Instagram (and Meta) Throttle Video Quality as Views Go Down (theverge.com) 14
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge:
Ever wondered why some of your Instagram videos tend to look blurry, while others are crisp and sharp? It's because, on Instagram, the quality of your video apparently depends on how many views it's getting.
Here's part of Mosseri's explanation, from the video, which was reposted by a Threads user today. "In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can ... But if something isn't watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video. And then if it's watched again a lot then we'll re-render the higher quality video...."
The shift in quality "isn't huge," Mosseri said in response to another Threads user, who'd asked if that approach disadvantaged smaller creators. That's "the right concern," he told them, but said people interact with videos based on its content, not its quality. That's consistent with how Meta has described its approach before... Meta wrote in a blog [post] that in order to conserve computing resources for the relatively few, most watched videos, it gives fresh uploads the fastest, most basic encoding. After a video "gets sufficiently high watch time," it receives a more robust encoding pass.
"It works at an aggregate level, not an individual viewer level," Mosseri wrote later on Threads. "We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views. It's not a binary theshhold, but rather a sliding scale."
Here's part of Mosseri's explanation, from the video, which was reposted by a Threads user today. "In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can ... But if something isn't watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video. And then if it's watched again a lot then we'll re-render the higher quality video...."
The shift in quality "isn't huge," Mosseri said in response to another Threads user, who'd asked if that approach disadvantaged smaller creators. That's "the right concern," he told them, but said people interact with videos based on its content, not its quality. That's consistent with how Meta has described its approach before... Meta wrote in a blog [post] that in order to conserve computing resources for the relatively few, most watched videos, it gives fresh uploads the fastest, most basic encoding. After a video "gets sufficiently high watch time," it receives a more robust encoding pass.
"It works at an aggregate level, not an individual viewer level," Mosseri wrote later on Threads. "We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views. It's not a binary theshhold, but rather a sliding scale."
Hmmm? (Score:3)
There has to be a "highest res" data file stored somewhere to generate a highest res video. So how is there disk space saved?
And once they have that highest res file already on disk (they'd have to) then what cpu are they using to send it to a viewer?
I can see how lower res would save bandwidth but the rest of the summary makes no sense. There's something missing in that explanation.
There's also a psychological component and catch-22 here. If a video looks bad then it will get fewer viewers sharing it with others. Don't they want videos shared?
It feels very bean countery. But dumb beans not smart beans.
Re:Hmmm? (Score:4, Informative)
Because when you're operating at that scale, there isn't just "one" copy of a file. There is a CDN with replcas all over the world. The original full-quality video that isn't served to end-users would only need to be stored essentially once (plus whatever level of redundancy) - and when it comes time to re-render, only that one copy is needed, and then the re-rendered file will be pushed out to the hundreds/thousands of CDNs.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, that makes more sense. Although an unpopular video won't be on every cdn node. If it gets 10 views during a cdn's file cache life cycle time then worst case is 10 copies are floating around for a few hours. If it's more popular then it deserves full res anyway as they already do.
This still looks like they're chasing after the trivial end tail of the bell curve counting beans while hurting video vitality.
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense because if videos aren't watched, they sure wouldn't save much on bandwidth with their scheme.
Re: Hmmm? (Score:2)
Platforms like insta have multiple levels of storage. It's not really about raw disk space but rather different types of space. There are multiple levels of content cache on these massive content delivery architectures, and what he's describing is the strategy to optimise resources. (And like you noted, bandwidth matters too.)
Re: (Score:2)
There has to be a "highest res" data file stored somewhere to generate a highest res video. So how is there disk space saved?
You may want to research CDNs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Hmmm? (Score:1)
What a fucking dumb question. Do you even know how the internet works?
Hmm... (Score:2)
Ever wondered why some of your Instagram videos tend to look blurry, while others are crisp and sharp? It's because, on Instagram, the quality of your video apparently depends on how many views it's getting.
Sounds like a negative feedback loop.
And then if it's watched again a lot then we'll re-render the higher quality video...."
Are more or less -- or more correctly, fewer -- people going to watch, or continue to watch, fuzzy videos?
Weird stuff (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought (Score:2)
I thought creimer was looking a little blurry recently...looks like the fat bastard got up to 1000 subscribers. I guess he's making coffee money in hell!
Sigh. (Score:2)
"Nobody is watching us!"
"I know, let's make it look even worse!"
"Great idea!"