Video Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SlashdotTV! (Video) 203
Video no longer available.
You may have noticed that we've posted quite a few original videos on Slashdot in the past few months. Rather than being the work of a few rogue editors with newly-acquired Christmas cameras, this was part of the groundwork for a new site we're launching today. SlashdotTV, found at http://tv.slashdot.org, will let you easily find and watch all of our videos in one convenient location. In addition to Slashdot content, you also can watch videos from our sister sites, SourceForge and ThinkGeek. The site is brand new, and we're interested in hearing your feedback -- what you think about it, and what kind of videos you'd like to see. Currently, you can embed our videos on your own site or show them to your friends with our share feature. Commenting is coming soon. Check back often for new videos, and keep watching!
Just make a YouTube page (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about 12 years too late.
My Opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that having a new tv.slashdot.org is completely fine and even a little cool. However, my preference is that these videos should only be posted to that site, and not to "regular" Slashdot. Or at least provide a standard tag or category which we can filter out if we choose. We know where to go if we want to watch videos - the TV icon at the top (nice job on that btw, it was immediately obvious to me what that new icon signified even before reading this article). Otherwise, I'm just looking for text blurbs and snarky/humorous user comments, sometimes with optional videos behind the summary's links. Maybe we can just get the story summary text, with a link below the summary that says "Check out the video over on Slashdot TV!"?
Oh, transcripts for all videos on the TV site would be helpful for many as well.
Is it just me...or? (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually don't like video content on the web; for a variety of reasons, but the primary one is that the audio from the video would give me away at work.
I mean, I hope this works out and is the revenue generator you hope it is, but as I think many of us are viewing the site from work, I don't know how popular a destination it's going to be.
Re:Stop doing it in Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the sites that could go HTML5 video only, this should be the first.
Re:Ads...lots of ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
If it was ad-free, and therefore a paid service, few would buy it. As long as they clearly mark the sponsored content I'm fine with it.
Well, good luck with it, but text rules (Score:4, Insightful)
I find text to be 10x faster to process than watching a video. Text is easier to skim, it's easier to search, a page of text can explain something in more detail and more precisely than 10 minutes of video, and it probably takes up 1000x less space/bandwidth, etc. When I watch video documentation it feels like everything is in slow motion compared to reading. As a bonus, text is also usable by people with visual and/or sound impairments, when using the right equipment.
Resorting to video is like the equivalent of GUI operating systems versus command-line: it's easier to do in some ways (just sit in front of a camera), and sometimes it's the better way to go (so feel free to experiment with new ways of doing things), but often you can be vastly more efficient with the old way of doing things. Personally, I've skipped every video that has been posted on slashdot in the last few months. I'd rather read the comments. Considering the extra time and effort it takes to set up a video shoot and process it afterwards, and the extra bandwidth to deliver it, I'll be surprised if it pays off. But keep experimenting. It's healthy.
Re:Stop doing it in Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like "we" were the first with UTF-8
Never had it working fully.
I'll bet you £1000 that the Pound Sterling sign prior to the integer in this sentence is preceeded by the letter A with a circumflex above it. This has been broken since the change to Unicode was made, and never fixed.
Re:Stop doing it in Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Provide a transcript (Score:4, Insightful)
I find that unless there's actually something cool which you really need to see in action to understand, I'm much happier reading than watching something. So if you're doing an interview, provide a transcript.
Will never visit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Will never visit.
Just like idle.slashdot.org (whose sarcastic "Waste of your time. Don't ever go there" I feel is the best advice I've heard).
Whenever there's been a video post, I've been quite quick to complain about it (and I'm not the only one), so yeah, shove them off into tv.slashdot.org so I can ignore it totally.
Sorry, but I (used to) come on here for information and news. It takes HUNDREDS of times longer to convey that information in a video than it does on a text page, which is why I don't watch TV News, and why I came to Slashdot for some techy/geeky news that other online outfits were lacking in.
Separate it off, but don't be shocked that nobody goes on there. And I'd have preferred your developer time and bandwidth to have been put to some better use all along, if I'm honest.
