YouTube expands repurposed content offerings
Google’s YouTube service is the internet’s ubiquitous user-generated video service. Over the past couple of years they have been toying with adding repurposed content such as television programs and motion pictures. This week they announced more partnerships in this regard, including some of the biggest players in Hollywood.
The new content providers include Sony, MGM, CBS, Starz, and Lionsgate.
Television programs will be at YouTube.com/shows, and movies will be at YouTube.com/movies. The content is the usual free online fair, including TV shows Married With Children, Happy Tree Friends, The Addams Family, and movies such a Cliffhanger, Carrie, and Inspector Clouseau.
The video quality is maybe a little better than the lower-quality versions on Hulu. I watched an episode of Harper’s Island and it didn’t look quite as good as a similar video on Hulu in 480p.
YouTube is using a similar approach to advertising as Hulu as well, breaking up the video into segments and introducing short commercials. The Harper’s Island episode I mentioned above had four commercials for the 40 minute show.
Because of the website’s popularity, YouTube is a serious contender for online video distribution. My only complaint so far with the platform is in full screen the progress bar does not disappear from view.
The well known Hollywood studios cannot dictate what the general public choose or will get as they did prior to now. When you add to that distribution on the internet, news reports web-sites, from chat to whole motion pictures. It’s a really brand-new society. A lot of it very good, some not.