Talk:YouTube

Youtube Live

Hey, I'm Bernd Rietberg, and i'm not a expierenced wikpediïst or something, but i noticed that there was little information about "Youtube live" on wikipedia. This is what it says at this moment:

Live video

Google has announced that live video will be an upcoming service by YouTube available to the public later in 2008. It was announced that it will be a website where YouTube users can broadcast their videos to viewers live and also demonstrate their talent by hosting their own web show. [94]

But a little research on youtube states that youtube live is coming up in a couple of days!: http://www.youtube.com/Live

I think it should tell the date it's going live ( november 22end 2008 5 pm pst ) and the link to that site, and maybe what it means, some great artist that are comming up, and that there are also youtube-celebrities comming...

Well, that was my suggestion... thnx :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Berndrietberg (talk • contribs) 15:49, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. YouTube Live has been receiving a fair amount of advance publicity, eg here from Reuters. The service launches on November 22, and it will be interesting to see how it goes. It will probably be added to the article within the next few days when more details are known and people can view the service. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Estimates of YouTube's viewing figures

This good faith edit was removed from the article:

According to the popular data-gathering organization, websiteoutlook.com, youtube averages and estimated 360 million page views per day, resulting in a daily revenue source of 1.1 million dollars.

The issue here is the use of an estimate by an organization that is not affiliated to YouTube. There are several sites, eg TubeMogul [1] and Websiteoutlook [2] offering estimated viewing and revenue figures for online video sites including YouTube. The problem is knowing whether the figures given are accurate. Google is famously secretive about YouTube's running costs and bandwidth requirements, and this means that estimates by third parties need to be treated with caution. It is unclear whether Websiteoutlook is a WP:RS, so further comments are welcome here. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is it not ok to use a third-party source? That makes no sense, it's like you're being forced to choose biased data. 98.111.199.226 (talk) 00:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Nobody outside YouTube knows what the exact traffic and revenue figures of the site are, since Google does not provide them in its financial statements. The home page of Websiteoutlook at [3] says "The information offered by Websiteoutlook is not guaranteed to be 100% Accurate and is offered as reference only. Further research and conformation of claims are advised before any substantial investment.", which is not very encouraging as a WP:RS. Comparing the relative traffic figures of rival websites has always been difficult, and Alexa Internet and comScore are used in the article because they are regarded as good market research companies and are widely quoted in the web and advertising industry. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Youtube Video loading slower

Does anyone feel that it takes ages to load Youtube videos? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.7.241 (talk) 07:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

See WP:FORUM at the top of the page. It is hard to give any definitive answer to this question due to the range of factors involved. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

In case you did not know your upload speed should be 10 time slower then your download speed unless you have a really special internet connection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.190.11 (talk) 07:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

HD &fmt=22 comparison

This was removed because it adds two new pictures to the section, making it somewhat top heavy. At the moment, the best way to try out the 720 pixel format is to watch the HD version of Where the Hell is Matt? at [4]. This is linked from the citations given in the article. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

At 3:14 of the movie clip you can see the worse quality images. So from there you can also see that with &fmt=22 is it better but still not real HD.

Today December 5 2008 Youtube offer "View in HD" option to replace the &fmt=22 hack. SO no more need to do this &fmt=22 trick.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.190.57 (talk) 19:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

YouTube headquarters

A while back [5] someone said that the photo of YouTube's headquarters was out of date and was actually here. This is a photo of 901 Cherry Avenue, while YouTube's official address is 1000 Cherry Avenue [6]. Can someone with first hand knowledge of San Bruno comment on this? Thanks, --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 22:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

GA status

At the moment, the article is undergoing some work designed to restore the good article status. The sections on spamming and spoofing were removed for several reasons, including WP:NOTHOWTO, WP:N and applying to a range of websites other than YouTube. The spamming info was added to the "see also" section, while the spoofing section was removed due to notability issues and the citation link being dead.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of that, the "Domain name problem" section looks a bit out of place, and I don't think the subject carries enough WP:WEIGHT to warrant a separate section here. I do think it is of some historical interest though, so I would like to move that section to History of YouTube and summarize it with a sentence or two in the "Company history" section here. Any objections? Siawase (talk) 14:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The row over www.utube.com was a while ago (2006), and one of the things that would be useful is to know what became of this lawsuit, as it seems to have fizzled out. My personal view is that the information is not completely irrelevant and is worth mentioning in some context in the article. One option would be to add Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment to the see also section, and to give a brief mention with a citation in the History section. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for taking care of it so swiftly. You're doing a great job all around improving this article! Siawase (talk) 21:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Stereo by default?

