[HN Gopher] Reimagining video infrastructure to empower YouTube
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       Reimagining video infrastructure to empower YouTube
        
       Author : prostoalex
       Score  : 47 points
       Date   : 2021-06-04 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.youtube)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.youtube)
        
       | xmprt wrote:
       | Anecdotally, whatever YouTube has done in recently years has
       | completely ruined a lot of 480p and 360p videos. I uploaded a
       | native 360p video about 10 years ago and in the end card, I added
       | small red text that was visible. And when I uploaded it at the
       | time, it was visible on YouTube as well. Now that section just
       | looks like a bunch of red blurry lines.
       | 
       | If you ever wondered why old videos look so bad, it's not just
       | because you're used to 1080p and so 360p looks terrible in
       | comparison. YouTube is actively reducing old video quality
       | through whatever reencoding they're doing.
        
         | mdonahoe wrote:
         | They probably lowered the max bitrate for 360p videos.
        
           | Wowfunhappy wrote:
           | Which might make sense for variable bitrate content, but it
           | makes no sense for videos that were only ever 360p in the
           | first place! They basically made a lot of old content
           | unwatchable.
        
       | handrous wrote:
       | TL;DR they started using dedicated and purposed-designed video
       | encoding/transcoding chips.
        
         | sheikheddy wrote:
         | Any implications for end-users, or notable improvements from an
         | engineering standpoint?
        
       | ExtraE wrote:
       | When did google buy the .youtube TLD? Anyone know how to view a
       | list of corporate TLDs? (Yes I know they're mostly owned by ICAN
       | anymore and all therefore corporate in some sense).
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27034627
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | bad re-invite, this is what this one is about/being discussed
       | already:
       | 
       |  _Google Replaces Millions of Intel 's CPUs with Its Own
       | Homegrown Chips_
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27390398
        
       | axiosgunnar wrote:
       | > Reimagining video infrastructure to empower YouTube
       | 
       | What level of corporate buzzword bingo is this on?
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Webscale level.
        
           | singhkays wrote:
           | So they ended up adopting MongoDB? :)
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | I get that this a engineering article but wow, what a tone deaf
         | title. Nobody outside of Google wants to "empower" YouTube,
         | they have plenty of power already. If anyone needs empowering,
         | it's the users (aka actual people).
        
           | jchw wrote:
           | The good faith interpretation would probably be "YouTube
           | [Creators]" which seems to be what was meant.
        
             | ForHackernews wrote:
             | They've already made their own demonym, so why not write
             | "to empower YouTubers" if that's what they meant?
        
         | ffhhj wrote:
         | Quantum supremacy level.
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-04 23:01 UTC)