Comments on: Super Bad Ads http://blog.see3.net/2007/02/05/super-bad-ads/ the blog of See3 Communications Wed, 7 Jan 2009 00:36:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: michael http://blog.see3.net/2007/02/05/super-bad-ads/#comment-919 Fri, 09 Feb 2007 20:05:49 +0000 http://blog.see3.net/2007/02/05/super-bad-ads/#comment-919 Great comment. At the Make Your Documentary Matter conference there was clearly a tension between those making high quality broadcast video and the cell phone video that we see on YouTube. Both things are happening at the same time -- a move toward quick and dirty and super high quality on super big TVs. Great comment. At the Make Your Documentary Matter conference there was clearly a tension between those making high quality broadcast video and the cell phone video that we see on YouTube. Both things are happening at the same time — a move toward quick and dirty and super high quality on super big TVs.

]]> by: brad http://blog.see3.net/2007/02/05/super-bad-ads/#comment-910 Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:37:09 +0000 http://blog.see3.net/2007/02/05/super-bad-ads/#comment-910 I wondered if the increased frequency of user generated ads would mean no one would worry about image quality any more. Bad quality would come to mean 'reality' less and mean 'user generated' more. It might become fashionable. Then I realized I'd have to see this spot on TV to know what the actual quality was like, since all YouTube (Flash) videos look terrible. So - what does it really look like on TV? Like YouTube? While I appreciate the strengths of the YouTube/Flash system - easy to put online, no bandwidth costs, easy to share on web pages, (useless for anything else) - it seems audacious of Flash to get away with using such a crappy old codec. (Or is it not just the codec and one-size-fits-all compression template?) It seems madly ironic: users now have the tools to create startlingly high resolution video (HD), to publish relatively tiny files with a big canvas that are sharp and lush (H.264) - yet crappy looking video could become fashionable as it signifies user generated content. It's as if at the very moment the technology is democratized and everyone has access to professional level broadcast TV resolution, we decide that it isn't really all that important anymore, and reduce the level of all output to something resembling a mobile phone video. I wondered if the increased frequency of user generated ads would mean no one would worry about image quality any more. Bad quality would come to mean ‘reality’ less and mean ‘user generated’ more. It might become fashionable.

Then I realized I’d have to see this spot on TV to know what the actual quality was like, since all YouTube (Flash) videos look terrible. So - what does it really look like on TV? Like YouTube?

While I appreciate the strengths of the YouTube/Flash system - easy to put online, no bandwidth costs, easy to share on web pages, (useless for anything else) - it seems audacious of Flash to get away with using such a crappy old codec. (Or is it not just the codec and one-size-fits-all compression template?)

It seems madly ironic: users now have the tools to create startlingly high resolution video (HD), to publish relatively tiny files with a big canvas that are sharp and lush (H.264) - yet crappy looking video could become fashionable as it signifies user generated content.

It’s as if at the very moment the technology is democratized and everyone has access to professional level broadcast TV resolution, we decide that it isn’t really all that important anymore, and reduce the level of all output to something resembling a mobile phone video.

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