"YouTube Red" Offers Premium YouTube For $9.99 a Month, $12.99 For iOS Users (arstechnica.com) 236
An anonymous reader writes: YouTube is launching a subscription plan in the U.S. called Red that combines ad-free videos, new original series and movies. The official blog post reads in part: "On October 28, we’re giving fans exactly what they want. Introducing YouTube Red -- a new membership designed to provide you with the ultimate YouTube experience. YouTube Red lets you enjoy videos across all of YouTube without ads, while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background, all for $9.99 a month. Your membership extends across devices and anywhere you sign into YouTube, including our recently launched Gaming app and a brand new YouTube Music app we’re announcing today that will be available soon."
The name is too long (Score:5, Funny)
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Watch for Google to sue RedTube because of...Tube.
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Watch for Google to sue RedTube because of...Tube.
"Ted Stevens sues Google from beyond the grave for infringement on the distinctive likeness of his "Tube" catchphrase"
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Nah. Fee Waybill is still alive. [thetubes.com] He can do it...
Re: The name is too long (Score:2)
No, they'll sue youtube-dl and Xposed now, for cutting into their revenue. "Don't be Evil" is so last month.
The Big Pay Off for Making Mozilla Their Bitch (Score:2)
No, they'll sue youtube-dl and Xposed now, for cutting into their revenue. "Don't be Evil" is so last month.
As I said last time this came up, browser-integrated DRM is as much about ads (especially for Google) as it is about content. Stopping you from reading/recording a video stream necessarily stops you from altering it.
http://news.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
How fortunate that, as a browser maker (along with Microsoft and Apple), they've coincidentally pushed for DRM to become part of web standards [slashdot.org].
And that they obtained considerable financial influence [slashdot.org] over the browser maker thought most likely to resist (Mozilla).
And that Mozilla gave in [slashdot.org].
Damn, am I ever so happy (as always) that the proven tech leader was ousted as Mozilla's CEO in favor of the former head of marketing.
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Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
With all the streaming services out there, it seems like the chance of getting any single service that is of very high quality will go down. Will we continue to see content split between many vendors with no place to get everything you want in one spot? Or worse, will we start to see these streaming services start trying to sign more and more exclusivity agreements for content to wall it off for people who use other services?
IMO, the idea of another service offering streaming movies and "new original content" is not an appetizing one. It's another subscription they are asking you to maintain, and how many are cost-cutting cord-cutters supposed to maintain at once?
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
You cut the cord because you wanted a la carte pricing. Wish granted. Now you get to sleep in the wet spot.
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Re:Fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
right.... because its not working out the way you thought it would!!
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Yes it is. Different channels, sometimes with overlapping content, are offering their own services for separate prices, all of which can be ultimately displayed by the same end hardware.
That's exactly what a la carte pricing is. As opposed to bundles, which are many channels, or pay-per-view, where individual episodes or possibly TV series are charged for but not a channel of content.
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No, not really. True a la carte pricing doesn't generally allow for overlapping content. As soon as you have overlapping content, you aren't a la carte. When I go in a restaurant and order a la carte, I can order a burrito, or I can order a taco, or I can order both. As soon as
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? assuming one person.
netflix $7.99/mo
amazon $8.25/mo
youtube $9.99/mo
crunchyroll $6.95/mo
That brings me to $33.18/mo
Still cheaper than basic cable.
And I can watch what I want when I want AD FREE.
Basic cable with 17 channels 11 of which are broadcast stations. Analog only.
$35/mo
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the cost I have the issue with. It is the 100 different interfaces. It's the "is this on Netflix? Hulu? HBO? Damn I can't remember."
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Roku seems to have that figured out better than the others. However I refuse to use a roku as looking at ad's on the main screen reminds me I am being screwed.
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Tivo does it well too, but it is quite expensive.
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The ads are minor. Especially compared to in-your-face crap like Youtube. Roku only have ads for what is available on Roku. When I point out that HBO has ads I find a horde of fans telling me that I'm wrong because it only shows ads for its own shows. So if HBO gets off the hook for ads then Roku should get off the hook, and those Roku ads are much less intrusive than HBO ads because you're so rarely on the main screen.
However the 100 different interfaces problem applies to Roku also. There is no commo
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It's not the cost I have the issue with. It is the 100 different interfaces. It's the "is this on Netflix? Hulu? HBO? Damn I can't remember."
That's not 100, it's 3
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Really? You wanted me to list all of them? Here you count - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It is when the search & selection interface differs greatly between Hulu/Netflix/HBO.
