UK Channel 4 Putting Full TV Shows On YouTube
from the don't-need-another-site dept
mowgs points out that Channel 4, over in the UK, has done a deal with YouTube to put all its shows online. Not just clips -- the entire shows. While many people still seem to think that YouTube is just about individuals uploading stuff, it seems like the company has focused on getting a lot more official content on the site as well. While Hulu has some nice features, YouTube still destroys Hulu in traffic -- and unlike Hulu, YouTube doesn't block out visitors from other countries. Recently, even I can't get to Hulu. Because I use a VPN for security purposes, Hulu claims that I'm trying to sneak in from another country, even as I sit here in California (home of Hulu). Why does the entertainment industry always default to "you must be a criminal unless you can prove otherwise" thinking?
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Filed Under: channel 4, shows, uk, youtube
Companies: channel 4, google, youtube
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loon is a fag
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Get off my computer son!
BTW, its true, youtube does block by country.. so its not really any better than Hulu. Criminals!
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VPN
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Re: VPN
Just out of curiosity where is the endpoint of your VPN? All the website should see is the client IP (in the case if a VPN the endpoint), not that there is a VPN feeding it. So if you are coming out of the US it should never know the difference
That used to be the case, but in the last few weeks, suddenly I started getting a message from Hulu saying "It appears you are using a proxy for anonymizing, and thus we cannot establish your location." And then says I can't watch..
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Already online
The news here is simply that it is also putting them on youtube. As such this is just a logical next step, even if google was paying nothing for all this content, channel 4 is just getting a shit load of free video hosting for content it has online for free already. It's a no brainer really.
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Blocking sites is a pain
All these sites do is minimum the number of viewers they get, hence reduce the number of potential customers and ad viewers. Cross-border copyright restrictions are simply stupid, but I realize that companies must protect their intellectual property at all costs.
On another note, YouTube just isn't the best for watching videos. I haven't looked in a while, but the last few times I tried to watch something on there, the video was so horribly compressed as to be essentially unwatchable. Are the "professional" videos better or do they suffer from the compression/bandwidth issues too?
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Hulu's blocking is for economical reasons
Video bandwidth is expensive, and it is worth paying it only if the viewer is a potential customer for the advertisement market. Viewers from most countries outside US might not be as frequent buyers than customers from the US, for several reasons (increased prices of shipping, tariffs, delays, risks of transactions with a company very far away...).
By limiting their users' base to the US, they also limit the ad-viewers' base to a well-described and a more buying-prone population. This way they can market their ads at a higher price.
I don't mean it should be like this, marketing to the world is surely a better strategy. Just they do what they believe is better for their business—cut the costs and select a good customer base. We can just sit there and let the future prove them wrong.
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If I follow the link for watching full programs I get the following message:
This service is not currently available in your area.
Click here to access our help section.
And I can tell you right now it is NOT my internet provider in New Zealand blocking this. It's channel4.com refusing to give me anything. In fact if I click on the "Click here" link it tells me this:
Can I watch 4oD in another country?
Rights agreements mean that our 4oD service is only available in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, (although C4 does not always have rights for programmes in ROI). Even if you are a citizen of the UK or ROI you cannot access the service from abroad.
Sorry Mike, why am I supposed to be impressed with this? It doesn't seem the slightest bit different from Hulu to me.
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Just use a VPN server to bypass the blocks
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VPN - great investment for better entertainment
Thanks Brassballs for your advice!
The basic package costs $55/year and allows you to choose between IP addresses in San Francisco, New York, and London. I generally test at about 28Mbps to the VPN server, which is not bad at all. Setup on my iPhones and iPod touch was very simple, as was setup on my Mac. Once you set up your VPN account details on the iPhone, a VPN toggle appears in the Settings app, between the Wi-Fi and Carrier settings, allowing for quick enabling of the VPN service whenever you need it. So I now have access to Pandora on the iPhone (which is, in a word, AWESOME), Hulu at home (again, VERY cool) and also Google Voice. With my jailbroken iPhone running GV Mobile + and Skype, I'm now able to make outgoing calls to anywhere in the U.S. free of charge, no matter where I am.
So if anyone is on the fence about going the VPN route, after trying it out myself I can definitely say it's well worth the cost. Hulu and Pandora alone are worth more than $55/year to me (that's about how much a single month of cable costs!!) and the added bonus of being able to set up a Google Voice account is just icing on the cake. If anyone has any questions about how to set everything up, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer!
Hope this helps!
Aberstan
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Drafting Table
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Scholarship
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