10 ms·

Details Unveiled for Twitter’s Native Video Player to Rival YouTube

49 points by forlorn 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago
The good news: Youtube will have another main competitor, which can only be a good thing. The bad news: Twitter will start building its own "advanced censorship infrastructure" to appease MPAA (just like Google did), which will later be used for other kinds of censorship, too (shared images, tweets, etc).
- walterbell 12y ago
  We need sites to create DRM-free zones where: - all content is CC licensed - it's easy to donate to content/remix creators - it's easy to (a) reuse content, (b) credit creators - no MPAA content is allowed
  - Animats 12y ago
    You can upload video to the Internet Archive under such terms. Here's one of mine: https://archive.org/details/Aethericmachine14 https://archive.org/details/Aethericmachine14 Anyone can play or download the original file. The Archive transcodes it into several formats for convenient viewing, download or editing. They even have BitTorrent support. About 400,000 videos have been uploaded.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Thanks, that's great. Is there a way to create "playlists" within the Community Video collection, or are those created offsite?
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  Not sure why this is being down voted, but it seems pretty fair to me. DRM is the reason why YouTube still uses Flash as the main player, the same for Netflix with Silverlight. Given Twitter will mainly be doing this from a commercial angle, I can't see them being any different - if anything their technical might will lead to stronger DRM technologies.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    DRM is not the reason youtube uses flash, browser support and feature usage. HTML5 video APIs are still frustrating to use compared to flash's pretty well built-out mechanisms.
    - eleusive 12y ago
      Advertisers also love to serve video ads on a flash platform because it lets them perform custom analytics, logic, etc.
      - psykovsky 12y ago
        And don't forget the part where flash is a backdoor to users computers. It can bypass proxies and give them your real IP, and I'm not sure even google will want that to go away.
  - detaro 12y ago
    What kind of DRM? I haven't come across a YouTube video where it fell back to Flash in ages.
    - 7952 12y ago
      No They don't need flash to do DRM. Chrome has the widevine plugin that adds DRM to html5.
  - warfangle 12y ago
    > YouTube still uses Flash as the main player That's odd; I just loaded up a YouTube video and it's the HTML5 player. Maybe I have it enabled in settings somewhere; huh, nope, in incognito mode it's still HTML5. Must be a chrome thing - in Firefox it's flash. Probably something to do with the codecs available in Firefox HTML5.
0x0 12y ago
Wasn't part of youtube's original concept to be limited to 10 minutes as well? It's already been so long I've forgotten.
- burkaman 12y ago
  There is still a limit of 15 minutes, unless you verify your account and you haven't violated the terms of use.
- baddox 12y ago
  I thought that was just a technical limitation to prevent abuse of resources, rather than a deliberate part of the concept of YouTube.
msoad 12y ago
It's interesting how Facebook closes it's eyes on copyright infringements because they want to take over video consumption market. For example super highlights[1] Facebook page share copyrighted football games all the time. This is on top of giving video posts a higher rank and auto-playing the videos. Twitter will push a lot of videos using all sort of technics just like Facebook. To be fair, a playing video in my Facebook feed is very mesmerizing. [1] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-Highlights/358037564248067?ref=br_tf https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-Highlights/358037564248...
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  The process is always the same 1. Launch platform that supports user generated content 2. Close eyes, let any content go 3. Manually take down selective content (porn, racist material, etc) 4. Support official DMCA channels 5. Increase speed and volume of take downs for select material 6. Provide automatic detection and takedown of MPAA/RIAA material You only have to fulfill the requirement of each sequential bullet point after you get substantially large. If you stay small and unprofitable you don't have to worry about it. The more profitable become the more you have to worry about it. Honestly that seems pretty reasonable to me. Some cases, such as sports highlights, are annoying. But for the most part it's fine. No, you can't make millions of dollars off of someone else's content. I'm ok with that. YouTube feels like it's in a pretty good spot imo. If someone wants to compete with YouTube then they're gonna have to play by the same rules. That's not too bad.
  - rdl 12y ago
    Makes sense for a startup, but if you are part of an existing large company, I don't see why rights holders wouldn't jump ahead to taking action even in stage 1 and 2.
    - nl 12y ago
      They try, but the DMCA safe harbor provisions make it hard. There is a doctrine of secondary infringement which arose out of the Grokster case[1] that may help rights holders. However, it is pretty limited in scope. [1] http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/winter06/facforum1 http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/report...
caseyf7 12y ago
Well this will be a much better platform for response videos. We'll see if the advertisers like it and the smart ones will expect it and take advantage of it.
nicolasmiller 12y ago
"Everything that happens in the world happens on Twitter..." Really?
- mytochar 12y ago
  Yes, really. In one or two tiny tweets and maybe a hashtag from someone there. It may not be a big event; but, "acronym #hashtag-describing-event" is a thing. And that would be "happens on twitter" in Twitter terms.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  "happens on Twitter" is obviously marketing but "gets mentioned on Twitter" isn't far from the truth
KaoruAoiShiho 12y ago
For a second I thought it said Twitch.tv. Twitch has found a profitable niche from which to attack youtube. Don't stop at video games, go for the jugular twitch... Become youtube before youtube can become you.
sheensleeves 12y ago
This reminds me of how CDROMs for PCs were hyped. The PC was then called a "multimedia" PC. It made me sit down and have a think on what a PC is good for. Playing video is one of those things. So what we have at this point is former startups are playing slow follow trying to dislodge best breed products. I won't name names, but I'm sure you can think of other examples.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  An alternative to YouTube would be a healthy thing for the Internet. It has a complete monopoly on online video, and its policies are awful for content creators.
  - lmm 12y ago
    A lot of slacktivists complain about their policies, but honestly, are they that bad? I've heard a few content creators moan, but they've always stopped well short of e.g. hosting their own videos. If you're sailing close to the wind - making video collages with copyrighted content (legal fair use, but that's an affirmative defence you have to assert, not a right as such), or advocating for controversial political causes, or doing things many people don't want to see in public (breastfeeding, nonnude fetish modelling) - then sure, you're in trouble. But what proportion of content creators is that? The mainstream of content creators are, I think, doing fine under YouTube. There are plenty of occasions where YouTube takes down things that are perfectly legal, perhaps even things that don't violate their own written policy. And sure, that's bad. But nothing they've done so far has felt like the hill I would want to die on.