I like the Roku interface because it lets you cut through those distinctions and jump straight in, while also allowing you to navigate each service individually. I'm sure there are others that do the same (somebody mentioned tivo, somebody else mentioned a chromecast app).
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It is because with cable you have a centralised interface. You can usually go to the channel guide page, select the show you want and have it record it for you, or at the very lest pop up a notice when your show is about to start. When you are in Netflix you can't see what content is on Hulu or HBO etc. So it makes everything more cumbersome.
At the moment I have a kodi setup on ubuntu which is controlled solely by a remote control plugged into my tv. To get netflix functionality into that essentially me
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In a way yes. Because when I had satellite, my Tivo would tell me what channels things were on. It would even track when a program moved to a different channel. The same interface applied to every single channel.
Google (in some areas) has universal media search (Score:2)
The recent update to the Chromecast remote app for Android includes universal search, so you can just search there and then click on whatever comes up and it'll launch that over on your TV or whatnot. I can't really go into any more details than that because for some dumb reason (and this is sadly routinely the case, for example with the YouTube subscription service
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Interesting. But unfortunately I am in Australia. Which means chromecast suck ass and is completely crippled to the point of being useless.
Re: Fragmentation (Score:2)
This is one of the hidden costs of supporting the copyright system - privatize the gains, socialize the losses. Good government, have a cookie.
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It's not the cost I have the issue with. It is the 100 different interfaces. It's the "is this on Netflix? Hulu? HBO? Damn I can't remember."
Yeah, is that on channel 9 or 10 or Fox 8 or Disney or whatever.
Much like TV, this will be sorted out in time when someone builds a search aggregator for the various providers.
The biggest problem they have is the fact that Hulu, HBO and others aren't offered in countries where there's a lot of people who write very good software just for fun in their spare time.
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When there is a combined aggregator then yes the problem is solved. But it isn't the same as 9, 10, fox 8 etc as if you have foxtel you have an EPG which lets you browse all the channels you aren't having to log in to one, search, log out, log in to the second, search, log out etc etc.
While you only have 3 or 4 it is fine. But once you start adding more and more providers it starts getting painful.
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Much like TV, this will be sorted out in time when someone builds a search aggregator for the various providers.
Like http://www.rabbittvplus.com/ [rabbittvplus.com] ? You search for what you want. It embeds it if it can, or redirects you to the lowest-cost content provider that offers it.
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Plus $30-50/month for the internet access itself. That brings you back to the price of premium cable.
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I don't know about the other services, but certainly with netflix, it's also multiple users over multiple devices, simultaneously. No extra charge for a second box.
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We wanted ala carte pricing but did not get it. Netflix is not ala-carte. Hulu is not ala-carte. Amazon is not ala-carte. This new youtube is not ala-carte. Ala-carte means we get one show to pick, or maybe four shows at max. Then we can mix and choose. That ala-carte per show should be much cheaper than $8-10 a month. The problem with picking multiple streaming providers is that you get an enormous amount of overlap. Most of the shows on Netflix are probably on the other services as well.
But may y
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No. I cut the cord because television sucks and I never watched it so it was useless to keep around. On the other hand, I did this quite a while ago. I've only actually had television for a few short periods of my life. Well, connected television. I have a TV but I don't get any stations. I am not sure there are any available? I have one here in my hotel room but I've only turned it on twice - there wasn't anything on. I've got the internet. Why would I need TV? I've got people to help, people to talk to, a
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It actually is. A la carte pricing, in TV terms, always referred to charging for individual channels. And channels were mini-bundles.
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No, it's actually the exact opposite of what we asked for. Channels are mini-bundles of content, true. However:
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Interesting)
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How much does cable cost per month? Probably between $50 and $60 for basic, and a lot more for premium packages. Assuming you're already going to pay for internet service, that's FIVE streaming services you can sign up for and not pay more than a basic cable package. Besides which, that's on-demand and commercial-free service, so I'd consider it a superior product anyhow.
I'm totally fine with this deal. I'm signed up for three streaming services, and it's more TV than I can realistically watch anyhow.
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It will be "fine" for a while, then when cable has sufficiently declined in popularity, the streaming prices will increase and the ads will begin to flow like water.
You think? That's one of the good things about the fragmentation - those multiple services are competing with each other. The problem with cable is it hasn't had much competition. In many areas of the country, there's only one cable provider, so they can pretty much charge whatever they please, and that can be a lot. And the streaming options for pro sports are either ridiculously restrictive or absurdly expensive, so sports fans are often limited to cable.
