New Flash Video section... BETA!

Mr.Bishop

Mr.Bishop

Active member
Staff member
Hah well we snuck it out the door on Friday just before the long weekend.

https://newschoolers.com/web/content/videosbeta

Now remember, we're still in the phase of public beta testing, so there's going to be lots of bugs and kinks to work out as we transition over to the new system. We're always goign to keep the old one available to you, so you'll have tonnes of time to get used to the new.

Few things to remember:

-The point of the new system is to provide you a viewing experience like other video sites. THe videos will be displayed directly on the page, meaning instead of linking to foreign videos, we encourage you to upload them directly to the site. You can now host your videos here, embed them wherever you want and watch them over and over.

-We're not set on anything. Please discuss your opinions, and we'll tweak things to work better.

-There are a bazillion old videos in every format you can possibly imagine. Things like the thumbnails won't make sense until more people start uploading videos directly to the site. We can't steal your videos from remote locations, as this probably isn't legal. :) So please, for your new vids give the new upload a try!

-Try watching a few vids... don't hesitate to use the "Load Random Video" module and browse around for what is there. We need to try and see how our backend can handle the viewing, so browse around and consume!

Bottom line here, please give the new system a chance. We feel that its a way better method of viewing videos, but it requires you guys to upload them and give it a try!

Also, keep that feedback coming, it helps us make everything work perfectly!

 
i like the format of the new section but i don't like not being able to read the entire title. the other negative is the amount of videos without thumbnails. those are the only two negatives for me.
 
Yeah that definitely is an issue, but as people become more familiar and use the new system, it will populate with waaaaay more thumbnails.

There's definitely tweaks to be made still, but we're moving in the right direction.

 
I appreciate you guys are trying to amp up the vids and i think the new version definitely has potential

A few things though...

thumbnails vs. list - I understand the there will be more thumbnails as members catch on but my biggest problem with thumbnails is its harder to tell which videos are which and you can't read the entire title. Is it possible to adjust it so you can read the title? Also when this is launched i'd consider an enable thumbnails option in account tools for those worried about load speed or just find the list setup easier to use

Overall I think the new layout has alot of potential and I dig the changes. A few small things

1) everywhere else on the site the previous and next buttons are at the top. I think uniformity makes the site easier to navigate

2.) Video, info/ rating, and comments are what the majority of us look for. I think it'd be perfect if you grouped them together in the left column and moved the embedded links into the right column. The embbedded links would still be obvious and you won't have to scroll past them to look at comments

3.) I think its my browser but sometimes there's a click to watch thumbnail that opens a flash page, sometimes theres just a link, and sometimes theres nothing. I liked how in the old setup people started embbedding videos right into the page. I really liked this cause it cut down on clicks, was obvious where the video is, and minimized new windows. Is there any way to make it so all videos are embbedded right in the member video page?

i'm usually not to good with words. so i made a pic of what i was trying to say. Take it or leave it overall i dig the new layout

1223928455ns.JPG


 
I think there's actually a problem with the embedded flash videos right now. SOmething isn't displaying properly when they're uploaded... and I think there might be a problem with the uploader. :)

Today is thanksgiving, and Paul is taking a break. TOmorrow morning, he'll get at it hard tweaking the system.

I like the suggestions above... we'll work on it and keep tweaking this thing until its perfect!

 
Hmm i must say that im not a big fan of Flash Videos. Actually i really enjoyed uploading to NS for the reason its not flash. Makes it easy to embedd as .mov's and everything. Flash seems to definitely take away from the quality of the video, sometimes significantly.

Personally i liked it the way it used to be.
 
Which is why we left the option in to simply watch the original video. Our goal was not to take that away from the purists who want the full quality, we wanted to just make video viewing more simple for teh average user who just wants to watch some ski videos.

Lets face it, 90% of people are completely fine with Youtube, so we offer double the quality of Youtube (h264) PLUS the option to download the original file. Its the best of both worlds, so there isn't any liking the "old" way of doing it, just not liking the new display.

1224070777Original.jpg


Is the problem that its not apparent enough that you can download the original file?

 
i would say just have the option

List View/Thumbnail View

and yeah, change it around so that the comments are directly below the video, with all other info on the right hand side. it sucks having to scroll through.
 
What if it was the old list view, but with the new thumbnails? The list would be a lot longer, but would pack in more information...

 
word up to that. thats a really good idea to switch out the thumbnails for video type and keep everythingelse about list the same.
 
I've really enjoyed looking at other skiers videos on this site for a long time. This new section looks all-right to me EXCEPT I don't want to sit through a commercial to look at random people's videos in the video section. It's pretty retarded.
So I don't have to watch a commercial to watch a PoorBoyz movie teaser on the front page, but have to sit and wait for a 15 second yahoo commercial to run just to see a 6 second clip of a member throwing a 540? Ughh I feel like i'm watching videos on CNN's website or something. I can't think of another video host site that does that to you.
Ok ya i realize you have to make money for the site, I don't know how much money these commericials make you but honestly put as many banners up as you want, and if you have to, put a commercial on movie teasers on the front page, but placing them on the member videos is a little overboard. If that's the way it's going to be i'll keep using the old video section.
 
My thoughts exactly. I clicked to watch the new ATA A basin edit, and got my drink during the 15 second commercial. The second video I watched, I didn't want to watch the commercial, so I went back to the old format and found the video. Sponsored videos having sponsored ads, fine. But small, social videos shouldn't have the same thing. I'll keep using the old format.
 
I definitely see your point! We're really experimenting with different things in there. We're also going to try the google overlay-style of ad which is super cool.

One problem I just realise is that video pre-rolls in the user videos are supposed to be frequency capped. So you're only supposed to see a few per day kind of deal, not on every single page load that relaly doesn't make sense... thats too many ads.

Don't give up on the section though, please keep giving it a try and letting us know your feedback. We are going to improve it thoughout the winter so that we get it perfect for you guys!

 
Hey Doug, I think it would definitely help if it was way more prominent that you could view the original high quality file. I didn't even realize you could do that until I spoke with you about it in another context. I just wish there was a way that the flash videos could be higher quality.
 
I didn't read the thread yet but, we have to do more clicking just to get to the quicktime file (if there is one) for better quality? Sure it's better than you tube but still annoying quality to watch.
 
You're probably right, its the exact same amount of clicks, but its just kind of buried in there and not easy to see. When you actually boil it down you can have the same experience as the old one... I think if we just tweaked the layout we'd be there.

As for the quality, h264 is pretty good midrange between quality and bandwith usage. Offering the h264 for a quick viewing experience and then the original file for download we thought was a pretty good way to go about it.

If things start to go really well (and people stop using youtube) then we can look at offering multiple quality rates, differing sizes, and whatever else is out there. Just gotta prove this thing works first ya know?

So... stop uploading your vids to youtube and put 'em on NS!

 
Yeah they're playing WAY too much.
Fuck sorry guys, don't know what is going wrong, its not supposed to be like that. I'm going to sit down with the ad trafficer guy tomorrow and get this sorted out!

 
hell yah beat him up!

But after using the new video section I have gotten used to it a little but the embed right under the video is annoying because i always scroll like through the embed too and it is really annoying to scroll down to see the beginning comments..just a lil OCD thing i have
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top