YouTube thinks wider is better
YouTube’s flirtation with widescreen images and high-definition has bloomed into a full-scale romance.
Have a look, courtesy of our animal friends Big Buck Bunny (an HD toon) and Charlie the Unicorn (widescreen with the quality upgrade).
Now check out the downside, via another online video critter.
As you can see, YouTube today expanded to a 16×9 video player, meaning viewers of non-widescreen images are seeing vertical black bars on either side of the newly expanded screen (or on all sides, as above). YouTube Nation is not a happy place right now.
That letterboxed dynamic will be familiar to owners of 16×9 TVs as the result of an Academy (full screen) image being crammed into a widescreen (16×9) presentation area.
YouTube began experimenting with 720p HD last May and has been offering up high-def images since then. (The more desirable 1080p is what comes out of your shiny new Blu-ray player.)
Unfortunately, YouTube’s user-generated content is almost exclusively done in what’s ironically called full-screen, the same aspect ratio (4:3) as analog TV broadcasts. That, of course, is changing as most professional content is being created in the widescreen format. Home videos, too, are shifting over, especially via the new cheaper HD video cameras for home use.
And guess what: A good deal of YouTube content shot in widescreen had been deliberately masked by the creators so it didn’t look like crap on the old 4:3 screen.
Looks like the YouTube faithful will be looking at those black bars for a long, long time — assuming the new screens remain, without some kind of option to switch formats.
“Widescreen YouTube is great, except for when watching anything not widescreen … which is pretty much everything,” one fan of the online video service Twittered tonight.
Another commenter on the YouTube blog complained that it shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all: “4:3 videos should play in a 4:3 player and 16:9 videos should play in a 16:9 player. I mean this isn’t a TV.”
YouTube’s blogger chief says: “Don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.”
Here’s a response from the street: “I really really dislike this feature. It makes all of my old videos look like they are floating in the middle of the player.”
The move to widesceen may be a result of YouTube’s revenue-seeking explorations in professional content. Earlier this month, MGM (Fox) and YouTube sealed a programming deal that brings some older films to an ad-supported channel. In October, CBS signed up its catalog fare.
A swarm of YouTube Live videos posted two days ago get the black bar treatment, suggesting less than tubular internal communications.
Embeds are still going out at 425×344 resolution, with YouTube wisely avoiding a Web-wide graphics explosion.
CinemaNow: Now sold to Sonic Solutions
CinemaNow, one of the original online movie distributors, has been sold to Roxio parent company Sonic Solutions. The deal gives A/V tech outfit Sonic access to something like 6,000 pieces of premium entertainment content.
The brand will live on as a unit of Sonic. The CinemaNow-Sonic Solutions deal was put at $3 million.
CinemaNow has been around since 1999, but in recent years has been falling back in the pack as movie downloaders have seen their options increase with online operations such as the iTunes Store and Netflix/Blockbuster.
Instead, the CinemaNow movie operation has focused on delivering content via consumer electronics via deals with TiVo, DivX, ARCHOS, Dell, EchoStar Communications, Hewlett-Packard, Macrovision, Microsoft, Samsung and Technicolor.
Sonic Solutions and CinemaNow already partnered for downloading and burning of Sonic’s Qflix DVD drivers. The latest hookup will result in a “Premium Content Group” at Sonic focusing on “increasing the placement of CinemaNow’s storefront on PCs and consumer electronics devices, and expanding the adoption of the Qflix technology platform.”
CinemaNow employees will remain in Marina del Rey, Calif.
Here comes your canned quote from Dave Habiger, president and CEO of Sonic Solutions, downloaded from the press release:
“The digital delivery of premium content is at a tipping point. By providing consumers and OEMs user-friendly content services and software that works across multiple platforms, we will make it possible for any device or PC manufacturer to add an online movie store of Hollywood hits to its products.”
Habiger told investors that in bringing in premium content to go with its output systems, “We’re trying to take a page out of Apple’s playbook.”
CinemaNow says it offers more than 6,000 movies, TV episodes and music videos. Content providers include 20th Century Fox, Disney, EMI, HDNet, IFC, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Sundance Channel, Vivendi Entertainment and Warner Bros.
Sonic’s products range from the authoring systems used to produce DVD and Blu-ray titles to the Roxio-branded photo, video, music, and digital-media management applications and services.
One of its products, Toast, has been helping music fans burn MP3 to CDs for a decade.
Disclosure: This blog is an ad affiliate of CinemaNow, in a deal worth not much at all.
Hulu chief: We’re still a start-up
Jason Kilar of Hulu.com got in five minutes of face time with CNBC viewers, saying his online TV service owes its success to one simple rule: “We obsess over every pixel.”
“We think that if we can obsess over quality and build a better mousetrap that good things will happen,” the Hulu CEO told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Tuesday. “Users will adopt the service, advertisers will find great value in it. And that’s what we’re seeing:
“We’ve gone from a handful of advertisers to over a hundred. When you take a look at the ramp of the business in terms of revenue, it’s vastly exceeding our expectations. So even in the midst of the current financial markets, we’re seeing business grow very aggressively.”
At the one-year mark, Hulu ranks No. 7 among online video sites. Remarkable, or unremarkable, depending on your perspective. Boorstin asked why Hulu with its vast popularity and publicity didn’t register higher.
“There’s a lot of headroom. … We’re a start-up.” Kilar put the ad-supported premium video market at $80 billion in the U.S. alone. “We’re eight months into it (ad sales). There are a lot of places this can go,” he said.
Asked why Google and its YouTube don’t just crush Hulu, Kilar smiled and said he’s asked that all the time.
“Our focus in very narrow. Which is exclusively focused on premium content. That’s the only thing we care about. … I think the user-generated content business is a great one, but it’s a separate one. You can see two (different online video) businesses doing very well.”
The follow-up question about YouTube getting into premium content via this week’s deal with MGM wasn’t asked.
Kilar said the feared cannibalization of network ratings with the emergence of full episodes offered online never happened. In fact, “Living room consumption of media is up (in the past year.) … Part of that is we make it so much easier to sample programs.”
As is required by law, he cited the example of “Saturday Night Live,” which turned from has-been to overnight sensation with the help of online video posts of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Via the online clips on Hulu and nbc.com, Kilar said, SNL became “relevant seven days a week.”
Hard to believe, but it was only a year ago that the prematurely derided Hulu went into its public beta. The official launch came in March, but was old news to the millions of viewers using the streaming online video service. Then again, the monolithic YouTube didn’t even exist four years ago. Dog years have nothing on online video years, it seems.
CBS goes mental, pulls full episodes
Fans of CBS’ new shows “The Mentalist” and “Eleventh Hour” are letting the network have it after full episodes were suddenly removed from cbs.com
“You’re losing viewers like me,” one “Mentalist” viewer warned the network on the program-specific message boards. Another griped: “Why tune in to CBS shows when the other networks offer full episodes?”
CBS provided no explanation for halting free stream versions of these shows, and doesn’t seem to have anyone moderating its fan forums to put out flareups. Sloppy on both counts.
“I don’t get why CBS is still showing full episodes for some shows but not others,” another fan asked.
Great question. Why any network is withholding full streams of any primetime show remains a mystery these days. There is a clear sense of entitlement out there among online viewers. Clips and “recaps” aren’t cutting it.
Networks, understandably, are experimenting with different programming models, but jerking around loyal online viewers without the least bit of communication is inexcusable.
An interesting hypothesis after reading through the complaints about “The Mentalist” and “Eleventh Hour”: Looks like a good number of viewers have trashed their VCRs but haven’t adopted DVRs, leaving them dependent on network online streaming when they miss an episode.
