META: Video problems in front page posts

Submitted by Jon06 on October 10th, 2023 at 6:25 AM

As I noted in the thread, I had a lot of trouble with many of the embedded videos in Seth's Defensive UFR for Nebraska. So did at least one other user who responded to me there.

In the meantime, this link -- https://youtu.be/pbj5CJBjDFQ?t=467 -- from Brian's last column is unavailable from (at least where I am) outside the US.

I can VPN to the US to solve the latter issue, but the former has me flummoxed. Thoughts?

RedRum

October 10th, 2023 at 6:29 AM ^

Loading times are terrible. I don’t even try to reload the site. I close the tab and reopen the page anew each time now. There is a gremlin somewhere in the sites programming. 

Seth

October 10th, 2023 at 9:03 AM ^

LMK if you have issues with today's Neck Sharpies. I just post videos to YouTube. If the issue is with videos getting blocked in a certain country there may not be much I can do about it.

Jon06

October 10th, 2023 at 9:41 AM ^

Neck Sharpies works fine, at least the videos I checked.

I'm pretty sure my problems with your Nebraska UFR videos stems from the HDR thing. (All quality options are tagged HDR, so lowering the quality doesn't help.) I tried googling for problems with HDR on youtube now and there are a lot of uploaders complaining about Youtube's processing of HDR videos on the poster side, so maybe everyone would be happier if you just post non-HDR videos like in today's Neck Sharpies?

As for country restrictions, that is a separate thing and I just wanted you guys to know that, when you link videos from the networks instead of making your own, many of us outside the country can't actually see them.

Thanks for reading and responding, btw, in addition to your usual gargantuan workload. Much appreciated!

Seth

October 10th, 2023 at 10:22 AM ^

I think it's something about certain countries and their fair use laws and whoever's in charge of the media company. If you're in the US and you start striking things that are obvious fair use (like how we use these clips to break down what's happening), you can get counter-sued. We've done it and are willing to do it again. Over time, even though Youtube gives them the power, it's not worthwhile. There was a company they paid to be copyright trolls and they got sued three times into declaring bankruptcy and restarting with a new name before calling it off.

But that's all in the U.S. If NBC wants to put claims on anything outside of the U.S. that's governed by the fair use laws that apply wherever they're putting claims. I would guess most companies still won't bother, but it wouldn't surprise me if NBC (which has the Olympics and broadcasts overseas football games and soccer games) takes advantage of less liberal nations' fair use standards.

reshp1

October 10th, 2023 at 1:01 PM ^

I wish they'd go back to gfycat, it was so much better than YT for UFRs and stuff. Every time you pause one of the YT embeds, which I do a lot to understand what's going on, an ad pops up and blocks the paused image.

Seth

October 10th, 2023 at 1:47 PM ^

Yep. And Streamable takes your stuff down unless you buy a subscription, which tells me they're not going to last either. I went back to YouTube only with the greatest reluctance. Gfycat was perfect, but they sold out to a big company that just wanted one of the technologies they had and scrapped the rest.

Clarence Beeks

October 10th, 2023 at 2:49 PM ^

Yep.  It's brutal and continues to be. The "home screen app" work around is a tad better, but barely. The only "fix" I've actually found is to not use mobile, as it works relatively fine on my actual computer.