Will Youtube Switch to Quicktime?

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
I think it will. Steve Jobs was obviously opposed to having a flash player on the iPhone and one of it's biggest things is internet compatibility. Apple has the Google CEO on it's board and Google owns You-tube. Also, when looking at the skin used in the FC Server page at Apple it hit me. Why not? Maybe it will still have a flash player available, but i think that a QT version will--at least--be available as well.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    I don't think Cingular would be too happy about people YouTubing like crazy over their network (although maybe that's what Wi-Fi is for). Also, Google won't annoy millions of PC users just to benefit a million or so iPhone owners.



    However, I recently saw an announcement about some server software that converts Flash video into 3GPP format for cell phones, so you're not the only one thinking about this. YouTube doesn't have to have just one interface; it could serve Flash to PC users and QuickTime to iPhones.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wmf View Post


    I don't think Cingular would be too happy about people YouTubing like crazy over their network



    sorry am i completely missing something??



    are you saying Cingular now AT&T would NOT want people using lots of bandwidth so that AT&T could make money from them?



    thats crazy talk
  • Reply 3 of 12
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    I think it will. Steve Jobs was obviously opposed to having a flash player on the iPhone and one of it's biggest things is internet compatibility. Apple has the Google CEO on it's board and Google owns You-tube. Also, when looking at the skin used in the FC Server page at Apple it hit me. Why not? Maybe it will still have a flash player available, but i think that a QT version will--at least--be available as well.



    Being on the board doesn't mean much in terms of products. I don't think it matters what Steve wants WRT Flash. Too much of the internet is hidden behind flash objects. Given how irrational it is to not support Flash, it sounds like something Apple might do.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Trendannoyer View Post


    sorry am i completely missing something??



    are you saying Cingular now AT&T would NOT want people using lots of bandwidth so that AT&T could make money from them?



    Doesn't Cingular offer a flat fee for the data service? Then I can see the discomfort.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Doesn't Cingular offer a flat fee for the data service? Then I can see the discomfort.



    If they offer a flat fee, they must be okay with people doing what they feel like doing. Otherwise, they'd be breaching the contract they have with their customers. You can't just offer a flat fee and then complain when your customers take advantage of it.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker View Post


    If they offer a flat fee, they must be okay with people doing what they feel like doing. Otherwise, they'd be breaching the contract they have with their customers. You can't just offer a flat fee and then complain when your customers take advantage of it.



    That's a nice idea, but unfortunately, many ISPs and phone companies have enough weasel words in their contracts such that of you use too much more than the average user, they can cancel the contract.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    jcgjcg Posts: 777member
    Well we don't know what the terms of service will be for the iPhone, so we will have to wait and see. It's OK to speculate on what it will be based on AT&T's current offering but there is nothing keeping them from offering a special iPhone package.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    There is a reason for flash videos vs. QuickTime



    1) Easier protection and control of content



    2) This may sound ironic to number 1, but they are really not mutually exclusive at all once you think about it: easier distribution throughout the internet.



    3) Better streaming



    4) Universal format with no worry about codecs



    5) Custom player with custom controls



    and btw -- Google Videos DOES offer iPod versions of some videos.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    They'll just offer a Phonecast option.



    No way they'll switch away from flash.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    why do they use flash in the first place--the quality SUCKS! and UI is bad too.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    I don't see it happening but I think it would be a great move. Loads of people have video ipods so allowing them to download youtube videos for viewing on the go would be quite popular. Just providing flash video support on ipods might be the easier solution though.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    why do they use flash in the first place--the quality SUCKS! and UI is bad too.



    I think it's just the low bitrates and not the format though. Flash used to be H263 video, which I remember using in place of Sorenson Video because it was actually pretty good quality. They use VP2 or something now and I presume it's better quality than H263.



    I don't think that Flash video will rival H264 quality but I bet the encoding times do and if H264 doesn't give enough advantage over flv at such low bitrates then it doesn't make sense to switch if the encoding times are so much longer. Also, I've discovered that a large number of PC users have a certain level of disdain towards anything with an Apple brand for no apparent reason. I've seen quite a few Quicktime hating threads in various places but not so many Flash ones. Windows users would argue why not use WMV instead of flash and I'm sure none of us would want that but what advantage would H264 Quicktime have over VC-1 WMV? They are both open standards.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trevorlsciact View Post


    why do they use flash in the first place--the quality SUCKS! and UI is bad too.



    Read above for my list of why.





    And btw - flash's quality is not inherently bad. The problem is, people compress the file sizes so much so they upload quicker and use less bandwidth.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icfireball View Post


    Read above for my list of why.





    And btw - flash's quality is not inherently bad. The problem is, people compress the file sizes so much so they upload quicker and use less bandwidth.



    Also, YouTube uses an older codec so that's compatible with Flash 7, there are Flash 8 compatible codecs that are better. I think someone should make a pre-compressor for YouTube. You want to deinterlace if it's interlaced, pre-scale the video to YouTube's resolution, and compress it as minimally possible and still be under the 100MB limit. I'm told that those steps have a very significant impact. It's a little tedious though, most people would just upload and forget about it.
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