“YouTube” as a video format?!?

Posted June 21, 2006 6:51 pm
Filed under: Articles by Paul, Flash, Opinions

Today I was emailed the following link:

http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html

It goes to a page with links to videos of BumpTop, an experimental desktop UI — which I found interesting. However, what I found even more interesting was the selection of video format/player options, shown in this screen grab:

Screen capture of the 'choose video format' interface from a web page, which has three options: Windows Media, QuickTime, and YouTube

Notice the three available options: Windows Media, QuickTime, and … YouTube?

Don’t get me wrong; this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve heard of the YouTube video sharing service. However, it is the first time I’ve seen YouTube used as a media format option. (In case you don’t know, like Google Video, ABC, AOL, and others, YouTube uses Flash Video (.flv) as the format for its video files — there is no such thing as “YouTube” video format).

So, at the risk of sounding a little like John Dowdell, I was a little disappointed that credit for the video format (and the actual player requirements, for that matter) were going to YouTube rather than Flash Player.

As I pondered this, I had a thought I hadn’t had before. Perhaps in the case of web video, Flash Player’s ubiquity and customizability has been the reason that it’s the great secret among video players. Think about the typical web video experience, say for a movie trailer web site 2-3 years ago. You go to the movie web site, you click on the link for the trailer, and what do you see: a big list of links titled “choose your video player format: Windows Media, QuickTime, Real …)” Or even worse, the dreaded “missing plugin” dialog or the puzzle piece icon.

Compare that to the experience that most people have with YouTube, or Google video. You arrive at the page. The video works. It plays in a branded skin that blends in nicely with the page (well, assuming the designer did his/her job right). Unless you right-click, you have no idea that it’s Flash…and really, how many people are going to do that?

In terms of ubiquity and customizability, I’d say Flash Player as a video player is much less likely to be recognized, simply because the end user doesn’t need to be able to recognize it in order to use it — they don’t need to worry about whether they can make the video work, because it just does. So I guess what I’m starting to wonder is, is Flash Player a victim of its own success?

You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments so far

  1. June 22nd, 2006 at 4:45 am
    borzoj is reported to have said:

    imho the reason to publish as youtube is their sharing capabilities. if the video is on you tube it’s easier for people to link to it, include in their blogse etc.
    i don’t think it’s like ‘if we said flash video people wouldn’t have a clue’.

  2. June 22nd, 2006 at 8:05 pm
    Tim Madden is reported to have said:

    Google video has a ‘google video format’ for download, is this a rip of flash video as well? they also say download for ipod and PSP but they dont say its mpeg, is that a similar issue?

  3. June 26th, 2006 at 7:39 am
    On demande » Flash vidéo, manque de Brand ? is reported to have said:

    […] o en “s’appropriant” le format, ce qui a pour conséquence de perturber certains (”“YouTube” as a video format?!?”>. Il est grand temps q […]

  4. December 27th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
    German Bauer is reported to have said:

    Very lame writing - at no time does the author imply a video format here, it simply indicates the video can be accessed through YouTube. Frankly it’s great that the average consumer doesn’t care about the underlying technology, that is the way it should be. YouTube is the brand here and deservedly so, not FLV.

  5. December 28th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
    Paul is reported to have said:

    German,
    Sorry about the misunderstanding.

    When I read the page being described here, my personal impression was that the three links shown in the image above are implying alternative video formats — after all, QuickTime and Windows Media (the two other alternatives) are media formats, tied to particular pieces of software used to play back that media format, in contrast with YouTube which is a content/service provider.

    As someone with training and interest in user-centered design, I absolutely agree that the user shouldn’t have to care about the underlying technology — Flash Player/FLV in this case. In fact, the reason YouTube chose to use FLV for its video format is to provide a seamless user experience, where the video “just works” without needing to worry about plugins, bandwidth, screen size, etc.

    However, as is hopefully obvious to people who read what I’ve written on this site, in addition to my interest in user-centered design I also have an interest in teaching people about and promoting Flash Player and its related technologies. The point I was hoping to make in my lament is that YouTube was getting the credit rather than Flash Player, from the perspective of someone wanting Flash Player to get credit in the eyes of web developers and other video service providers who are trying to determine what video format they should use to deliver their own videos. I was merely pointing out what I felt was ironic, that the seamlessness of the YouTube experience is based strongly in their use of Flash Player and FLV, and yet that seamlessness is also a downside for Adobe, since it reduces the brand awareness for them.

    For a comparable example, consider “Apollo,” the platform Adobe is developing for cross-platform desktop applications developed using traditional web application development techniques. Macromedia learned previously that when developers build desktop applications, they want control over the branding and appearance, so one of the publicly-stated goals for Apollo is that the end-user shouldn’t know that the application is running using Adobe Apollo — shouldn’t even really know what Adobe Apollo is. That means a lot of things in terms of seamless installation, both of the Apollo runtime as well as the way Apollo applications install and otherwise interface with the operating system. And for end-users (and developers) that’s all great — but for Adobe, it does reduce the opportunities for developers (Adobe’s customers) to become aware of the technology.

    Ultimately I feel like it doesn’t matter if end-users know what the underlying technology is, and fortunately developers and video service providers have recognized that Flash Player helps to make the YouTube experience (and Google Video, and so forth) seamless and enjoyable — so that they too will choose to adopt FLV format and other Flash Player technologies in their web sites. Hopefully the same thing happens for Apollo — it will be great if a company can develop a (non-malicious) product that works so well that end-users aren’t even aware of its presence, but that doesn’t remain secret from customers because of its transparency.

Add your comment





Comment notes

Please keep comments on topic. Comments that are inappropriate or offensive will be edited or removed.

Paragraphs and line breaks are automatically converted to HTML, and quotation marks are converted to “smart” quotes.

The following XHTML tags can be used: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> . All others will be removed.

Articles by Type

Articles by Topic

Random Reading

Currently...

Subscribe