Another lesson from YouTube: Use Flash

Posted by Steve Safran on October 10, 2006

I agree with Poynter’s Amy Gahran. One of the many reasons for YouTube’s success has been its use of Flash video. Flash just works. It embeds gorgeously on a page. The Flash player software either comes with your browser or is a download you need anyway. It’s cross-platform (you don’t want to alienate Mac users when it comes to video production), and you don’t have to download another $^#%@ proprietary player for every site you visit. It’s also the lowest quality video/audio experience of the big four: Real, WindowsMedia, QuickTime and Flash. And it doesn’t matter. Just like “broadcast quality” doesn’t matter. Want to increase your site’s video plays tomorrow? Switch to Flash. Yeah – there are Flash haters. But there are haters of every platform except QT, and QT just ain’t gonna win this one.

http://mike.karrmedia.com Mike

I don’t know. I remember the late 90′s when Realplayer was a big deal and the only alternative for watching stuff online. It’s quality was awful, like Youtube, and eventually better formats buried it. Quicktime was just becoming viable at the time and people thought it didn’t have a chance, yet here we are and it’s still around offering better quality than anything else out there. Flash stinks, I think Quicktime is going to win this one, by not being the fad player of the day, but by providing consistent quality videos.
Dan

” Itâ€™s also the lowest quality video/audio experience of the big four: Real, WindowsMedia, QuickTime and Flash. And it doesnâ€™t matter. Just like â€œbroadcast qualityâ€ doesnâ€™t matter.”

You can make flash look as good as you want during
encoding. But most people who use Flash, use it
because of the low bitrate possibilities.
And quality does matter in this world.
But with all our choices theses days,
we can now each choose our quality level.

You sound like the communists of old.
“More than one kind of bread? Why?”

It’s amazing to me how far you have all gone
toward the idea that quality of video and audio
and production doesn’t amount to a hill of beans
anymore. It’s the lowest common denominator rules.
Seems to me it means something to the millions of
folks who are shelling out real cash for HDTV sets
every day. But what do I know. Who cares right?
TV SETS? Are people just NUTS?
Who would want to watch something bigger than
3 inches by 4 inches anyway?
Not watch a TV show or Movie on a computer monitor?
Are you Crazy?

There is only one answer to everything and it is
crappy video. More is better with you.
Forget DVDHD.
Forget Stereo. Forget 8 inch woofers.
Who needs it. Music should sound like what I hear
over the phone, right?

I’m so very happy you guys aren’t responsible for
producing TV sets, HiFi gear, iPods, Macs, DVD
players, Washington State Cabs, Restaurants that
care about good food, Bartenders that strive to make
the perfect Martini. Producers and directors and
writers who work hard to create good stuff.

It’s just so sad the world you live in…..
the Microsoft world really, where “it’s good enough”.

Dan
http://www.lostremote.com Steve Safran

I don’t recall saying any of that. I believe the point I am making is that the traditional media gets so caught up in the vaunted “broadcast quality” obsession that it misses the trees, the forest and the whole damn national park system.

We’re not advocating lousy quality. We’re obsessed with quality. And we believe putting high-quality tools in people’s hands will result in a higher quality product than what we have now.

After all, all the HD cameras and TVs in the world do not equal fantastic, unparalleled enterainment. We have those now. Is news really so fantastic as a result?

It’s not the tools. it’s the craftsman. And sometime’s it’s not even the craftsman – it’s just the craft. The act of making something.

I appreciate the point you are making, but I respectfully suggest you are misinterpreting mine. Democratization of information does not mean $35,000 video cameras and Avid suites for everyone. It means there is room for everyone. High-quality production, medium quality – and lousy quality.

Do you suggest YouTube should have waited until a perfect HD codec was available and then only allowed people to upload HD video shot and edited on pro equipment? Of course not. Do I suggest YouTube replace all conventional television? Of course not.

But what traditional media has to understand is that there is room for all of this. Snobbery will not win this argument. Nothing communist about the best products winning. It’s just that there’s more than the video that made YT the best.

And believe me, I know stations that won’t play music off MP3 players because the audio isn’t “broadcast quality.” Take those same MP3s, put them on a CD, and audio will play them without thinking twice.

My favorite radio growing up was the crystal radio I make wrapping copper wire around a tube. The audio quality was, indeed, awful. But I made it. It was MINE. It’s not that it had an 8-inch subwoofer. It’s that I didn’t need to be Panasonic or pay them $99 to listen to the radio. That’s what this is about – ownership of the experience.

Still, I wish you luck. I simply disagree with your vision.
Aaron

I’m a proud QuickTime hater. Not so much QuickTime itself, but the player. It has the gall to think that I want to use it for everything, even MP3s in the browser. What crap.

The video quality is fine, but the interface sucks and it takes over my system.

Steve, you’re right on regarding Flash being a huge reason for YouTube’s success. I can’t believe the number of huge broadcast companies that settle for embedded Windows Media controls on their pages, when the UI looks nothing like the rest of the website.

Great design matters. Clean design matters. YouTube got the design and implementation right.
Anonymous

I despise Flash with a passion (terrible quality and high CPU utilization which Adobe undoubtedly has no interest or incentive in addressing) but the embedded video quality battle is over, and convenience was won. Game over.
Scott

Aaron pointed out most of the reasons I hate QT, along with Real, but I’d like to add in hatred of the stupid “Buy Pro!!111!!!11!” dialog everytime QT opens.
Harry

What I am very curious about is that all of the Media Players that are popular right now all have the ability to play flash swf type content. It would only take a few mods to have let’s say Windows Media to play a flv file which is what is being used in these videos. You can do it now however things like timeline don’t function. Could be achieved in about a week by any of the majors with a programming staff and cycles. It’s more of a Why not than a Why do it.
thomas

there is no perfect format, flash, wmv, qt, h264, whatever. Every format has its strong points, personally .wmv has the best video quality to compression ratio out there; but 5% or whatever of the population complains or thier mac loving web guys say flash is way better dude! i watch .wmv on my mac, my pc and my linux box, yeah it takes a plugin or two to get things to work properly but hey, who said everything in life was going to be easy.
http://justplays.com Peter Weiss

You mentions that “Flash just works” when it really “JustPLAYS”

Peter
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