# RANT: IF I'm asked to project one more YouTube video...



## Chris Chapman (Oct 14, 2011)

Pardon the rant. Gotta get this off my chest. If I'm asked to project one more low res, badly compressed YouTube video onto our 36x20' RP Screen for presentations, I'll go nuts. When will the general public understand (never) that what looks great on your iPhone, won't look great when it is enlarged several thousand times? When will they understand that if they want to stream a video from the Net, it may not stream smoothly based on hardware and net issues? The number of "professional" presenters who don't understand this continues to shock me.

Rant ends. I feel better now.


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## sk8rsdad (Oct 14, 2011)

You could try asking them for proof that they have secured the rights to use the YouTube video from the copyright holder. That ought to slow them down a bit.


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## cpf (Oct 14, 2011)

I may burn in copyright hell (more than already), but I download the MP4 beforehand and stick it in QLab


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## NicktheEvil (Oct 14, 2011)

cpf said:


> I may burn in copyright hell (more than already), but I download the MP4 beforehand and stick it in QLab


 
But that doesn't solve the resolution problem. 

I agree with you Mr. Chapman but it goes farther than youtube in my experiences. I've been asked to take crappy video and make it look nice and I've been asked to take 56kbps MP3s and make them sound good - "just convert it to a 44.1k wav, it'll be fine" <- actual quote. 

I think the problem is that technology has made the digital world so accessible some people think that since they know how to use it they know how it works.


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## gafftapegreenia (Oct 14, 2011)

NicktheEvil said:


> I agree with you Mr. Chapman but it goes farther than youtube in my experiences. I've been asked to take crappy video and make it look nice and I've been asked to take 56kbps MP3s and make them sound good - "just convert it to a 44.1k wav, it'll be fine" <- actual quote.



*head explodes*


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## Nelson (Oct 14, 2011)

Yeah, I know what you mean. The resolution is one thing, but streaming them from the 'net is another. I can put up with the resolution (it helps that I'm nearsighted and don't wear my glasses  ). What I really don't like is trying to play them from the Web portal. I really think I will start downloading them first before playing them, copyrights or not. Our network/Internet connection is not always fast enough to ensure reliable playback. And if I allow the videos to buffer first, then it seems that by the time I need to play them, they have to buffer again (never understood why).

I also argue that many of the YouTube videos I have to show aren't really necessary. For instance, I don't understand why our high school drama production needs to start with funny cat videos  !


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## museav (Oct 14, 2011)

Not necessarily anything new. Went through many similar issues in the early video and graphics projection days when people would often complain that the big projected image looked nothing like their monitor. You can see the individual pixels, complained one professor standing a foot away from a 16'x12', 640x480 projected image. And the colors and brightness are off, argued the person holding their 15" monitor up next to the 15' diagonal projected image with the big wall of exterior windows opposite it.

It's a bit ironic that the technology improved to eliminate many of those issues only to now have the content often seem to be going in the opposite direction.


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## ruinexplorer (Oct 15, 2011)

I had fun when doing a presentation. I contacted the owner of a Youtube video, because the footage helped to describe a projection principle, and obtained the rights to show the video. However, the owner wouldn't provide me a copy of the original and just recommended one of the streaming screen grab programs so that I could get the footage off of Youtube. Great. At least I was only displaying it on a small classroom screen.


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## shiben (Oct 15, 2011)

museav said:


> It's a bit ironic that the technology improved to eliminate many of those issues only to now have the content often seem to be going in the opposite direction.


 
The problem is not the technology, in my opinion. The technology to make very high rez videos is easily accessible. The problem is the people who think that content that they can watch over the internet is interesting/entertaining to everyone. When I did a lot of projection for groups we sent everyone to the in house video people if they wanted video content, and since they only work in 1080P HD, we eliminated the problems pretty well. I suppose we also had the benefit of working for a college that had standard powerpoint templates all ready for 1080 projection and in house video people... The thing is, I have yet to go to a presentation utilizing youtube and it being successful in context. 

