Flash Video player. Bring people back to a-m-v.org

[Onibokusu]

Hows about a-m-v.org creates their own Flash video player, like Youtube. It would bring all the members lost to Youtube and you wouldn't have to download the video to view it. After all you gotta put those donations to use so hows about a video player.

You could choose to download the video (if flash isn't available) or just view the video on the Normal page.

I think it would be a great idea, and you could have (when confiriming the upload) a question asking the dimensions of the of the video. anything up to 640x800 or something. Soy uo could view the video at best quality (unlike Youtube)

So hows about my idea? would it work? would it be viable? would it make people come back?

[BasharOfTheAges]

Most people here care about video quality (reason for hating youtube right there!).

Furthermore, a lot of people couldn't stream video at that high of a quality on their connections - and such a method would destroy the server's bandwidth.

Full quality streaming would eat up as much bandwidth as downloading the video. So why not just download the video?

There's already things in place to make you jump through hoops to download a video a second time - if that tells you anything right there.

We don't have a problem atracting the right people as it is (but we seem to attract a fair amount of the wrong people as well)... and such tactics as you suggest attracts the attention of the wrong people.

[BasharOfTheAges]

o.o;; I used the term "streaming," but you know what I mean.

[Onibokusu]

Yeah I do know what you mean by Streaming.

But its just for some people the whole downloading prospect drives them away because (examples)
1. their download speed might totaly suck,
2. Their computer might not be able to play it,
3. When they finally download it it might slow down their computer.

and those are a few things there that might turn them away.

When you sign up the site could ask you what internet connection you have and what player you have on the computer.
Because remember even though not EVERYONE can some still can.
And with the site...just buy more bandwidth.

I am donating a whole lot to the site when I get a whole bunch of money

[Zarxrax]

I think streaming might be a good OPTION for creators to make available for their videos. In addition, it can help to satisfy the requirements for the Evanescence videos, i think.

Of course, it would probably be a massive undertaking, and not something that could just be done on a whim.

I think a good idea might be to PARTNER with some streaming video site, and allow people to post a stream or link to the stream on their video info page. Something that keeps sync better than youtube though...

[Keeper of Hellfire]

you wouldn't have to download the video to view it.

Actually you are downloading the video data either. The difference to the Orgs download - you don't have it on your computer after that. And that's what really sucks. If you want to watch it again you're downloading all the data again and you have always to be connected to the internet if you wanna watch it.

1. their download speed might totaly suck,

If their download speed sucks, they can't stream either. Streaming needs a large bandwith, since the data has to be transfered in realtime. I have a 1 MBit/s DSL connection, and I encountered choppy playback at the most infamous streaming site. And that with a 320x240 shitty quality video. So what do you think would happen to someone with a 56 K modem connection?

2. Their computer might not be able to play it,

This can happen with streams too, if no streaming capable media player is installed. Of course, not very likely at a Windows machine, but Windows isn't the only OS.

3. When they finally download it it might slow down their computer.

How does a downloaded vid slow down the computer? That's absolute nonsense.

The only advantage of streaming is that you can watch it immediatly, don't have to wait until the download is finished.

[DeinReich]

I didn't realize we were losing members.

This site has its purpose, to host high quality AMVs for people that like AMVs. Sites like youtube have their purpose, to host terrible quality videos of people lghting their farts on fire while lipsyncing pop songs, for people that are into that sort of stupidity. The reason that people host their videos on there instead of here is usualy because they have never heard of this site (at least that is what I have noticed), or because they want to "test the waters" in some cases. If you want to host your hard work exclusivly in a garbage format, then so be it. I'd just suggest having your videos hosted in both places if you REALLY want to have your videos streamable.

[Flint the Dwarf]

Yeah, really, we "lost" people to eutoob? Good riddance, chumps.

[SarahtheBoring]

I highly, highly doubt that the org has lost many members to The Site That Shall Not Be Named. What it probably does is

a) lower the bar so that people with slow connections / short attention spans are more likely to get interested in / hooked on AMVs

b) make viewers more visible to editors - here they are seen mostly in the form of all-10 fanboy ops and crowds that vote "wrong" at cons, but there they have profiles stuffed full of stolen AMVs - easier to see, harder to ignore.

But mostly a). Hardcore fans don't realize how many people just like watching AMVs once in a while and don't base their entire lives around it. There are a lot of those folks out there, and to a lot of them, cruddy streaming video is "good enough."

Anyway, nothing, NOTHING is more important to the org than visual quality, so you are highly unlikely to ever get a streaming player like that here. That's my guess.

[Flint the Dwarf]

I don't even mind streaming video, or low (visual) quality videos. I just think it's silly to implement another feature to this site to gain more viewers. We want creators, anyway. Viewers are an incentive for the creators (most creators, I think), but ultimately the site's a catalogue and, more recently, storage for every video created. And most creators who put their stuff on eutoob will eventually find their way here if they haven't already.