Google Video Not Ready for Prime Time?

elfguy writes "Ars Technica has a piece on the Google Video Store, and their opinion is that it seems a little rushed to market. The interface is very bad, with paid and free videos mixed together. While free videos can be viewed in Flash on any platform, their paid DRM'ed videos require a Windows program, and the page tells you the available formats only after you purchase it." From the article: "As I pointed out in my coverage of the keynote, for all of its evangelization of open standards, Google has done an about-face with the video store. Not only are the videos protected by DRM, but Google has gone and rolled its own home-grown solution instead of using one of the current solutions. On one level, that makes sense: Apple doesn't share its DRM, and Microsoft is Google's biggest competition. However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge."

Exactly!

I don't really care if Google is being evil or not; braindead conflicting "standards" and in-fighting among the DRM camp can only be a good thing for us.

Google Video Beta

What part of beta do these people not get?

Re:Google Video Beta

Exactly.... I'm sure improvements to the interface will be coming as they get more of this kind of feedback. As for the paucity of content, remember that anyone can sell a video on video.google.com (with google taking 30%? of the fee). Thus, it is in their best interest to launch the store as early as possible, to entice more copyright owners to sell their videos through their service. This is in stark contrast (I assume) to the model taken by, i.e., iTunes, where content is solicited from a few large corporations.

iTunes, et al

Most online music stores, including iTunes, post any album sold by CD Baby, unless the artist opts out of digital sales. CD Baby will sell anyone's music -- all you have to do to get on iTunes/Napster, etc., is to send 5 CDRs of your album to CD Baby, and wait for the music stores to update their databases.

Re:Google Video Beta

Oh dear crap stop this!

If it is so beta that it just doesn't work then don't release it. So far any "beta" from Google has atleast been polished and worked well. This simply does not. And some of the issues aren't a "is it beta" or not question, like the DRM.

So please, I love Google to, but drop the "its beta crap". They are a corporation that is taking your/my money. I want quality products. This simply isn't.

Re:Google Video Beta

As I understand it, Google video is actually charging the People who sell the vidoes a fee for handling the transaction.

Google isn't charging any end users for the service. I didn't have to pay to browse the videos, and neither did anyone else. Your argument that "I want quality products" is completely misplaced, the only people who should be bitching about this being a "beta" are the people whe sell on it.

You may view it as a technicality, but it's very clear in a business sense. This software IS beta, it's not finished. Google is charging vendors who wish to participate in this beta a fee for handling the transaction. When Google gets adequate feedback, they will alter the software. When the software becomes extremely user friendly, Google will raise the transaction rate and possibly begin charging the end user.

The product is marketed as a service for selling and finding videos. You mistake the fact that you have to pay for a video with that of having to pay for a googles product.

Re:Google Video Beta

Google "Beta" doesn't carry a whole lot of weight with me seeing as how almost all their crap is beta. Case in point - Google news, that thing has been in beta for going on 5 years now.

Beta = exclusiveness = demand

Google isn't stupid. They've turned beta into a marketing ploy. Every body wants to be "in". Google Betas have traditionally been "in", so Google releases everything as beta to ride the wave.

How many people beat their door down to participate in the Gmail beta? Why not roll the same effect into their other services.

Soylent green is people!!!

Re:Interface is ok

The interface isnt bad, its just simple (which is good in my books).

If it allows you to purchase videos that won't work on your system without ever warning you of that prior to purchase, it is indeed bad, not "simple".

Imagine if when you bought a DVD from Amazon they would just pick-to-ship by title, mixing discs of all different region codes together. When you got your new DVD, popped it in your player, and discovered that you had bought a Region 3 DVD that was unplayable on your Region 1 player, would you thank Amazon for "simplifying" the process? Or would you be upset?

My bet is you'd be upset -- especially when Amazon could obviate the problem altogether by simply matching your address (or what local store you buy from) to the appropriate region - which they do.

"Simple" makes doing the right thing easy. "Bad" makes doing the wrong thing easy. Google Video's UI is bad.

Re:Interface is BARELY ok

I knew one day I would see someone using the words 'iTunes' and 'fast' in the same sentence without the words 'is not' in there somewhere - I just didn't think it would be so soon.