If streaming services start ratcheting up the p
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...how many are cost-cutting cord-cutters supposed to maintain at once?
One. Or zero. Or five. Your choice. That's what the free market is all about.
If I didn't know better, I'd say it sounds like you're arguing against competition. If that's your thing, then just pay your money to Comcast or whoever, and ignore all the others. For myself, I'd prefer to use Netflix for now, and then if I get bored of their content, maybe try Hulu for a while, or Amazon, or maybe a couple of 'em at the same time...
The point is that I get to choose. I won't be choosing YouTube Red unless
Buffet style, not ala carte (Score:3)
I would argue that the "ala carte" model we're ending up with (at least 6+ streaming services) isn't really ala carte, but more like buffet style. It's all you can eat, but not every buffet serves every item you want, so you have to buy multiple buffets to get a meal.
I'd rather see them come up with per show or per movie pricing, where I pay for every episode or movie I actually watch.
I suspect that even at the inflated Amazon (non-prime) Instant or iTunes pricing, it's getting to the point that unless you
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Buffet style is actually much more correct. I think I will call it that from now on.
I can't ever seem to find anything on prime that I want to watch but like you I use the 2 day shipping constantly so it's easily worth it. Netflix has a much larger selection of things I like.
I take advantage of the $1 no rush shipping credit on things I don't need in a hurry. So I usually have enough to rent a couple of movies on amazon instant every other month or so. I read through the leaving netflix selection every mont
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Is there any particular reason you don't just rip them yourself?
Re: Buffet style, not ala carte (Score:2)
I had around 600 or so DVDs and blurays when we switched to all digital. I ripped them myself, but it was a long and painful process! If there was some service I'd do that in a heartbeat.
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Fair enough. I had a similar number. I ended up just having a dedicated machine that did it. Pulled the name directly from the dvd / bluray and passed it through handbrake. I would just come in, see the disk was ejected and drop the next one in....
I don't think you will find a provider as it probably counts as commercial breaching of copy protection schemes and I would expect falls foul of any safe harbour / fair use provisions.
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With all the streaming services out there, it seems like the chance of getting any single service that is of very high quality will go down.
Good. We need more fragmentation, because it means more choice. The problem isn't fragmentation itself, it is the closed platforms such as Netflix. We need an open platform able to receive content from any distributor.
That's weird... (Score:4, Funny)
I already enjoy Youtube without ads.
Re: That's weird... (Score:5, Interesting)
You are probably in for a nice surprise soon.
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On my PC with adblock I never see youtube ads. With youtube on my TV though I do see ads. And amazingly annoying stupid ads. "You can skip this commercial in 6 seconds..." Stupid because often I can skip them before the movie trailer even gets off of the logo for production company. Some of those ads are so annoying that I just stop and don't continue and never watch the actual video itself. I'm sure I can configure some router to block all these ads but that's a hassle.
Recently, CBS started demanding
$9.99?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Netflix is actually $9.99 in the US now.
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$7.99 gets you one netflix SD stream
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They grandfather people in on the earlier price I think, though I suspect they'll bump that up eventually.
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Yes, they bump them up next year.
But the point is both services for new people right now is the same.
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In April 2008, the number of videos on Youtube was 83.4 million.
Compare that to number amazon/netflix or hulu may quote. Not one of them has even 1 million....Not even combined.
Re:$9.99?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Apples and oranges. Not all videos are created equal. Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have full TV shows (entire series) and movies. Youtube has a bunch of user content I mostly don't give a crap about.
I currently subscribe to three different streaming services (in lieu of cable), so I'm not averse to paying for content. It just feels like they'll need an awful lot of premium content to catch up to the other services for that price point.
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Apples and oranges. Not all videos are created equal. Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have full TV shows (entire series) and movies. Youtube has a bunch of user content I mostly don't give a crap about.
I spend enough time watching stupid user content on YouTube that I wouldn't mind paying a subscription, but not at $10/month! There's just less content there, and less quality. At $5/month, it would be appleaing.
Still cheaper (Score:2)
$10 dollars for a couch potato is still cheaper than a branded bottle of lube.
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So? 83.3 million of those Youtube videos are garbage that aren't worth watching.
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It's much much easier to find things to watch for hours on youtube than netflix. Even if its lower quality stuff overall.
My point is any exclusive content is just thrown in crap it's not the selling point.
Like amazon's prime instant video and prime music service they both have a crap selection and poor recommendation service. Amazon prime is selling 2 day free shiping everything else they throw in is just junk....