49 points by forlorn 12y ago

The good news: Youtube will have another main competitor, which can only be a good thing. The bad news: Twitter will start building its own "advanced censorship infrastructure" to appease MPAA (just like Google did), which will later be used for other kinds of censorship, too (shared images, tweets, etc).

walterbell 12y ago
We need sites to create DRM-free zones where: - all content is CC licensed - it's easy to donate to content/remix creators - it's easy to (a) reuse content, (b) credit creators - no MPAA content is allowed
- Animats 12y ago
  You can upload video to the Internet Archive under such terms. Here's one of mine: https://archive.org/details/Aethericmachine14 https://archive.org/details/Aethericmachine14 Anyone can play or download the original file. The Archive transcodes it into several formats for convenient viewing, download or editing. They even have BitTorrent support. About 400,000 videos have been uploaded.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Thanks, that's great. Is there a way to create "playlists" within the Community Video collection, or are those created offsite?
lucaspiller 12y ago
Not sure why this is being down voted, but it seems pretty fair to me. DRM is the reason why YouTube still uses Flash as the main player, the same for Netflix with Silverlight. Given Twitter will mainly be doing this from a commercial angle, I can't see them being any different - if anything their technical might will lead to stronger DRM technologies.
- rtpg 12y ago
  DRM is not the reason youtube uses flash, browser support and feature usage. HTML5 video APIs are still frustrating to use compared to flash's pretty well built-out mechanisms.
  - eleusive 12y ago
    Advertisers also love to serve video ads on a flash platform because it lets them perform custom analytics, logic, etc.
    - psykovsky 12y ago
      And don't forget the part where flash is a backdoor to users computers. It can bypass proxies and give them your real IP, and I'm not sure even google will want that to go away.
- detaro 12y ago
  What kind of DRM? I haven't come across a YouTube video where it fell back to Flash in ages.
  - 7952 12y ago
    No They don't need flash to do DRM. Chrome has the widevine plugin that adds DRM to html5.
- warfangle 12y ago
  > YouTube still uses Flash as the main player That's odd; I just loaded up a YouTube video and it's the HTML5 player. Maybe I have it enabled in settings somewhere; huh, nope, in incognito mode it's still HTML5. Must be a chrome thing - in Firefox it's flash. Probably something to do with the codecs available in Firefox HTML5.