Not just that

It's not just the fact that it doesn't look pretty.

1- When you buy the video, you are told "requires Windows XP and an Internet connection". You only find out AFTER buying it which format it comes in.

2- When you buy the video, you buy the right to stream it only. If you try to download the video, it will only download a small file and STILL stream the actual video from Google, so you cannot view it offline.

3- Because of the special DRM, there is no way to put paid Google videos on iPod or other mobile devices.

Re:Not just that

Can't you use this trick [lifehack.org] to download the video completely?

look to the horizon

Look over there at the horizon. I think I see an E. And is that a V slowly coming up behind it?

Another DRM...

On one level, that makes sense: Apple doesn't share its DRM, and Microsoft is Google's biggest competition. However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge."

Good! Muddle up the field more. The more confusing this stuff gets for the average consumer, the more they'll become aware of DRM and its potenially adverse repercussions.

If Congress and the electronics lobby were successful, we'd be forced into a crappy DRM scheme with little recourse. More DRM is good for us consumers; we can go elslewhere if the DRM scheme of one provider is horribly crippled.

A unified DRM scheme would no doubt include some form of hardware "Trusted Device" nonsense that would make life needlessly frustrating. Companies have the right to protect their products and services, but we certianly deserve the freedom to walk away and try some other firm's DRM. Hopefully one that is minimally intrusive.

Rushed Indeed

It seems like Google's Video Store would possibly work for independent media, but it's so chaotic for mainstream media. I look at it and I cringe. It looks like those shady online stores that you are cautious about buying from, because of their look. I don't think the Windows only part is rushed necessarily. Google has always been a Windows only company. There are, of course, a few exceptions, but even their web applications are much better supported by Internet Explorer than Safari. Take GMail for instance. It doesn't surprise me that they require a Windows program to play the video.

Google Bundle

I think Google needs to bundle all of their services together (Maps, Video, Print, etc.) into one packeage where you can go for everything. The new service: Google Master.

Of course, initially it would have to be Google Master Beta...

Down with Proprietary DRM

A single, unified, fixed government standard for DRM is the way to go. Write your Congressman today! It would be awesome -- no more fussing around with every DRM d'jour. Maybe even a new acronym -- CORE -- Crack Once, Read Everything!!

The Website Looks Fine

I saw a piece on this the other day, so I checked out the Web site. I'm one of those people who is pretty critical of bad UIs (just ask my co-workers). I don't see any major problems with their Web site UI. It's nothing especially good or bad. I did not have any problem using it. I'm not too keen on the DRM, as it seems to be implemented and it seems a little deceptive if you can't actually download the files for viewing, only stream them. That isn't really buying a video, just subscribing to a service that will stream it for you. It makes it pretty useless for watching shows on your laptop while commuting, or on a drive.

My opinion is the service is technologically too limited to be useful to me, but the UI is just fine.

Not the first

Some commenters have said that, althought every Google is working on is labelled as Beta, all of them seem to be very polished and ready.

They must have forgotten that little cache app fiasco, the web browsing accelerator that was so crappy it had to be removed from the public access.

Not because is by Google it has to be good by definition.


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Re: Google Video Not Ready for Prime Time?

I respectfully disagree with the topic post. It was a perfect success for me.

I went to video.google.com, typed in Paris Hilton, and 5 seconds later I was watching a video of her in a skin-tight suit washing herself down with soapy water.

What's not to like about that?

I feel a terrible disturbance in the force....

As if a million Google supporters cried out at once, and then were silent.

It's Friday the 13th, I think good has taken it's first serious step towards the dark side.

Major issues with Google NBA videos

I was reading an NBA related blog where someone was speaking about their experience purchasing NBA game videos from Google Video. Apparently, many of the videos are cut off prior to the end of the game, in the 3rd quarter frequently, with NO 4th quarter coverage. This seems to defeat one of the purposes of offering NBA game videos: so the consumer can watch the game and find out who wins. The purchaser contacted Google Video, who told him "sorry, all sales are final." They definitely have a lot of kinks to iron out, one of them being ripping off consumers buying NBA game videos. See here [truehoop.com] for the blog post I'm speaking about.

