16 Comments Add your own

• 1. Mike  |  October 10th, 2006 at 7:47 pm

  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.

• 2. Dan  |  October 10th, 2006 at 8:03 pm

  ” 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.”

  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

• 3. Steve Safran  |  October 10th, 2006 at 8:32 pm

  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.

• 4. Aaron  |  October 10th, 2006 at 9:43 pm

  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.

• 5. Anonymous  |  October 11th, 2006 at 12:14 am

  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.

• 6. Scott  |  October 11th, 2006 at 11:44 am

  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.

• 7. Harry  |  October 11th, 2006 at 12:43 pm

  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.

• 8. thomas  |  October 12th, 2006 at 1:31 pm

  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.

• 9. Peter Weiss  |  October 16th, 2006 at 3:14 am

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

  Peter

• 10. teen fisting videos&hellip  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 1:13 pm

  aqua teen hunger force jordache sound…

  the fake celebrity porn pictures list…

• 11. girls that fuck & suc&hellip  |  January 24th, 2007 at 4:23 pm

  animal anal sex…

  free xxx sex vidoes…

• 12. jean byrne rte weather gi&hellip  |  January 27th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

  toddler bikini…

  ryan phillippe nude gallery…

• 13. pharrell williams that gi&hellip  |  January 29th, 2007 at 4:35 pm

  east coast baby product…

  psp nude codes…

• 14. video preteen girls&hellip  |  February 22nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm

  girl scouts maryland…

  riding pussy porn…

• 15. black girls monster tits&hellip  |  February 24th, 2007 at 2:56 am

  essay-a job for a super girl…

  scat queens belin…

• 16. family stories interactiv&hellip  |  April 7th, 2007 at 10:04 am

  free c programming tutorial teens…

  diary of a young girl book scan…

Leave a Comment

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed