YouTube To Start Movie Rentals Tomorrow!

[Firehorse]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8471635.stm




Video-sharing site YouTube is taking its first steps into the online movie rental business. The fledgling service will go live on 22 January. Initially only five films will be available to rent.
The movies will come from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festival and will only be available in the US.
The move for the Google owned company represents a major development for the site which has been looking for ways to boost its bottom line.
"This is a huge move for YouTube in the sense of them trying to monetise the site," Mike McGuire, principal analyst at Gartner Research told BBC News.
"This certainly opens the door for them with bigger movie studios."
Content providers will be able to set their own prices, with YouTube taking a cut of the revenue. All but one of the Sundance films is being offered for $3.99 (£2.50) each for users to watch over a 48-hour viewing period.
The site which is best known for its user-generated content, including dogs on skateboards and performing cats, said 20 hours of video is uploaded every minute.
Last August, Comscore reported that over 10 billion videos were streamed on YouTube.
Hollywood signs
Industry insiders say this first step into online rental is a curtain-raiser for more ambitious pay-per-view plans.
It is expected that in the near future the site will expand its rental catalogue with television shows and feature films from major studios.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47154000/jpg/_47154279_gpus-harry-potterbod.jpg Persuading studios to part with movies like Harry Potter will be key


"Content is king in this kind of business and Sundance is a good first step," said Mr McGuire.
"Negotiating with the major studios over distribution rights however is not for the faint hearted. Google has to perfect its delivery model and its billing system."
YouTube already offers full-length films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's archives. It is expected similar deals like this will emerge in the coming weeks and months and extend to newer movies.
In its blog, YouTube hinted at that possibility.
"In the coming weeks we'll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option."
Some industry watchers say YouTube has had a tough time in the past persuading the studios to part with their crown jewels such as newly released movies and Hollywood blockbusters.
"YouTube has had little luck over the last several years wooing major studios and networks to stream premium content on the site, which would make it easier to draw advertising," said Ben Fritz of the Los Angeles Times.
"Most studios have instead opted to put their content on Hulu, a joint venture of NBC Universal, News Corp and Walt Disney that has had more success luring marketers."
Analysts point out that the pay-per-view movie offering will put YouTube in direct competition with other services including Apple's iTunes store, Amazon.com and Microsoft's XBox Live.
The first five films for rent are "The Cove," "Bass Ackwards," "One Too Many Mornings," "Homewrecker" and "Children of Invention."
The Sundance film festival runs until 31 January.

[AlexOC]

Interesting. Can't see this taking off, either get in on demand on YER TELLY or download it.

[Firehorse]

Interesting. Can't see this taking off, either get in on demand on YER TELLY or download it.

on todays average internet connection I don't see loading it being a problem. I can load a 1080p youtube video without waiting before watching it on a 10mbps connection.

[AlexOC]

Its not buffering or loading that i think is the problem. I just think people would prefer to watching it on the telly, or download it.

[Recursion]

Its not buffering or loading that i think is the problem. I just think people would prefer to watching it on the telly, or download it.

With YouTube becoming more and more accessable through PS3s, Wiis, 360s (maybe soon?), media center computers etc, it could soon take off.

[Firehorse]

Its not buffering or loading that i think is the problem. I just think people would prefer to watching it on the telly, or download it.

Good thing that more and more new tvs have internet features being built in :P

[AlexOC]

Hmm possibly, would need to be 1080p, and no loading. It is like 2 hours after all. I have 50meg so wouldn't be a problem for me.

[The Professor]

Yeah media centre PCs are pretty common now, had one until it burnt out :P If this gets a decent library and price comes down a bit (£2.50 is a bit steep imo) I'm in!

[AlexOC]

£10 a month. 20 max views per month.

Win win win.

[lorren]

id rather it on the tele :/

[The Professor]

£10 a month. 20 max views per month.

Win win win.

£10 unlimited views and you have yourself a customer. If its going to be that low you may as well charge per view. In fact you may as well charge per view anyway :P That sort of model doesn't really make sense unless its unlimited

[AlexOC]

Pay per view is dead. Subscription is the way to go, easier, £10 direct debit a month is so easy.

[The Professor]

Tell that to the apple app store. It's printing money and doesn't have a subscription model, you just give apple your details and they charge you if you want anything. Same principle could work well with this thing.

[Tomm]

I think ill stick with my blurays from a certain source. Compressed streams look kinda sucky on my 110" PJ screen (Especially if not 1080p) :P

[Blob]

Aren't they going to have some trouble with streaming without download as currently it is quite easy to make something which downloads videos off of youtube?

[AlexOC]

Aren't they going to have some trouble with streaming without download as currently it is quite easy to make something which downloads videos off of youtube?

Hmm, i suppose it would be fairly easy to make software that steals vids off the site.

They will have to work hard against this (not until i download my fair share)

[jackass]

This is only available to the US.

[AlexOC]

This is only available to the US.

Seriously!?

Where you hear this?

[The Professor]

In the article in the OP ;)

[AlexOC]

What a load of bulldung.

Oh well, as you saw, wasn't too interested in it.

[N!ck]

I think ill stick with my blurays from a certain source. Compressed streams look kinda sucky on my 110" PJ screen (Especially if not 1080p) :P

If you get a properly encoded 1080p release I guarantee you will not tell the difference between it and the source ;).

