
Mod parent up!
izzydata 3y ago
Also the video still exists after watching it so it has not been consumed.
- hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  Though its corresponding anti-video in your mind is consumed when you watch it. As in, you can't watch it twice "for the first time", and the first time is always special.
mlyle 3y ago
"Consume" is a generic economic term that encompasses any use of a good or service.
- FpUser 3y ago
  I know that. And I understand when marketers use it in their business internally. When the person says I consume in relation to say watching a move as in this case, reading a book etc. it is different in my opinion.
  - account42 3y ago
    Perhaps such a person has been consuming too much marketing speak.
criddell 3y ago
I also feel a little sad whenever I hear somebody describe themselves as a content creator. They are giving in to the idea that their work exists just to sandwich ads around in somebody else’s CMS.

hluska 3y ago

[flagged]

LocalH 3y ago

Few people who upload old video to YouTube have any clue what they’re doing, and even without the watermark, these videos were most likely not archive-quality. It’s exceedingly rare to see all 60 fields per second preserved.

mike50 3y ago
It's impossible by definition interlaced footage has to be de-interlaced to work on YouTube.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Not entirely - you could upload a 50/60 frames per second video where every other frame only has half of the lines. It would probably look terrible without the smoothing effect that a phosphorescent display offers, but it would accurately preserve the information to as high a level of precision as you design the recorder's ADC to measure.
- LocalH 3y ago
  So you deinterlace to 60fps with something at least yadif quality. Done and done.