I need a new podcast host

[elektronicks]

is there really anybody interested on how dave organizes his shit?
i mean really.. let the grown up deal with it and let him announce
us where we can follow his fantasies.

hopefully online.. so we can watch over and over how you fucking
dislike cats beeing youtube selfsutained .. you know.. selling
t-shirts, industry bitch and ways to be succesful in dating sites..
hahahah

what a looser..

[manicdoc]

The torrent option is basically free, and could even be managed by volunteers if all else fails. The question is not if the torrent should be kept but whether that should be the only option to get an offline download.

It's not. There are dozen diffeent ways to rip the video from Youtube, or properly download it via the RSS feed I gave above.

In theory, everyone has a mobile device which can play YT videos and has cellular internet connectivity. In practice, not everyone does, and the internet connectivity might be crap or you might be limited by your data plan.

This is precisely why people use iTunes and/or RSS readers/players. They grab your content when online at home and then auto dump the file to your mobile device so you can playback seamlessly anywhere. Only a fool would chew up a few hundred MB of expensive mobile internet bandwidth to watch a single hour long youtube video while on the move.

Another option might be to educate users on how to download videos from YT for offline use.

Yep, I think I have to finally say, sorry, that's it. My videos are only available on Youtube. Here are some links to a dozen ways to download/feed/rip/iTunes it

Agree, don't even try hosting video yourself at scale, unless you have buckets of money to throw at the problem to get returns of scale, its a mugs game.

Given the 'grunt' available on mobiles with the Gb's of local storage plus tonnes of rip to go app's, the vast majority of those on RSS should be able to move across without headache. Just provide some pointers.

BTW in Cambodia atm - you should have a few more followers..

[Legit-Design]

Is it ok for youtube if you tell people how to download your videos from them, so you don't get any extra cost for distributing videos? Youtube works by advertising, if people just download your videos from youtube, they don't get to show their adverts.  I thought "YouTube makes you agree to view videos through the means provided on the YouTube website." anything other than that is a grey area. Are you biting the hand that feeds you?

Whats so wrong about torrents? Content distribution with P2P works really well when there are enough peers. There are no ready made services which handles this automatically for you? I think we can work something out.

[steve1515]

If we download YouTube videos with the RSS feed, will those video's contain text overlays that Dave adds? I thought that those were added (i.e. burned into) to the downloaded video m4v files and were captions when viewed in YouTube's web player?

One other thing... and I think it was mentioned above. The YouTube RSS feed doesn't have any enclosure tags with the file links. This makes it so that regular RSS readers can't download the video files. Is it possible to add the enclosure tags with links to the video files to the YouTube feed? I'm not sure how I will be able to download the files without the enclosure tags.

[EEVblog]

Whats so wrong about torrents?

Nothing.
But I've tried it and maybe 20-30 people used it. It's not worth bothering with.

[EEVblog]

If we download YouTube videos with the RSS feed, will those video's contain text overlays that Dave adds? I thought that those were added (i.e. burned into) to the downloaded video m4v files and were captions when viewed in YouTube's web player?
One other thing... and I think it was mentioned above. The YouTube RSS feed doesn't have any enclosure tags with the file links. This makes it so that regular RSS readers can't download the video files. Is it possible to add the enclosure tags with links to the video files to the YouTube feed? I'm not sure how I will be able to download the files without the enclosure tags.

I don't know the in's and out's out it, but Miro worked fine and downloaded the file without any text overlays or ads or hassle, it just worked.

[steve1515]

Dave,
About the overlay comment I made... I meant when you make a correction to what you said or when you add more detail on a part. For example, in some videos you'll say something like: "I'm not sure what that part is." After you make the video you've looked it up and added a text overlay that says something like "(It's a high speed DAC)".

I thought that in the YouTube videos, you used the captioning/annotation feature so the "(It's a high speed DAC)" message isn't in the actual video, but then you did add it to the downloadable videos in the actual video itself.

If I download the YouTube videos, will I get the overlay text that you sometimes add? Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time. 