[Tomm]

Yes I can tell the difference from a 1080p MKV ~14GB and a 40GB source, especially with the larger screen size. Although the difference is not massive and is mostly bought out with the post-processing I do on it to improve detail so typically I stick with the smaller MKV versions to save time and space. Unless it is a good movie ofc :P

Although I was more getting at the compression is likely to be high on the YouTube streams and therefore would actually be sucky since I doubt they would stream it decent bitrates.


If you get a properly encoded 1080p release I guarantee you will not tell the difference between it and the source ;).

[N!ck]

Yes I can tell the difference from a 1080p MKV ~14GB and a 40GB source, especially with the larger screen size. Although the difference is not massive and is mostly bought out with the post-processing I do on it to improve detail so typically I stick with the smaller MKV versions to save time and space. Unless it is a good movie ofc :P

Are you downloading scene releases? That's probably the reason why. Internal encodes are where it's at.

Compare these screen shots. There is an extremely slight difference but would be unnoticeable while moving/playing. This is an 8GB 1080p release of Zombieland

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/5d1fdc64198832/
Release: http://www.imagebam.com/image/3c41ef64199014/

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/4a27f964198870/
Release: http://www.imagebam.com/image/c5c20c64199050/

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/e734bd64198908/
Release http://www.imagebam.com/image/32cdef64199105/

[Black_Apalachi]

Might just be my laptop of whatever but the quality of YouTube videos for me isn't something I'd pay to watch especially when there are free films on my TV.

[Tomm]

Since its obviously hard for me to show you what its like on a much larger screen, here is some screenshots from a mkv and a bluray source before and after my post-processing to sharpen it.

Since I can't be bothered to fire up my projector just to get some 1080p screenshots they are just from my normal 1680x1050 monitor. The gfx card shaders are designed to sharpen the image but also have a side effect of bringing out the artifacts in the image. I don't have both a bluray and mkv copy of a film so they are from two different films but it gives you an idea.

MKV Release - Pixel Shaders OFF

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1456/stpsoff.jpg

MKV Release - Pixel Shaders ON

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6690/stpson.jpg

Bluray Original - Pixel Shaders OFF

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/4459/kohpsoff.jpg

Bluray Original - Pixel Shaders ON

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7636/kohpson.jpg



Are you downloading scene releases? That's probably the reason why. Internal encodes are where it's at.

Compare these screen shots. There is an extremely slight difference but would be unnoticeable while moving/playing. This is an 8GB 1080p release of Zombieland

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/5d1fdc64198832/
Release: http://www.imagebam.com/image/3c41ef64199014/

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/4a27f964198870/
Release: http://www.imagebam.com/image/c5c20c64199050/

Source: http://www.imagebam.com/image/e734bd64198908/
Release http://www.imagebam.com/image/32cdef64199105/

[N!ck]

All four of them look horrific to me?

This is much more crisp to me? As far as I'm concerned you should always play things untouched. No post processing etc - so that it looks exactly as the director meant it to look.

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2899/71573219.png

Another example of source Blu-Ray vs internal encoding release group:

Source: http://upload-file.org/slike/200910530115317338.png
Encode: http://upload-file.org/slike/200910530132311189.png

I link these rather than embedding so you can open them in different tabs easier for flicking between.

[Tomm]

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7636/kohpson.jpg

Looks a hell of alot sharper and detailed than:

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2899/71573219.png

Despite not even being at 1080p resolution.

Another example:

Off
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9199/koh2psoff.jpg

On
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1156/koh2pson.jpg


All four of them look horrific to me?

This is much more crisp to me? As far as I'm concerned you should always play things untouched. No post processing etc - so that it looks exactly as the director meant it to look.

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2899/71573219.png

Another example of source Blu-Ray vs internal encoding release group:

Source: http://upload-file.org/slike/200910530115317338.png
Encode: http://upload-file.org/slike/200910530132311189.png

I link these rather than embedding so you can open them in different tabs easier for flicking between.

[Blinger1]

on todays average internet connection I don't see loading it being a problem. I can load a 1080p youtube video without waiting before watching it on a 10mbps connection.
I have to wait to watch most youtube videos. I guess that is what happens when the government won't do anything about internet over here -.-'

[N!ck]

Well I actually prefer the untouched one.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9199/koh2psoff.jpg

The other looks like when you turn the contrast too high on the TV.

Anyway, my argument is about a properly encoded x264 being indistinguishable from the source. If you took that Wiki encode of Harry Potter for instance and played it on your screen with your fancy post processing thing and compare it to the source Blu-Ray I doubt you'd see the difference. If you like it with the shader thing it's whatever looks best/is most enjoyable for your viewing :P. Anyways I must go too bed as I have an exam tomorrow :).

[Black_Apalachi]

That's probably why I don't give a crap about all this HD and Blu-ray business, cos I really wouldn't argue about the differences between the pics above. I can notice the difference but they're both fine, I wouldn't be able to say which is "better".

[The Professor]

Exactly, the worse one wouldn't look bad anyway unless you put it next to the good one so its all academic. Tbh I can quite happily watch a compressed, slightly pixelly video from youtube on a big tv, you get over it after a few minutes

[Gibs960]

id rather it on the tele :/

Same, better to watch it on tele.