Think prime members will get ad free twitch someday?
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Seriously? I can find stuff on Netflix easily. Search by title, author, etc. I don't have to filter out the top 25 hits for being irrelevant like I do on youtube. Netflix gives me suggestions of things I might like and it's not too far off (though often it's things I've already seen prior to Netflix). Youtube is still convinced that I want to see some Kanye video just because it's popular amongst other people who aren't like me. I watch some game videos, then Youtube thinks I want to see a thousand di
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That's a huge amount of ad revenue for one person over one month using only youtube. Either there's are a lot of people out there highly influence by ads who spend an enormous amount of money, or they're inflating how much a view of a 3 minute video is actually worth. In one month I am not generating $10 in additional profits just because I watched youtube, I didn't change my laundry detergent, I didn't buy a new car, I didn't go see any movies, I didn't try a new brand of beer, etc. The big purchases whe
HBO started like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HBO started like this (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm old enough to remember the entire premise of "Cable TV" was that you paid a monthly subscription to get ad-free television.
=Smidge=
Re:HBO started like this (Score:4, Informative)
You're apparently old enough to be senile, because there never was such a time. The original cable TV (60s) was just retransmission of OTA broadcasts, including the ads. The 70s introduced premium channels like HBO. They didn't, and still dont, have ads. The 80s brought 'superstations', complete with ads, and 'cable-only' channels like MTV, which had ads from day one.
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HBO has ads though, it advertises its own shows! You may not call them ads, but that's what they are even if you're already a subscriber.
Anywhere you sign into YouTube? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your membership extends across devices and anywhere you sign into YouTube
If that's the case, why do they charge more if you use iOS devices?
Re:Anywhere you sign into YouTube? (Score:5, Informative)
Because clearly:
1. Apple takes a cut of recurring revenues, so YouTube passes the cost on to the consumer
2. YouTube thinks Apple people are sheep who will surely pay extra for the same thing everyone else pays less for
3. All of the above
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I think the people who flock to Apple's products have already proven your second point by overpaying for second rate hardware.
We're not paying for the hardware, we're paying for the software. My Nexus tablet has much more powerful hardware than my girlfriend's iPad, but the Nexus is far more sluggish because of Android's software overhead that requires much more RAM and CPU for the same performance.
Not to mention that I still can't download Android 6 to get any meaningful security permissions on the Nexus.
Re: Anywhere you sign into YouTube? (Score:5, Informative)
It's only more of you subscribe through an iOS device, as they must use Apple's built in in-app purchase hooks (as opposed to other platforms where you can connect to a third party payment provider).
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Of course, I'm not planning on using this new service, and I don't own any iOS devices, so I have no skin in the game there.
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Alas, Google takes the exact same 30% on apps and IAPs. They're just willing to eat it on their own platform for their own service.
https://support.google.com/goo... [google.com]
"For applications and in-app products that you sell on Google Play, the transaction fee is equivalent to 30% of the price."
Everything loves jumping on Apple for the 30%, but misses that it's the norm.
Google's 30% is less encompassing than Apple's (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's kindof true; note the exact wording though, "applications and in-app products that you sell on Google Play". If an app uses a non-Google Play mechanism for in-app purchases, it doesn't apply, and unlike Apple they don't (last time I checked) have a policy for their app store against publishing apps that offer non-"official" methods of IAP. Apple does have such a policy, though, so app developers can't opt out of the 30% overhead.
This is why the Android Kindle app allows purchasing directly within the app, but on iOS you have to use the web browser to buy books. Amazon isn't willing to pay a 30% overhead, and on Android they can choose to forgo the provided APIs and use their own infrastructure for purchasing within apps, but they can't on iOS.
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Because they want to stick it to Apple. Whereas Netflix opted to eat the 30%, Google would rather recoup it. Additionally, whoever wrote the article is being a little disingenuous, since Google takes the same 30% on app and IAP sales. They can just ignore that for Red as it's their store, their service.
"phrasing!!!" (Score:4, Funny)
youtube red... redtube
Nah, no one is going to mistype it and get a surprise.
YT will also remove videos that don't play ball (Score:5, Interesting)
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Did this "offer" go out to just the YT partners that make a LOT of money? I have a monetized channel but never received this notice...nor anyone else so far that I know that has monetized their YouTube channel.....
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From Techcrunch:
But there's no explanation why it couldn't just flag videos of those who don't sign the deal as "Not On Red", and instead had to go with a sign-or-disappear strategy.