[johnwa]

Dave,

I understand that the extra distribution methods can be a hassle for you. If you think that moving over to exclusive Youtube distribution is the only way forward, then I respect that it is your choice to do so. However, as a user of the HTTP downloads, I thought I would give you my perspective  on the issue.

If I were in your position Dave, I would think carefully before relying on Youtube for distribution. The idea of having one central server (even if virtual/cloud-based/whatever) for everything obviously gives a single point of failure, and goes against the 'peer-to-peer' design of the Internet. Back in the days of static personal homepages, with lower bandwidth requirements, this idea was alive and well, and it is only with the rise of video streaming that we have seen a move away from this.

Although a technical failure of a site as large as Youtube may seem remote, another, potentially much bigger problem is that you are at the mercy of whatever business policies they decide to implement. It is not too hard to imagine someone taking offence at a video, and applying pressure to Youtube, resulting in a video, or even an entire series, being pulled down. Or Youtube could decide there are too many liability issues in encouraging people to pull things apart, or they could add even more obnoxious advertising, etc.

While I admit that some of these concerns also apply to a privately hosted website, at least then you have the option of shopping around for different web hosts.

Personally, I tend to stay away from Youtube as much as possible. The site is large and bloated, and they deliberately make it difficult to download the videos for viewing later.

Even if the bandwidth requirements for hosting the files via HTTP are excessive, I would be in favour of keeping the torrents, as these are really an ideal means for video distribution. I did try using them before, however they did lag behind considerably in terms of updates. If this could possibly be addressed, I am sure quite a few people would take up this distribution option.

Anyway, whatever way you go, I am sure I will keep watching the show, even if it means I have to switch from wget to youtube-dl for downloading it. 

[Chipguy]

Well, until now i didn't even know that the videos could be downloaded via something else than Youtube. Since my cable sucks sometimes, i had to start using YTD Youtube downloader. This has not failed me with once for getting the EEVBlog videos. This downloading has also a positive other effect : I can now watch the video on my Media Center with the big TV connected to it.

[mariush]

I'm using this Firefox extension :

Download Youtube as MP4 : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-youtube/

It's also available as a Greasemonkey script : http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25105

It basically adds a download button under the video with a drop down menu from which you can select the format and quality and then it basically downloads the video using Firefox's built in download manager as a regular file. 
No conversions, no quality loss, allows you to get the format you like.

Sometimes if the video starts as 360p or 480p you have  to select 720p or 1080p in youtube's player and reload page to get the HD versions in the combo box but that's just a page reload..no biggie

-

Dave, I don't think you should advertise and tell people to use extensions to download the videos, it might be against the TOS... 
Under some condition you can add a download button under videos, but i think you have to put them under an open source type license after uploading and that may be an issue with the advertising.

[EEVblog]

If I were in your position Dave, I would think carefully before relying on Youtube for distribution.

Almost every single full time Youtuber on the planet does just that.

another, potentially much bigger problem is that you are at the mercy of whatever business policies they decide to implement. It is not too hard to imagine someone taking offence at a video, and applying pressure to Youtube, resulting in a video, or even an entire series, being pulled down. Or Youtube could decide there are too many liability issues in encouraging people to pull things apart, or they could add even more obnoxious advertising, etc.

Those risks exist regardless of what I do with the podcast.
Don't worry, I can instantly re-enable uploads if I need to.

Personally, I tend to stay away from Youtube as much as possible. The site is large and bloated, and they deliberately make it difficult to download the videos for viewing later.

Youtube is practically 100% responsible for the successful growth of my blog.

[EEVblog]

Is it ok for youtube if you tell people how to download your videos from them, so you don't get any extra cost for distributing videos?

They support RRS feeds:
https://www.youtube.com/t/rss_feeds

[EEVblog]

If I download the YouTube videos, will I get the overlay text that you sometimes add? Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time. 

If it's an annotation on Youtube, no idea.
If it's text I add in the video editing process, then yes.

[johnwa]

Those risks exist regardless of what I do with the podcast.
Don't worry, I can instantly re-enable uploads if I need to.

OK, fair enough. I will have a look at the RSS feeds.

