5 ms·

Definitely. And you'd have no guarantee that your video wouldn't get transcoded someday into a format or setting that corrupts it.

thisjepisje 11y ago
Can't you always download the original file if you're the uploader?
- antsar 11y ago
  Until they catch on and disallow it, sure :)
ionforce 11y ago
Have a really crappy, coarse-grained visual format. Dark squares to communicate bits.
- boomzilla 11y ago
  Interesting. I guess we can experiment with how many bits can be compressed to a video frame. Is there a guarantee that YT doesn't change the frame rate? Another idea is YT as code repo: essentially one makes a movie that shows code files. On retrieval, OCR can be applied to transform the movie back to code in text.
  - pyre 11y ago
    I know that YouTube used to support only up to 30fps video, but IIRC they now support 60fps. This became a thing because people making videos of themselves playing the newest generation of consoles (PS4 / XBOne) want to upload in high quality, and the consoles now do 1080p at 60fps. If this is a concern for people (recording at 60fps to upload for 60fps), I doubt that Google would downgrade the framerate except for maybe the lower quality versions of the video (does 60fps really matter for 240p video?).
- rasguanabana 11y ago
  Maybe using Fourier/wavelet/whatsoever transform would be the way to go, just like in digital watermarking techniques. Both high capacity and robustness would seem easier to achieve.
Joona 11y ago
Speaking of corruption, I found this[1] video a while back. On mobile the video shows up fine, but on desktop it's just a gray screen, although the thumbnails work. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOb8TNn7sDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOb8TNn7sDE
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Also the original "Leroy Jenkins" video has been corrupted by youtube.
- madez 11y ago
  The video is showing fine here. I'm using the HTML Video Everywhere! extension.
  - a1369209993 11y ago
    I can confirm that the mp4 I downloaded is not (detectably by my desktop video player) corrupt. I am not sure what it is, but it is not corrupt. (Except for the filename, but that is because javascript is brain-damaged as regards strings.)
    - madez 11y ago
      I also have cookies and javascript disabled. Maybe the javascript is messing with the video.
  - Joona 11y ago
    It's just a gray screen for me in both HTML5 and Flash players, though if I download the video and play it in MPC-HC it's fine. Weird stuff!
- audiodude 11y ago
  Here's another video that doesn't behave well on desktop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
bch 11y ago
Unless what you were encoding wasn't meant to be consumed as a bytestream. If you encoded a resilient optical format (like UPC or QR codes), transcoding the format shouldn't be a deal breaker. Obviously it's not optimized for backing up a harddisk, though. Edit: @ionforce hints at same here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840838
- NeutronBoy 11y ago
  Interesting - say video @ 60fps, encode 1 QR code per frame, would be highly resistant against transcoding errors, very easy to extract information from again given the standard format. Wouldn't be terribly efficient though. Wikipedia says max bytes per code is 2953 per QR code [1]. So 2953Bps * 60fps = 177KBps data encoding. I guess that's what you get for encoding it in a visual (human readable) format instead of a datastream directly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage
  - amino 11y ago
    you have sound too. Must be an audio equivalent that would have a similar level of durability to a qr code. I dont know if youtube ever drops frames during compression. Perhaps using there 4k support would help get a bit more data
    - bch 11y ago
      You could reference this[0] vintage Commodore tech for ideas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
mkagenius 11y ago
They won't even take the upload, so we need not worry about the transcoding part. trying to upload a pdf file : "The video has failed to process. Please make sure you are uploading a supported file type."
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  What they meant was taking arbitrary data and turning it into a valid video file that plays back. For instance, you could read each bit off as audio (zero, one, zero, zero...). The quest is to find the most efficient, yet resilient way to do so.
  - mkagenius 11y ago
    They said they would like to have some encoding technique (completely new) which would get transcoded without any data loss. So, my point was that such _new_ encoding techniques will be rejected by YT in the first step itself, before even transcoding.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      No, they mean new encoding within the video and audio. A watermark is encoded in video, even though it's just visual data. Encoding can mean different things at different levels.