Not sure about this stereo by default. I've been fooling with things some since noticing the widescreen change, I've seen some vids play in stereo by default i.e. without having to use &fmt=18, but I haven't gotten any uploads to work that way for me so far. I notice there's also some inconsistency on how they behave. Some play stereo by clicking "watch in high Quality", some play in stereo by default but NOT with "watch in high quality", some play in stereo with both. Youtube once again changed things without consulting me.Docsavage20 (talk) 23:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a good point, and one that has proved hard to write about without introducing original research. My experience is that clicking the "watch in high quality" option on the web pages always brings up the fmt6 version with mono sound. If you have found a video where this brings up the fmt18 version with stereo sound, could you mention the link here? As ever, YouTube can change things without announcing them, so any info on this would be useful for keeping the article up to date. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's one that comes up in stereo by default, WIHQ & using &fmt=18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zeR3NSYcHk I haven't looked at the resulting files to see what the difference is. Another point worth mentioning I've noticed that the audio can be different depending what browser you use. A vid can be stereo in IE but not in Firefox. Docsavage20 (talk) 13:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. The video mentioned here is "Circus" by Britney Spears at [7]. This is a standard quality (320x240) video with the Flash video format (.flv). It has stereo AAC sound and AVC video (MediaInfo below):

General Complete name  : Britney Spears - Circus.flv Format  : Flash Video File size  : 8.53 MiB Duration  : 3mn 33s Overall bit rate  : 334 Kbps starttime  : 0.000 totalduration  : 213.878 totaldatarate  : 333.765

Video Format  : AVC Format/Info  : Advanced Video Codec Format profile  : Main@L1.1 Format settings, CABAC  : Yes Format settings, ReFrames  : 3 frames Muxing mode  : Container profile=Unknown@1.1 Duration  : 3mn 33s Bit rate  : 258 Kbps Width  : 320 pixels Height  : 240 pixels Display aspect ratio  : 4/3 Frame rate  : 29.966 fps Resolution  : 24 bits Colorimetry  : 4:2:0 Scan type  : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame)  : 0.112

Audio Format  : AAC Format/Info  : Advanced Audio Codec Format version  : Version 4 Format profile  : LC Format settings, SBR  : No Duration  : 3mn 33s Bit rate  : 69.8 Kbps Channel(s)  : 2 channels Channel positions  : L R Sampling rate  : 22.05 KHz Resolution  : 16 bits

This makes life even more complicated for the article, since it shows that there is yet another format now available on the site, and that the current format table is already out of date. Some further thinking is now needed on how the article should approach the format issue.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Format Comparison Table is incomplete

I cannot edit the page. First of all, HD videos have the following specs:

Container = MP4

fmt value = 22

Video encoding = H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

Video resolution = 1280x720

Audio encoding = MPEG-4 AAC LC

Audio bitrate = appears to be VBR

Audio channels = 2

Audio sampling rate (Hz) = 48000

You can verify all of this by downloading an HD video and using GSpot or similar. HD videos can be downloaded for example here: http://nathanhammond.com/youtube-hd-download-bookmarklet The bookmark can be dragged into your bookmark tab, and once an HD video is playing back on Youtube, you can click the Bookmark and will get the download link.

Also, it's probably worth noting that Youtube stores widescreen (non-HD) videos in letterbox mode, thus not making use of the extra width. A 4:3 video gets encoded to 480x360 (as the table says), but a 16:9 video gets encoded to 480x270 (as opposed to 640x360 as should be the case considering the new widescreen player). Basically, you don't gain anything from the new widescreen mode. Chris TC01 (talk) 12:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Some of this info is in the HD section above on the talk page, and I was thinking of adding the video bit rate to the article, which is around 2000kbps for the new HD videos. The issue here could be WP:OR. Although it is fairly easy to use programs like MediaInfo and GSpot to read the stream info of a video file, the purists might say that it was not a WP:RS. I would disagree here, because programs like these are the only way for a non-YouTube employee to see the technical specs of a video. I would like to know more about the 3GP mobile videos, but have been unable to download one since they use RTSP, which is incompatible with almost all programs. Any suggestions on how to do this would be most appreciated. It is also correct (although it complicates the table) that the widescreen fmt6 and fmt18 videos are letterboxed to 480x270 pixels.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Youtube censoring and manipulation of ranking?

A topic that seems like it could rightfully have a place in the article - I've seen some videos stating that Youtube is implementing a new system of ranking and searching for videos. From what I understand instead of videos being ranked by their hit count, they'll be ranked by what I've heard referred to as a "weighting algorithm" - among others see the latest video by user Thunderf00t, though I haven't looked into it enough to say I fully understand it and what the implications are.

