The way forward for pres sites, is to provide stuff that can not be provided by average You Tube users. This would include getting material that is not in video format, eg those out there who have physical collections of ITV front / end caps and that kind of thing can provide photographs for TV Ark. Maybe some deal could be struck with broadcasters to obtain footage in broadcast quality somehow.
:-(
A former member
Video quality. It's just not there on YouTube.
Granted, a lot of the presentation on web sites is still in small size Real files, but with the advent of better codecs and broadband, I'd rather go to a dedicated site and see high quality clips rather than the compressed mess you more often than not get on YouTube.
I compare it to the arguments that arose when people compared CD to vinyl - in that you'd lose vinyl's aural quality on CD. Nowadays, people seem to want quantity at whatever cost to quality. (How many singles can you compress in to your 1GB?!)
It's always quality for me ahead of quantity. Hence I prefer my music on physical formats but I will purchase an MP3 collection if the material in question is not available in another format.
I'm sympathetic towards the arguments for the immediacy that YouTube and Flash video bring and personally would not be adverse to adopting Flash. The problem is, it would be another upheaval for us at the Ark especially when we spent most of last year thrashing out common standards for our clips (size, endcaps etc). Changing the way we delivered our video would mean having to go through all that again. We could always decide that any new material would be offered as Flash but logistically it might be difficult combining the two formats.
Not emo. Otherwise, all the ident slides would be in "Shaky Blur-O-Vision."
Anyway, they've all been shutting down or making far-too-big relaunches or have been left inactive or just plain suck. There needs to be a site that's like what The TV Room and TV Ark were before their respective major relaunches.
:-(
A former member
As in The TV Room and TVARK coming back on-line with all the old content as they are both doing right at the moment...
I know, but they're both not fully there yet. I understand both Martin and the TV Ark crew have had and still have a lot of work cut out for them, but there needs to be a good temporary solution.
The main advantage that TV Ark has over Youtube (and over other presentation sites, for that matter) is not the clips themselves, but the context they are presented in. On TV Ark I will always get a short text describing the clip I'm watching, something you don't get at Youtube or many other presantion sites. The texts give both in depth backgrounds as well as a few laughs. The clips are presented chronologically, giving an overview of the presentation throughout history.
I don't think Youtube is harming presentation sites. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to have the clips both on Youtube and on a presentation site. Adding permanent logos and having small clip sizes will harm the presentation sites more than helping them. A short ident with the URL and logo at the start should be sufficient to make it clear where the clip came from. I agree with people complaing about hotlinking, but the Youtube issue I don't really get.
I think we should see Youtube as more of a "Pres Site 2.0", rather than a threat. Now its easier than ever for anyone to create a pres site of their own, and one can combine them using Youtube features such as playlists, and the possibility to post comments is great (I've seen a French pres site with that feature, so one might add it to TV Ark too?). I started my own Youtube channel a few months ago and am thrilled about the positive response I got immidiately.
Rather than fighting Youtube, the presentation sites should embrace the ideas behind it. Add interactive features, perhaps create an interface that makes it possible for more people to access and edit the site (a "Pres Wiki", anyone?) and provide higher quality clips in better codecs (embedded flash video and H.264), should bandwidth allow it.
I think pres sites are too busy harming themselves.
the thing about youtube is that its so versatile, its a great way for example to catch a song thats not on tv all the time or that your looking just to hear, granted the movies and that i dont think they should be so redily available esspecially now that there are programs which help you to download them, but if you think about it, how can it be a bad thing that you can catch not only music, personal blogs etc but you can also be kept updated on the worlds news IF YOU WANT - with news websites you are bombarded by all this news from everywhere and it may not relate to somethin you are looking for, i remember looking for informationon the hurricanes in Canada not so long ago and it was quite tough!
Youtube and other sites like it offer a chance to just waste time online, when you need to kill some time, you jump online to watch some funny videos, or informational videos about wat may be relevant to you or your work!
I might sound like im rambling on and i probably am but i just feel that if things are shown on tv (free for us to watch) why not show them on the internet, we should embrace this idea and not be afraid of it! And heck it works out better for us! Free tv!
Free tv!