Really? They expect Google to sell YouTube Red as the ad-free* version of YouTube only to have paying subscribers find that their favorite channel opted out? I'd be totally pissed if this was only 50% or 80% of YouTube because it would feel like Google was double-dipping by charging you a subscription and showing ads at the same time, it's not like you'd get a rebate watching non-Red videos. It's like learning that your all-you-can-eat buffet is actually only half of what's on the table and
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Agree, but removing the videos seems excessive. If they opt not to sign up for the Red model, they could just be moved into the same category as the average person's cat videos, where Google put their own ads around it and you get no cut.
However, I imagine this might be contractually difficult for the same reason they can't automatically put everyone on Red deals.
Strawman argument (Score:2)
Really? They expect Google to sell YouTube Red as the ad-free* version of YouTube only to have paying subscribers find that their favorite channel opted out?
Um... I think he meant that paying subscribers would see no ads, but non-payers would see the ads as normal.
I can tolerate ads on YouTube because I can ignore them, but it's never been worth that much to me.
The signal to noise ratio is very low, and on top of that you will have to deal with Google's tracking and harvesting your information.
For $10 a month I can do without YouTube.
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So are these "partners" going to see 1 cent from this $9.99 subscription plans? It's not clear from the post...
April Fools Day? Or did Marissa jump ship? (Score:3)
>> YouTube to launch TubeRed, not to be confused with RedTube
My only two thoughts are 1) Are we celebrating April Fools' Day early? and 2) Or is Yahoo's CEO now running YouTube?
Either way, this is dumb and funny on many levels.
Holding basic features hostage. (Score:2)
Uh, Youtube Had This Before Google (Score:3)
Good videos don't have ads (Score:2)
No more need to ad block! (Score:3, Interesting)
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This is youtube. It has had no worthwhile content in the past, and it's not about to start now. Youtube is free content now because that's the only thing it is worth. $10 a month is ridiculously expensive for something of such low quality and value.
We use adblock because of security AND because we find ads annoying AND we find advertisers to be evil leeches who suck blood while contributing nothing in return (and I won't apologize for insulting your chosen profession).
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I Would love to know what you use for batch downloads.
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Flexget can be configured to handle them.
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I was thinking this meant it would start giving me a please disable your add blocker or purchase a subscription message.
Ten Ways To Make a GREAT YouTube Video! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Sound. Make sure it is waaay too lound or waaay too soft. Keep'm guessing.
2. Make sure your camera jiggles everywhere. Clear pictures are way over rated.
3. Make sure the action takes place right near the bottom. that's where Google places its Ads so we can't see anything.
4. Put up lots of those stupid text boxes with links to stuff we should watch instead of what we wanted to watch, subscribe messages, or even better, just be fucking blank.
5. If do just one of the text boxes, make sure it's right where all the action is so people can't see.
6. If you do multiple text boxes, cover the whole screen with them. If you are really good, you can do them so hat we can't close them.
7, Make sure your Title is completely unrelated to the actual content. Misleading is even better.
8. If you do something controversial, turn off the comments so we can't tell you what a fucking ass you are.
9. If possible, have the video go for about 5 minutes before whatever we wanted to see shows up.
10. Use a thumbnail with pictures of tits. Everyone ALWAYS click on tits.
Re:Ten Ways To Make a GREAT YouTube Video! (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't mention the biggest one: hold the phone vertically while filming so the viewers sees a vertical video with lots of empty space to the left and right. This is a must.
Re: Ten Ways To Make a GREAT YouTube Video! (Score:2)
why can't your monitor handle rotation? Is it a 60lb VGA display?
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why can't your monitor handle rotation? Is it a 60lb VGA display?
Well, no, but it does have a keyboard attached rather firmly to the bottom if it which makes rotation a little awkward.
Re: Ten Ways To Make a GREAT YouTube Video! (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried rotating the monitor, but then the picture was on its side.
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11. Start and end each video by reminding viewers to subscribe and to watch your hundreds of other misleading videos.
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You need Magic Actions for YouTube. Also, AdBlock Plus. You can get rid of all those annotations, set a default bit rate, etc... It's pretty good, actually. I believe there's a Firefox version. I use Opera and I know there's a version for Chrome.
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Maybe instead of (or as an option to) subscribe. You'd have a credit of $X and every video you watch would chip away $.X. Run out/low and refill.
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"..while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background." I am already doing that before viewing any lengthy video to avoid any interruptions, I wonder if they will change the way playback is working to prevent that, rigth now I just open page info->media and viola!
It plays a sound recorded from a stringed instrument? :-)