[rr100]

I know it is off-topic for this thread but I wanted for a long time to rant about hostmonter (under all incarnations as they use a few different names). They would indeed disable the account out of the blue and generaly just working hard not to give you the service.

[meanpc]

Do you have hard numbers on what the highest concurrent load is now?

[Rasz]

I'm using this Firefox extension :

Download Youtube as MP4 : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-youtube/

It's also available as a Greasemonkey script : http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25105

Sometimes if the video starts as 360p or 480p you have  to select 720p or 1080p in youtube's player and reload page to get the HD versions in the combo box but that's just a page reload..no biggie

Switch to yousabletubefix
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333

you will be able to configure default resolution - no need to switch and reload pages

[r]

from reading the post on the home page i thought id better let u no that it killed the itunes subscription

[mjo]

I expect my view is a minority one, but personally I care quite a lot that the podcast is available automatically in the iTunes Music Store, but I don't care a jot if it arrives there a day or two after it's published elsewhere.

Although it's not a perfect experiment, I watch most of the EEVblog episodes, but very few of other similar ones e.g. Mike's Electric Stuff. I think the main difference is iTMS availability.

[CHexclaim]

The same happens to me. Until now (ie, before my ipad was stolen) the only way I watched the eevblog was via itunes. This is just because I travel a lot and use that time to watch the videos.

Sooner o later I will have a mobile device again and as Dave mentioned before the process is to download the content while online and sync and view it while offline. It is the trend so I think that, whatever the final method of content distribution Dave finally adopts, this should be taken into consideration.

It should be an easy and multi platform solution.

Charlie
@CHexclaim

[gnif]

There are two options that I know of and have used for this in the past.

1) SoftLayer's CDN. Not sure on the pricing as generally my clients just hand me the login info to configure it for them, but there is an added benefit here that Dave's server with HostGator is actually provided by SoftLayer, so it will (in theory) have a quick uplink into the CDN.

2) Amazon S3. I really like this service as it is very cheap for mass offsite storage, great for backing up servers using automated means, and it is pay as you go, so you only pay as much as it is used.

$0.095 per GB for storage.
$0.000 per GB for the first 1GB of data transfer out
$0.120 per GB for the first 10TB of data transfer out (this will possibly be what this site will be under)
$0.090 per GB for the first 40TB of data transfer out

$0.004 per 10,000 GET requests

So let us assume 2000 downloads a month,video is what 200MB max (I have no idea as I have never downloaded them).

2000 * 200MB  / 1024 = 390.625GB *  0.120 = $46.875 + $0.004 = $46.879

So that works out to roughly 2.4c per download and it is backed by Amazon's massive CDN.

[EEVblog]

So let us assume 2000 downloads a month,video is what 200MB max (I have no idea as I have never downloaded them).
2000 * 200MB  / 1024 = 390.625GB *  0.120 = $46.875 + $0.004 = $46.879
So that works out to roughly 2.4c per download and it is backed by Amazon's massive CDN.

Try 2000 downloads a DAY, not a month!

[reubot]

If I download the YouTube videos, will I get the overlay text that you sometimes add? Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time. 

If it's an annotation on Youtube, no idea.
If it's text I add in the video editing process, then yes.

YouTube annotations are stored in a separate XML file: https://www.youtube.com/annotations_invideo?features=1&legacy=1&video_id=<video_id>

[staze]

Wonder if Cloudflare might be able to handle ya... you can use the host you want, and hopefully cloudflare will keep you from sucking up all your bandwidth by acting a lot like a CDN.

https://www.cloudflare.com/overview
https://www.cloudflare.com/features-cdn

Shoot them an email. They're extremely responsive anytime I have questions, problems, etc. Bet they could handle ya. =) And they don't charge for bandwidth! Oh, and the best part, it's all auto-magic. You just let them handle your DNS, and everything routes through them, they cache stuff as it wizzes by, and Bob's your uncle (hey, I have an uncle Bob!).

[lilshawn]

Only a fool would chew up a few hundred MB of expensive mobile internet bandwidth to watch a single hour long youtube video while on the move.

 



Oh well, if I don't use it for Dave's videos what will I use it for?