Since they cache the entire internet, I'd be surprised if they didn't store the originals.
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YouTube for Apple TV uses H.264, not Flash
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Since they cache the entire internet, I'd be surprised if they didn't store the originals.
I'm sure it's also because of quality reasons. The H.264 should look a lot better than Flash.
I know there's a lot of complainers here, but I personally like YouTube, and I don't need it to be in 1080p. I enjoy content over quality.
I'll be looking at purchasing an
TV soon. For those who aren't, quite your complainingyeah!! but not just H.264 --- my Nokia 6234 can play YouTube video off Vodafone UK - I think it must be 3gp or MPEG4 *H.263*... so it's not like YouTube is just doing this for Apple, as they are obviously converting to different formats for other companies, too.
Is there any reason to discount the possibility that Adobe might be planning H.264 support in the next version of Flash? I know the CS3 version just came out, but with news like this, I would have expected someone at Adobe to start looking into this.
If flash suddenly supported H.264 directly, it might make this pending mess a lot easier to cope with. I'm curious to see how Adobe will respond, or if they respond.
If flash suddenly supported H.264 directly, it might make this pending mess a lot easier to cope with. I'm curious to see how Adobe will respond, or if they respond.
Indeed. Say goodbye to:
- .AVI mess (like DivX and the rest)
- RealVideo (can't believe some people still use that)
- Windows Media (another "me too" innovation by MS)
- Flash Video (was a good idea for cross-browser videos, but still a custom video file format)
- .MOV Quicktime files (CODECs mess like .avi).
Let's hope everyone switches to H.264/AAC. With a lot of companies already supporting it (or at least plain .mp4 MPEG-4/AAC), we'll finally see the end of CODECs nightmares and dozens of video formats.
As long as the video is not embedded into the Flash file and references an external, plain .mp4 H.264/AAC file, I'm all for it!
I agree. With the iPod, support of MP3 (used for a lot of illegal stuff) helped push sales. But now that the user base is established, they have a market to sell legal stuff to.
Same with AppleTV. Leverage the pirated stuff on Youtube to get people to actually buy one, then sell them legal stuff some time later.
i had a mini plugged into a 40 inch HDtv. using the little s-video convertor thing. i did it mainly to watch itunes stuff. but we ended up watching a ton of youtube. in full screen i admit it didn't look that good. but it was definitely "viewable".
the browsing of youtube on itv should be soo much better. but, the quality is good enough to get things started.
the browsing of youtube on itv should be soo much better. but, the quality is good enough to get things started.
That's the same thing I was thinking. Hell, even a semi-generic little flv wrapper that merely points to an H.264 file would be cool.
Well, Google Video has, for some time, supported downloading their videos to iPod or PSP, which downloads an H.264 copy of the normally Flash video. So YouTube parent Google has experience with doubled-up videos. (Trebled, even, as they also offer a "Mac/PC" download option that is in a third codec.)
I see this as the natural progression of what Google has already said: that "Google Video" will be the video search engine site, and YouTube will be the content site. So they're migrating the content-related functionality of Google Video over to YouTube. This means that, in all likelihood, it's Google Video-hosted videos that will work on
tv first, then, as they get the YouTube collection converted, actual YouTube videos will trickle in.
If this is for the iPhone, I hope it has a dedicated decoding chip for the H.264. Otherwise, there goes the battery...
Do you guys realize that H.264, while compresses the heck out of files, is also a bitch for playback? The most high definition files will certainly be not smooth. Stupid pet project.
H.264 is a CODEC. It doesn't mean high definition. Don't forget we're talking about YouTube here, most people have miniDV cameras.
Also, since they'll be encoding videos for the
TV you can be sure they'll keep an eye on the specs of the encoding to ensure smooth playback.This is the first step for Google to turn Youtube from a website into a fully fledged TV station/delivery platform. In the future things like Youtube will replace regular TV stations.
And you know what? The companies who will be most successful at delivering these new TV stations will be the ones who best allow people to make money from their content. Who ever can effectively pass those earnings onto the video owners will become the number one video delivery platform, because that's where the best content will go, whether its drama with high production values you would expect from a major network, or whether its some kid in his basement with sock puppets.
Advertisers are going to love these platforms because they get guaranteed views and in a context where the viewer might be interested in the product, and the content producers are going to love it because it means they can bypass all the middle men and become in control of how they market and produce their content, and viewers are going to love this because it means more choice.