thisjepisje 11y ago

Can't you always download the original file if you're the uploader?

antsar 11y ago
Until they catch on and disallow it, sure :)

ionforce 11y ago

Have a really crappy, coarse-grained visual format. Dark squares to communicate bits.

boomzilla 11y ago
Interesting. I guess we can experiment with how many bits can be compressed to a video frame. Is there a guarantee that YT doesn't change the frame rate? Another idea is YT as code repo: essentially one makes a movie that shows code files. On retrieval, OCR can be applied to transform the movie back to code in text.
- pyre 11y ago
  I know that YouTube used to support only up to 30fps video, but IIRC they now support 60fps. This became a thing because people making videos of themselves playing the newest generation of consoles (PS4 / XBOne) want to upload in high quality, and the consoles now do 1080p at 60fps. If this is a concern for people (recording at 60fps to upload for 60fps), I doubt that Google would downgrade the framerate except for maybe the lower quality versions of the video (does 60fps really matter for 240p video?).
rasguanabana 11y ago
Maybe using Fourier/wavelet/whatsoever transform would be the way to go, just like in digital watermarking techniques. Both high capacity and robustness would seem easier to achieve.

Joona 11y ago

Speaking of corruption, I found this[1] video a while back. On mobile the video shows up fine, but on desktop it's just a gray screen, although the thumbnails work. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOb8TNn7sDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOb8TNn7sDE

Houshalter 11y ago
Also the original "Leroy Jenkins" video has been corrupted by youtube.
madez 11y ago
The video is showing fine here. I'm using the HTML Video Everywhere! extension.
- a1369209993 11y ago
  I can confirm that the mp4 I downloaded is not (detectably by my desktop video player) corrupt. I am not sure what it is, but it is not corrupt. (Except for the filename, but that is because javascript is brain-damaged as regards strings.)
  - madez 11y ago
    I also have cookies and javascript disabled. Maybe the javascript is messing with the video.
- Joona 11y ago
  It's just a gray screen for me in both HTML5 and Flash players, though if I download the video and play it in MPC-HC it's fine. Weird stuff!
audiodude 11y ago
Here's another video that doesn't behave well on desktop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

bch 11y ago

Unless what you were encoding wasn't meant to be consumed as a bytestream. If you encoded a resilient optical format (like UPC or QR codes), transcoding the format shouldn't be a deal breaker. Obviously it's not optimized for backing up a harddisk, though. Edit: @ionforce hints at same here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840838

NeutronBoy 11y ago
Interesting - say video @ 60fps, encode 1 QR code per frame, would be highly resistant against transcoding errors, very easy to extract information from again given the standard format. Wouldn't be terribly efficient though. Wikipedia says max bytes per code is 2953 per QR code [1]. So 2953Bps * 60fps = 177KBps data encoding. I guess that's what you get for encoding it in a visual (human readable) format instead of a datastream directly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage
- amino 11y ago
  you have sound too. Must be an audio equivalent that would have a similar level of durability to a qr code. I dont know if youtube ever drops frames during compression. Perhaps using there 4k support would help get a bit more data
  - bch 11y ago
    You could reference this[0] vintage Commodore tech for ideas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette

mkagenius 11y ago

They won't even take the upload, so we need not worry about the transcoding part. trying to upload a pdf file : "The video has failed to process. Please make sure you are uploading a supported file type."

MichaelGG 11y ago
What they meant was taking arbitrary data and turning it into a valid video file that plays back. For instance, you could read each bit off as audio (zero, one, zero, zero...). The quest is to find the most efficient, yet resilient way to do so.
- mkagenius 11y ago
  They said they would like to have some encoding technique (completely new) which would get transcoded without any data loss. So, my point was that such _new_ encoding techniques will be rejected by YT in the first step itself, before even transcoding.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    No, they mean new encoding within the video and audio. A watermark is encoded in video, even though it's just visual data. Encoding can mean different things at different levels.