I find it inefficient to have an entire film download in the background when a user may close up at the 10 min mark. Either optimized download speed, or on-demand live streaming would be a better idea.
Maybe there's a technical solution that could be developed by a startup in the issue - reduces YT's total upload amount, and saves money on both sides.
I think the problem is that the user may want to seek parts of the movie.
Maybe downloading just the next minutes and lowering the quality for a few seconds after a seek could help. Not so much wasted data and still acceptable seek time.
Skimmed through a few seconds of The Patriot on here. Unfortunately the quality was not very good, and there are no resolution options like normal YouTube videos.
Are they all this bad? Why can't we watch movies at the same quality we get on cable TV? Ad revenues are that much lower, or are the studios just clinging to old business models?
I guess the monetization efforts are bearing fruit.
It will be interesting to see if Google boosts its infrastructure so that folks used to the 'old' performance levels of YouTube will see that kind of performance again.
If not it will be a good pricing exercise in terms of figuring out how ad revenue is affected on the free side by videos pausing a lot.
I love the fact that more companies are getting in on the content delivery game. I just "cut the cord" pretty much the same day that Hulu Plus was available on my Xbox. Total savings per year is about $1,000 and I don't miss regular television for a second.
It is linked from the blog post..."the addition of thousands of full-length feature films from major Hollywood studios available to rent in the US at youtube.com/movies"
Hmm, "industry standard pricing"? Seems to me that $3 - $4 is maybe a little high? You can get recent movies from Redbox for $1 and get DVD quality and watch on your TV without jumping through any hoops, or for the price of 2-3 of the YouTube movies, get a month subscription to Netflix and watch all you want in a month. I admit, though, I have no idea how much PPV movies cost, but still, anyone else think their price point seems high?
Maybe there's a technical solution that could be developed by a startup in the issue - reduces YT's total upload amount, and saves money on both sides.