The more I think about it the more I realise that this announcement is the start of the future of TV. All you guys who think this is just about slightly higher quality videos are totally underselling this.
And you know what? The companies who will be most successful at delivering these new TV stations will be the ones who best allow people to make money from their content. Who ever can effectively pass those earnings onto the video owners will become the number one video delivery platform, because that's where the best content will go, whether its drama with high production values you would expect from a major network, or whether its some kid in his basement with sock puppets.
Advertisers are going to love these platforms because they get guaranteed views and in a context where the viewer might be interested in the product, and the content producers are going to love it because it means they can bypass all the middle men and become in control of how they market and produce their content, and viewers are going to love this because it means more choice.
The more I think about it the more I realise that this announcement is the start of the future of TV. All you guys who think this is just about slightly higher quality videos are totally underselling this.
I have yet to see the benefit of H.264. I can encode in mpeg4 alot faster and it looks the same with the same file size. Am I wrong???
Also, how is this going to affect my Tubesock app????
Also, how is this going to affect my Tubesock app????
This is Google - I'm sure they can look at usage ratios on their server farms and just slot this in the troughs of usage - 100,000 boxes can do an awful lot of transcoding, and the cost would be almost all disk and personnel. They can nice this and hardly notice it.
You're absolutely right on all fronts... except I'd say it started a 'long' time ago. There is Joost and then the Open Source alternative Democracy, Revver, YouTube and all the others. It's starting to come together nicely and it's going to be very exciting for consumers and producers. This is going to be a decade long (maybe more) transition.
Yea, the phone as announced does not do flash and does not do java, so it makes sense.
The only thing that may get in the way is the introduction of a delay to get each file encoded prior to being made available in Apple TV and iPhone. Video maybe availabe at UTube site for others to see before it's available for Apple.
Would be cool if authomated and if the posting occured at the same time.
Don't like being 2nd or 3rd class citizen
The only thing that may get in the way is the introduction of a delay to get each file encoded prior to being made available in Apple TV and iPhone. Video maybe availabe at UTube site for others to see before it's available for Apple.
Would be cool if authomated and if the posting occured at the same time.
Don't like being 2nd or 3rd class citizen
Have you tried streaming both?
Also, I'd imagine the benefits of H.264 should be more apparent with higher resolution movies, what resolution are yours?
Agreed. Google are known for storing everything and they have masses and masses of storage. They'll have all the originals hidden away somewhere.
MA.
I think getting YouTube on
TV's main menu is huge for Google. They're both benefitting. It makes me wonder what is planned for the next version of TV. Google may be privy to Apple's plans and are excited and planning for it.
At just about any resolution, H.264 should look better than MPEG-4 at the same bitrate.
Yes, H.264 takes a lot more horsepower to decode, and SIGNIFICANTLY more horsepower to ENcode, but it produces noticeably better video at the same bitrate.
I have a Palm OS device that can play 480x320 MPEG-4 at 30 fps just fine, but can barely handle 180x120 H.264 at 10 fps. But I want h.264 for my future AppleTV and iPhone, not to mention for computer viewing, so I encode both MPEG-4 and H.264. At 1500 kbps video bitrate, I can quite easily tell the difference between the two. It takes 4 Mbps or higher MPEG-4 before I have trouble differentiating it from 1500 kbps H.264. (Before the iPod was updated to support 640x480, I was doing most of my encoding at 480x320 MPEG-4, because the original iPod video could handle that; now I encode at 640x480 in both H.264 and MPEG-4. Yeah, it's more resolution than the Palm can handle, but it can play it just fine, and downscales acceptably.)
This is from DV footage from a decent quality mini DV camcorder. (Sony PC100.) When I get my HD camcorder (likely a Canon HV20,) the difference should be even more pronounced, since I'll be starting with progressive-scan source material. (I haven't decided yet if I will encode H.264 at 848x480, 960x540, or 1280x720. I suppose it will depend on what the iPhone can handle, regardless of screen resolution. But I'll do some H.264 vs. MPEG-4 quality comparisons, since HD takes for stinkin' ever to encode, if MPEG-4 is reasonable enough quality, I might just encode it.)
A lot of that is the convertor itself. I hooked up my wife's MB to our HDTV through composite (which is admittedly worse than S-Video) the other day for a quick experiment and it looked pretty awful. Through VGA it looks spiffy, though the colors aren't as grand as through DVI (but my Mm crashes whenever the HDTV is turned off, if the connection is through DVI, so that's a no-go).