Partner with YouTube or Vimeo, or do HTML5 please. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate watching videos on a conventional computer. I prefer to watch them on a tablet or real TV.
If you were to partner with either YouTube or Vimeo, I could use existing integrations for set-top boxes or the app on my iPad to view the stuff.
If you were to just to HTML5 video, I could at least bring the video up on my iPhone and "AirPlay" it to my TV.
As it is, I can't even watch it in Google Chrome. I've removed the generic Flash player from my computer, but I do allow Chrome to maintain and use its own internal copy. But even that copy can't play your videos. I am guessing that this is because I've got paranoid security settings, forbidding Flash from ever using any local storage at all (because I don't trust advertisers).
So, in short, I certainly can't see the videos in my preferred way, and when I try to view them the way I'm "supposed to", I get a blank screen with no warnings or errors or anything.
Do Not Want.
You're not alone. I prefer text. (Score:4, Insightful)
The contents of a three-minute video can generally be typed up into a half-page of text and read in thirty seconds.
The exceptions are walk-throughs that are difficult to describe in writing, or content that requires visual or audio.
For me, it's not a matter of being seen goofing off. I have headphones. But it's more a use of my time. If I'm going to goof off, I want to goof off *efficiently*.
There are more important things for Slashdot to do (Score:5, Insightful)
At this risk of sounding like a troll, or maybe just a fuddy-duddy: I think there are more important things for Slashdot to work on than adding new features.
There are a lot of bugs and limitations on the site. The last time Slashdot posted one of their "Hey, look what we did!" [slashdot.org] stories there were a lot of good positive often-repeated suggestions - many of which were ignored. Unicode support was moderated to 5 many times in that story. Instead we get achievements, idle, and Slashdot TV. Unicode support, working & faster preview, better comments section, etc. were top suggestions that have been ignored for years. Maybe I'm biased: I use Slashdot because it is entirely text based so this feature doesn't excite me terribly. Nonetheless, I think priorities need to be straightened here.
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My Opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Of all the things that users have been asking for, this was not on the list. Do you even listen?
What next - powerpoint slide decks?
I want to be able to exclude it from the list of stories - life is too short to look at a video that takes 5 to 10 minutes to say what I can glom from reading a story in 30 seconds.
Re:Just make a YouTube page (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot has been my point of primary internet interaction for a while now. My first comment [slashdot.org] was posted almost 11 years ago - so I figure I've been here regularly for at least that long. I've done meet ups with slashdot friends 4 times over the years, the most recent was just a couple weeks ago. I'm not a neutral party - I have a bias towards the site. If I didn't like it I wouldn't have stayed this long.
There are problems to be sure - but I do believe the site still has value. There are still a significant number of knowledgable people that are engaged with the site. There are of course, and always have been people who troll and (even more caustic in my opinion) people who gripe incessentaly about everything. But even with them, people keep coming.
I'm not sure what you are looking for in regards to a "notable thing" coming out of slashdot. I view it as a place that provides a service - interaction with tech news in a primarily FOSS oriented community. A lot of the limits on community building come out of a desire to keep the signal to noise ratio good. I was very active on reddit for a while but a few months ago I deleted my account and visit rarely now. Too much crap to filter to get to the good stuff. It obviously works for a lot of people but I'm willing to bet that I'm not alone in preferring a place like this. I'm not as up on my advice animal memes as I was before - but I don't feel too bad about that. It's a cool community, but not really for me.
HN is pretty awesome though the volume of posting and interaction there is a lot lower. Quality over quantity - but you can't site that as a good site compared to slashdot and blame slashdots woes on a rigid commenting system. I do like it though for the same reason I like it here - I've got a good idea of what I'll get and a good percentage of the commentors will be knowledgable.
Re:I encourage U to "face the music" here (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to seek psychiatric help.
This is not a joke. I am not aiming to get a +2 Funny, nor am I insulting or trolling you. You seriously need to get some professional medical attention.