Also, it sounds like Nelson up there needs to "loose" the "cable that makes youtube go to the projector". No theater production should ever start with a funny cat video off of youtube unless that production happens to be an indie student production about a crazy cat lady who's insanity is realized by her steady diet of cat videos. Perhaps their steadily increasing poorness and lack of humor mirror her decent into lunacy, culminating in her committing suicide by rubbing her entire body with a lethal dose of catnip, upon which her corpse is devoured onstage by a heard of cruel LOL cats, all with projected words over them: OMG CAT LADY FEED ME!


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## Jsamuels201 (Oct 15, 2011)

The willingness of people to accept bad quality audio and video (ie: 90% of Youtube) is something that should really change though no one that actually cares about quality ever seems to have a say in the matter.

I designed a show last year that took place in the 40's and the director was dead set on showing a montage video from youtube of depression era NYC that had badly normalized audio. Since I couldn't convince the director to, at the very least, use a different version of the song I ended up desaturating the video, adding some film grain to it and running an old projector sound along with the song in the background so it sort of seemed like It was supposed to sound like crap. It sort of worked but at the end of the day It would have been better if the director had cared about the audio quality as much as if the doorbell rang a millesecond too late.


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## kylethegeek (Oct 16, 2011)

<start 'pointless comment'>

Nelson said:


> I also argue that many of the YouTube videos I have to show aren't really necessary. For instance, I don't understand why our high school drama production needs to start with funny cat videos  !


but...but...but funny cat videos make the day better!
</end 'pointless comment'>




---
- Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk


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## Kelite (Oct 17, 2011)

"Hey Keith, go to my website and copy my corporate logo. I'll need X number of high resolution copies for a really important corporate gig coming up. Oh, and they HAVE to be super high resolution!"

I'm not making this stuff up-


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## chausman (Oct 17, 2011)

Kelite said:


> "Hey Keith, go to my website and copy my corporate logo. I'll need X number of high resolution copies for a really important corporate gig coming up. Oh, and they HAVE to be super high resolution!"
> 
> I'm not making this stuff up-


 
If to you get a very pixilated image for a gobo, will it cut out/get made like that, or will it be "smoother" then that? 

Has anyone ever had good luck downloading, or playing a YouTube video for an event?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## cpf (Oct 17, 2011)

Kelite said:


> "Hey Keith, go to my website and copy my corporate logo. I'll need X number of high resolution copies for a really important corporate gig coming up. Oh, and they HAVE to be super high resolution!"
> 
> I'm not making this stuff up-



Step 1-Find the oldest PDF press release/report/publication on their website with that logo, or their brand usage guidelines if they have that posted
Step 2-Pop it open in Illustrator, extract vector logo
Step 3-Impress client with amazing skills



@chausman: Yep, did it a few days ago, works just as well as playing any other video. It certainly won't turn feature-phone 240p into stunning Full HD though


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## chausman (Oct 17, 2011)

cpf said:


> @chausman: Yep, did it a few days ago, works just as well as playing any other video. It certainly won't turn feature-phone 240p into stunning Full HD though


 
Was it streaming, or did you download? If downloading, how?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## cpf (Oct 17, 2011)

chausman said:


> Was it streaming, or did you download? If downloading, how?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


 
I just google "download youtube video," pick the top result, make a sacrifice to the copyright gods, then select the highest quality copy available for that video.


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## jstroming (Oct 17, 2011)

I have put youtube videos on 30K HD projectors. I can tell you that if any video engineer ever "refused" to put a youtube video on a projector, or insinuated it couldnt be done to try to hide the fact that they dont want the viewing to ruin their "artistic integrity" I would tell them to go to hell and never hire them again.


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## Nelson (Oct 18, 2011)

jstroming said:


> I have put youtube videos on 30K HD projectors. I can tell you that if any video engineer ever "refused" to put a youtube video on a projector, or insinuated it couldnt be done to try to hide the fact that they dont want the viewing to ruin their "artistic integrity" I would tell them to go to hell and never hire them again.