0x0 12y ago

Wasn't part of youtube's original concept to be limited to 10 minutes as well? It's already been so long I've forgotten.

burkaman 12y ago
There is still a limit of 15 minutes, unless you verify your account and you haven't violated the terms of use.
baddox 12y ago
I thought that was just a technical limitation to prevent abuse of resources, rather than a deliberate part of the concept of YouTube.

msoad 12y ago

It's interesting how Facebook closes it's eyes on copyright infringements because they want to take over video consumption market. For example super highlights[1] Facebook page share copyrighted football games all the time. This is on top of giving video posts a higher rank and auto-playing the videos. Twitter will push a lot of videos using all sort of technics just like Facebook. To be fair, a playing video in my Facebook feed is very mesmerizing. [1] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-Highlights/358037564248067?ref=br_tf https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-Highlights/358037564248...

forrestthewoods 12y ago
The process is always the same 1. Launch platform that supports user generated content 2. Close eyes, let any content go 3. Manually take down selective content (porn, racist material, etc) 4. Support official DMCA channels 5. Increase speed and volume of take downs for select material 6. Provide automatic detection and takedown of MPAA/RIAA material You only have to fulfill the requirement of each sequential bullet point after you get substantially large. If you stay small and unprofitable you don't have to worry about it. The more profitable become the more you have to worry about it. Honestly that seems pretty reasonable to me. Some cases, such as sports highlights, are annoying. But for the most part it's fine. No, you can't make millions of dollars off of someone else's content. I'm ok with that. YouTube feels like it's in a pretty good spot imo. If someone wants to compete with YouTube then they're gonna have to play by the same rules. That's not too bad.
- rdl 12y ago
  Makes sense for a startup, but if you are part of an existing large company, I don't see why rights holders wouldn't jump ahead to taking action even in stage 1 and 2.
  - nl 12y ago
    They try, but the DMCA safe harbor provisions make it hard. There is a doctrine of secondary infringement which arose out of the Grokster case[1] that may help rights holders. However, it is pretty limited in scope. [1] http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/winter06/facforum1 http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/report...

caseyf7 12y ago

Well this will be a much better platform for response videos. We'll see if the advertisers like it and the smart ones will expect it and take advantage of it.

nicolasmiller 12y ago

"Everything that happens in the world happens on Twitter..." Really?

mytochar 12y ago
Yes, really. In one or two tiny tweets and maybe a hashtag from someone there. It may not be a big event; but, "acronym #hashtag-describing-event" is a thing. And that would be "happens on twitter" in Twitter terms.
kalleboo 12y ago
"happens on Twitter" is obviously marketing but "gets mentioned on Twitter" isn't far from the truth

KaoruAoiShiho 12y ago

For a second I thought it said Twitch.tv. Twitch has found a profitable niche from which to attack youtube. Don't stop at video games, go for the jugular twitch... Become youtube before youtube can become you.

sheensleeves 12y ago

This reminds me of how CDROMs for PCs were hyped. The PC was then called a "multimedia" PC. It made me sit down and have a think on what a PC is good for. Playing video is one of those things. So what we have at this point is former startups are playing slow follow trying to dislodge best breed products. I won't name names, but I'm sure you can think of other examples.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
An alternative to YouTube would be a healthy thing for the Internet. It has a complete monopoly on online video, and its policies are awful for content creators.
- lmm 12y ago
  A lot of slacktivists complain about their policies, but honestly, are they that bad? I've heard a few content creators moan, but they've always stopped well short of e.g. hosting their own videos. If you're sailing close to the wind - making video collages with copyrighted content (legal fair use, but that's an affirmative defence you have to assert, not a right as such), or advocating for controversial political causes, or doing things many people don't want to see in public (breastfeeding, nonnude fetish modelling) - then sure, you're in trouble. But what proportion of content creators is that? The mainstream of content creators are, I think, doing fine under YouTube. There are plenty of occasions where YouTube takes down things that are perfectly legal, perhaps even things that don't violate their own written policy. And sure, that's bad. But nothing they've done so far has felt like the hill I would want to die on.