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Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

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Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#161

Post by dumbfounder »

SteveNuts wrote: post #71
lxgr wrote: post #30

Old movies have been available on various "free ad-supported streaming television" for a while now, so I'm actually more surprised it took copyright holders that long to realize that Youtube also shows ads and doesn't require people to install some wonky app that might or might not be available for their platform. Of course, region-specific copyright deals are incredibly complex etc. etc., so I could imagine it was j…

I assume that bandwidth is by far the biggest cost for running your own streaming service, so letting Google take that hit makes a lot of sense.

I agree with parent that the bigger issue is distribution. Installing random apps sucks. YouTube has distribution. If they can make more money off esoteric movies by using YouTube then that makes more sense than having an extremely long tail of content in your app that probably no one will discover.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#164

Post by shermantanktop »

vanderZwan wrote: post #51

> Anyway, Waiting for Guffman still holds up, and you can watch it on YouTube, for free. On top of that it never was released outside of the US before! As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film. Also: no mention of The Mission, which is also in the list? That's quite a critically acclaimed one. Just look at these opening paragraphs from its wikipedia page: > The Mission is…

Waiting For Guffman is a great movie...Christopher Guest has done quite a few in this vein but IMO Guffman is the best.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#165

Post by mrandish »

vanderZwan wrote: post #51

> Anyway, Waiting for Guffman still holds up, and you can watch it on YouTube, for free. On top of that it never was released outside of the US before! As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film. Also: no mention of The Mission, which is also in the list? That's quite a critically acclaimed one. Just look at these opening paragraphs from its wikipedia page: > The Mission is…

> As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film.

You're in for a treat. While somewhat similar, Waiting for Guffman is a bit different than Spinal Tap. It has layers to the satire that are even more subtle. Not as many call back lines destined to live in memes forever (eg "It goes to eleven"). It's more of a character study that's willing to simply bask in the absolute vacuum of unself-awareness long enough to let it wrap back on itself and evolve into sincere charm. Eugene Levy is a treat as always and Fred Willard's performance evokes echoes of his legendary work on Fernwood Tonight.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#166

Post by kouru225 »

echelon wrote: post #154
SllX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, FAST services as referenced by the parent are an entire genre of streaming services that might have slipped under the radar for most Hacker News readers.[1] They’d be off my radar too since I’m not interested in them per se, but for Jason Snell’s excellent Downstream[2] podcast (earlier episodes co-hosted by Julia Alexander) covering basically the business of Hollywood with an emphasis on streaming services and r…

With AI, this entire vast content library is about to be worthless anyway. We'll be making more long-form, quality content per month than entire Hollywood production years. And if you include short form content and slop, it'll be more content per second than entire years. When faced with infinite content, people will reach for content currently popular in the zeitgeist or content that addresses niche interests. Holly…

>With AI, this entire vast content library is about to be worthless anyway

That’s just not how humanities work

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#167

Post by almostdeadguy »

echelon wrote: post #154
SllX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, FAST services as referenced by the parent are an entire genre of streaming services that might have slipped under the radar for most Hacker News readers.[1] They’d be off my radar too since I’m not interested in them per se, but for Jason Snell’s excellent Downstream[2] podcast (earlier episodes co-hosted by Julia Alexander) covering basically the business of Hollywood with an emphasis on streaming services and r…

With AI, this entire vast content library is about to be worthless anyway. We'll be making more long-form, quality content per month than entire Hollywood production years. And if you include short form content and slop, it'll be more content per second than entire years. When faced with infinite content, people will reach for content currently popular in the zeitgeist or content that addresses niche interests. Holly…

Yeah I can't wait for "Forest Gump 2", The Simpsons Live Action starring John C. Reilly as Barney, and "Lord of the Rings But It's A Wes Anderson Movie". AI distilling the absolutely worst and most cynical Hollywood trends into full length motion pictures. I've yet to see anything remotely approaching non-slop from AI-generated video.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#168

Post by saint_yossarian »

echelon wrote: post #154
SllX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, FAST services as referenced by the parent are an entire genre of streaming services that might have slipped under the radar for most Hacker News readers.[1] They’d be off my radar too since I’m not interested in them per se, but for Jason Snell’s excellent Downstream[2] podcast (earlier episodes co-hosted by Julia Alexander) covering basically the business of Hollywood with an emphasis on streaming services and r…

With AI, this entire vast content library is about to be worthless anyway. We'll be making more long-form, quality content per month than entire Hollywood production years. And if you include short form content and slop, it'll be more content per second than entire years. When faced with infinite content, people will reach for content currently popular in the zeitgeist or content that addresses niche interests. Holly…

Thanks, I hate it. Can you point me to any examples of AI-generated content that's actually worth reading/watching/listening to?

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#169

Post by mrandish »

slongfield wrote: post #142
robertlagrant wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be really nice if YouTube could give uploaders the ability to schedule ad slots, rather than them appearing randomly. Unless they do this already and stuff I watch just does it badly, of course.

Yeah, YouTube's UI lets you set where the ads go. The creator tools let you set how many, and where midroll ads will play. However, most creators just click the "insert automatically" button. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006

> However, most creators just click the "insert automatically" button.

That seems like a good opportunity for a neural net feature that's smarter than simple scene cut detection. While most theatrical films lack many good spots for commercial breaks, there are certainly a lot of "less bad" spots. Sadly, I doubt YT will bother since they no longer seem to care about viewer experience in recent years.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#170

Post by not2b »

robertlagrant wrote: post #86
lxgr wrote: post #30

Old movies have been available on various "free ad-supported streaming television" for a while now, so I'm actually more surprised it took copyright holders that long to realize that Youtube also shows ads and doesn't require people to install some wonky app that might or might not be available for their platform. Of course, region-specific copyright deals are incredibly complex etc. etc., so I could imagine it was j…

It would be really nice if YouTube could give uploaders the ability to schedule ad slots, rather than them appearing randomly. Unless they do this already and stuff I watch just does it badly, of course.

It appears that the intent of the ad scheduling is to be so annoying that it motivates people on the fence to pay for premium.
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