 
That's why I still project them. I do all I can to achieve the director's intended goals. I just provide the tech support to make it happen as best as possible. If I think I might have a better idea, I might suggest it, but ultimately I do whatever the director wants as best as I can!


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## douglasheriot (Oct 19, 2011)

chausman said:


> Was it streaming, or did you download? If downloading, how?


 
If you’re using Safari on your Mac, you can just go to the Activity window from the Window menu. Have a look through the list of all the files being used to make up the webpage, and option + double click the one with the biggest file size that looks like it might be the video file to download.

I've also installed the ClickToFlash Safari Extension, which converts most Flash videos to HTML5, and gives an option in the right-click menu to just download it.

If all else fails, keepvid.com usually does it.
KeepVid: Download and save any video from Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and more!


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## FACTplayers (Oct 19, 2011)

"Smart phones can be turned into cinema quality recorders..." You all are going to love this video!

Australia's First iPhone Wedding - YouTube


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## mstaylor (Oct 19, 2011)

I like the end where the guy opens the big case and it is a phone in the middle. It never ceases to amaze me how people want everything just exactly right then supply you with crap. I used to have that problem with cheerleading groups, dance troups and others when everything was on cassette. They would give a third generation boombox recorded tape and then couldn't understand why it sounded like dog snot. Now with CDs you have the problem with good decks not reading crap recordings.


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## FACTplayers (Oct 19, 2011)

Back in the days days of CDs we had a very expensive CD player. Everyone would get frustrated because when you pushed play it would take a couple seconds to read and buffer the disc. The trick was to hit play and then pause it. I was running "sound" at a cheer competition using this CD player and the coach kept telling me the track skipped. According to the rules I had to re-start it and her squad (?) got to go again. It happened 2 or three times (in different spots). Finally, I told the judges no and that her squad just kept messing up. No one was happy with that call.


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## mstaylor (Oct 19, 2011)

To be honest I would rather stick a knife in my eye than do cheerleading and I do about ten a year. I did the Worlds for Fox Sports once, dear god!


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## emoreth (Nov 6, 2011)

This is the one area where I love our IT department's overzealous filtering. YouTube and most other video playback sites are blocked in our building!


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## shiben (Nov 6, 2011)

jstroming said:


> I have put youtube videos on 30K HD projectors. I can tell you that if any video engineer ever "refused" to put a youtube video on a projector, or insinuated it couldnt be done to try to hide the fact that they dont want the viewing to ruin their "artistic integrity" I would tell them to go to hell and never hire them again.


 
Depends what the situation is... If you have hired me to create a small quantity of HD content on a high profile gig and then decide that several youtube videos get shown as well in a way that might hide they a youtube video, its going to look like I dropped the ball on the content here. And it has happened to me before, so dont say it wont. Now I look like Im a bad projection designer or just lazy, there might be copyright issues that fall on my head (as Im the one who designed it all, and thus am assumed to have made those choices), and the artistic continuity of the show IS seriously affected. I was working on a dance production that had a mix of HD videos (into to acts) that I didnt make, HD content for backgrounds that I did design, and then 2 acts wanted youtube flicks zoomed and cut so that just the video showed up. Does the act look bad in that situation, or is it the guy who is listed as "Projection Designer"? (also the youtube video looks stupid on wide screen with the edges cut... but thats a design opinion) If I was at a meeting and the bossman wants to show a video that he thought was humorous to make a point, we have a different situation on our hands, dont we? And yeah, if I was designing Hamlet and someone wanted to put an lol cats video at the start, I think there is a bit of an artistic issue there (of course, I probably wouldnt be working with that guy again anyhow...). However, I could also envision a situation where it would be totally appropriate. Its a very situational thing, is it not? And it really isnt the video engineer's job to make that call, the Projection Designer ought make that call. The Engineer shouldnt really have much opinion on the issue in the first place.


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