Another issue some seem to regard as conspiratorial are censoring measures, supposedly to squelch discussion on certain subjects, the implication being that Google/Youtube is collusion with powerbrokers to shape the flow of what gets discussed. LOOKING AROUND NERVOUSLY OVER SHOULDER... Docsavage20 (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This would be worth adding, but comments from YouTube videos are not really a WP:RS. This is the closest that I could find to a reliable source, with YouTube stating: "We've been thinking a lot lately about how to make the collective YouTube experience even better, particularly on our most visited pages." Recently the BBC admitted that it had been wrong to use blog postings in its news reports [8], and this is a similar area.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"We've been thinking a lot lately about how to make the collective YouTube experience even better, particularly on our most visited pages" -- .laff I regard that kind of corporate double-speak as a sure sign that they're trying to obscure the truth as long as possible about something they know is going to be unpopular with a lot of people.Docsavage20 (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

YouTube Most Viewed Count

Hi

I just wanted to bring your attention to the video "xxx porn xxx" http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DE1fOa5ufPmc has 99,853,036 views as of 12/12/2008 and is not listed in the most viewed videos list. its about the american senate and politics. i dont think any automated machines are responsible for this high viewing number its only because people are being fooled that is porn and they open this view. although the title is not appropriate i think youtube should have it listed in there most viewed section.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.211.221.84 (talk) 11:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I have come across this video, which also contains imaginative (and highly misleading) tag words such as anal, oral and f*ck. There are signs that YouTube is looking at changing the system to prevent people from trying this kind of stunt in the future. The "Panda" video is given in the article as a more tasteful example of a video blocked from the charts after gaming the system. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

New "most viewed" controversy

This story broke today of YouTube promoting commercial videos (ads for a Fox movie) with relatively low view counts to the top of the "most viewed" section. As of this writing, it still seems to be so on the live YouTube page. Rob T Firefly (talk) 21:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Video quality screenshots

Hello! I would like to edit the page to include screenshots of different video qualities in media types table. I made the thumbnails and screenshots and uploaded them to Wikipedia Commons, but I can not edit the page since I'm still not autoconfirmed. Would someone like to do this instead? Links to the screenshots follows:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_null.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_null_thumb.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_6.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_6_thumb.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_18.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YouTube_fmt_18_thumb.jpg

Thumbnails are relatively small (96x96px, ~2KiB), so they should not influence the page loading. Thanks! Dvuckovic (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Wide channel pages

I can't edit this into the artical because it's semi-protected. Can someone add stuff about the new 960 pixel width that's coming out soon. You can find more info about it here: http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=CcR0o6NfHu4

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schank1234 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The widescreen (960x540 pixel) video player was introduced in late November 2008. The embedded and channel videos have been taking a while to catch up, but it is now possible to have embedded widescreen and channel videos.[9] The article tries to avoid too much WP:RECENTISM, so it is not always practical to mention all the latest YouTube news releases.The article does mention the change to 16:9 widescreen, as this was important and widely featured in the media.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Censorship

I've heard of people taking down their videos in protest of an algorithm that demotes videos based on the content of the video. All I can find are some blog posts, as well as a handful of YouTube videos, which doesn't exactly fulfill the verifiability requirement. But if it can be verified, is it noteworthy enough for inclusion in the article? CardinalFangZERO (talk) 07:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be a reference to the changes announced in YouTube's blog on 2 December 2008 [10]. YouTube has tightened its rules for material that could be seen as offensive. [11] Some videos have gamed the system by using misleading thumbnails, usually with sexually suggestive content. The video then turns out to be nothing of the kind, which is a form of rickrolling. To prevent this, YouTube has introduced an algorithmic system which offers a preset choice of thumbnails. [12]. Some users have criticized the changes, but at the moment it does not seem to have attracted enough attention to make it notable enough for the article. As you point out, it has largely been a blog issue.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

However, I think that they should include the fact that there is gonna be a You Tube boycott starting today. If it gets huge enough, it should definetely be included. 72.77.14.129 (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Censorship of Church of Scientology critics

In the wikinews article here, this mentions how YouTube closed, without reason, two accounts of those critical of scientology. Neither violated the rules, and this seems like it is quite notable, if more sources can be found. This situation would be the type of thing that could show YouTube is partial to one side, namely the "church" of $cientology. Zchris87v 22:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

This relates to an incident in April 2008 in which Mark Bunker's YouTube channel was suspended after a row over one of the videos. He was back online in June 2008. This is described in more detail in Mark Bunker. This is not in the main YouTube article for reasons of space, but could be crosslinked from Criticism of YouTube.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

EP

Please add to the Criticism section: "In December 2008, the site had a huge face lift and was was hugely criticised because many people disliked the new look, the main reasons for this being the removal of bulletins, which some people had so many of, and the addition of the Recent Activity feature, which decreased the privacy of many people because everyone would be able to find out their private stuff."