YouTube Exploring Film Rentals - Though WSJ says negotiations are rocky

YouTube Exploring Film Rentals - Though WSJ says negotiations are rocky
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YouTube Exploring Film Rentals
Though WSJ says negotiations are rocky
08:33AM Thursday Sep 03 2009 by Karl Bode
tags: Video · business · alternatives · content

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and YouTube are in talks with major movie studios to allow the streaming of full movies over the video service. The Journal claims that some films would be available for a rental fee, while others would be provided free, but with advertising. "Negotiations are continuing and there are no guarantees the deals will be struck," says the paper. Citing anonymous sources, the report says that YouTube is pushing the studios to allow streaming on mobile devices, something the studios are resisting. Current plans have 10,000 Google employees testing the system for three months once (if?) negotiations are completed.

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funchords @ 3rd Sep 09:11AM:
Why Don't You Love Our Mobiles

said by Karl Bode's article :

YouTube is pushing the studios to allow streaming on mobile devices, something the studios are resisting

Any thoughts on why the studios are particularly resistant on mobile devices? Is it because the studios already have existing deals with mobile operators?

That asked, the Internet should be the Internet regardless of the end platform. It shouldn't be unavailable based on whether or not the IP address resolves to a mobile or static host.

Certainly, technology choices might be made which limits playback based on O/S, mobile users are often ill-considered when web sites are designed. But if the O/S runs Flash compatible with YouTube, the darn thing ought to play, right?
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL
Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth, or by misleading the innocent. --Spock and McCoy stardate 5029.5
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glinc @ 3rd Sep 09:41AM:
ha!

with the way their servers are.....I doubt it will be a smooth service.
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rob_in_chatt @ 3rd Sep 10:08AM:
Re: ha!

they would have to do major upgrades for more bandwidth.
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kieranmullen @ 3rd Sep 10:59AM:
Re: Why Don't You Love Our Mobiles

No mention of the fact they already tried this and dropped it?

»www.internetnews.com/ec-news/art···/3694061
--
KieranMullen »360oregon.com

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Transmaster @ 3rd Sep 11:07AM:
Re: ha!

I agree with Ha!

With the guality of some of the Hollywood films, and the way they would look on Youtube I would rather watch the idiots on YouTube shooting bottle rockets out of their butt cheeks. :hmm:
--
I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
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iansltx @ 3rd Sep 11:44AM:
Re: ha!

Unfortunately yes, YouTube has fallen in terms of actualy being able to deliver the video they serve. On a 50Mbps Comcast connection I STILL can't get YT to load smoothly.
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Smith6612 @ 3rd Sep 02:29PM:
Re: ha!

Heh, my DSL connections have the same problem at night. There's nothing wrong with the lines at night, the servers or Google's network just isn't up to the task of delivering to me solid bandwidth. It's been like that since the Winter months when HD streaming was clicked on. My 3Mbps DSL line from Frontier during the day and past midnight has no issues with YouTube and doesn't need to buffer HD videos. The Verizon line runs at 1Mbps so it'll have to buffer HD videos anyways, but like the Frontier line, things are much smoother after midnight up until 4:30PM the next day. Same thing happens on Roadrunner too. I did find that if I were to mess with the URL, I can sometimes grab a less busy cache server that loads up quickly. For me, I seem to have found especially during the Winter months, Google's network somewhere in New York City is having issues delivering all of the data. It's two hops after Level3 into the Google Network where the latency will spike up to 80-150ms where it should be 22ms (where it is in the morning).

So yeah, if YouTube is going to offer movie streaming, they should at the very minimum boost their total bandwidth and their server capacity to handle the load, as it already sucks as it is. Or, if they wanted and were allowed to do this, allow P2P streaming to smoothen out the video loading.
--
It's all fun and games in a Team Fortress 2 battle until your sentry gun is sapped by the Spycrab!
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TheMG @ 3rd Sep 07:59PM:
Might be worth something....

...assuming the price is right (lower than a Blu-Ray rental) and it's 1080p.

Otherwise I won't even consider it.
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joker5656 @ 3rd Sep 08:38PM:
Re: ha!

wounder how mny videos won't load LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
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dvd536 @ 3rd Sep 11:55PM:
DRM, proprietary players, low bit rates

Is what will kill this like many other 'legit' movie services.
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Belinrahs @ 4th Sep 02:01AM:
I don't see this working out well

Ever hear of a YouTube downloader? Yeah, those movie studios are gonna be jumping for joy once people are ~~renting~~ downloading and keeping those movies.
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SuperWISP @ 5th Sep 12:45AM:
Now, the truth about Google's lobbying comes out

We can now see clearly one of the motivations for Google's lobbying for "network neutrality" regulation. It wants to compete with cable companies for the lucrative "pay per view" business, and wants to force those companies to allow their streams through below cost.
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