I love this bit in the download FAQ

"If I buy a video once, do I need to buy it again to watch it on another computer?
No. Once you buy a video, you can download it to other computers up to several times."

I wonder how many "several" is?

Google's open-standards negligence

This is not the only non-open Google product to date. Pretty much all of Google's portfolio that doesn't come in or out of the main search page is closed-standard. Google Maps is one of the rare recent shining examples of openness, but Maps as a resource in itself was orphaned by Google when it stuffed and devalued it into Google Local.

In the meantime... Google Earth, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Desktop, Google Deskbar, and now Google DRM Video are notoriously limited to commercial platforms and/or tools. So much for Google being the preferred choice of the O/S world.

RFC: A Unified Approach to DRM

I have a proposal for a unified approach to media copy protection. This approach is patent- and royalty-free, only requires technology that is already available, and can be implemented in a very short timeframe for very little engineering cost. The approach has already been tried on a fairly large scale in the computer industry, with tremendous success:

None at all.

Seriously. Copy protection is completely unnecessary. While media vendors wait for the Perfect Copy Protection (which will never come), they are leaving money on the table right now.

So, you can wait for the major industry players to settle on a common framework for media copy protection which will work across computers, media centers, PDAs, cell phones, portable game systems, etc. (not bloody likely; they all are jockeying to get single-source lock-in); or you can forego the copy protection "requirement" and start making money now by selling media in common media formats now.

Better get moving; your fickle shareholders aren't going to wait forever for you to get your asses in gear.

Schwab

Free clips are fun, but the paid stuff is "WTF?!"

I must say that it is fun to keep reloading the "Popular" Google Video page and loading in the interesting-looking free videos. Some of them are very well done, although there's some blatant copyright infringement going on (plenty of TV show clips and music video clips in there!). The fact that their Flash player works cross-platform for video and sound (yes, even on Linux!) is very impressive too.

However, the paid video stuff is a total embarrassment and arguably the worst thing that Google have ever released in their entire history. It's overpriced, not available outside of North America in many cases [yes, Google blocks some paid content to non-US/Canadian countries!], DRM-restricted (often with "you can only watch for a day" limits too!), requires Windows, can't be viewed offline (online streaming only), is often "old" material and is annoyingly mixed in the "Popular" page with the free ones (are you *seriously* telling me that the most popular paid ones are loaded anywhere near as many times as the most popular free ones?).

Apart from the utterly lousy presentation/DRM/etc. of the Google Video paid material, there's not much of it either (I mean, one episode of CSI so far for $1.99 - one-day pass on Windows only, blocked to European users (!!) and you've got to be online and can't copy it to any other device? How many times can you say "WTF?!"?).

And, of course, we can't go without mentioning BitTorrent/P2P - which is the #1 rival to *any* paid video streaming business. We're seeing downloadable, DRM-free, HD/widescreen, DivX-encoded TV content literally 2 or so hours after the programme finishes. I know which one I'd prefer to see (and if it could be done legally, I'd be willing to subscribe on a per-month basis).

There's Beta ....

...and there's totally non-functional.

I laughed when I read the part of about "rushed to market". That's a stock phrase that just doesn't apply to Google products. They can't "rush to market" because they pay zero attention to the market. They only have one profitable product (AdSense), but that product is so profitable that nobody has to pay attention to "the market". So they just keep inventing Cool Stuff, and pushing it out. That's why new features keep appearing on Google.com with no advance notice.

Right now, you're saying, "What's wrong with that?" Well, if all you want is hacker toys, nothing. But some us get a little impatient that Google products stay "Beta" for years, and never get their rough edges polished off.

Take Google maps. Yeah, it's a great app. I always try it first for directions. Sometimes I just sit and play with it, it's so cool. But it's how many years now and it's still "Beta". And even though Yahoo Maps is much less fun to work with, I still go back to it sometimes, because Google maps still doesn't memorize addresses for you or plug in Yellow Pages entries.

With Google, "Beta" doesn't mean "This is a preliminary version." It means "Here's as much of the product as we feel like working on. We won't bother with all the boring stuff that makes a mature application, because just thought of some other Really Cool Stuff we'd rather be working on."