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Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

(tedium.co)
641 points shortformblog | 4 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:47 UTC | HN request time: 1.148s | source
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lxgr ◴[05 Feb 25 15:40 UTC] No.42950057[source]▶
Old movies have been available on various "free ad-supported streaming television" for a while now, so I'm actually more surprised it took copyright holders that long to realize that Youtube also shows ads and doesn't require people to install some wonky app that might or might not be available for their platform.

Of course, region-specific copyright deals are incredibly complex etc. etc., so I could imagine it was just a matter of waiting out until the last person putting up a veto retired or moved on to other things.

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robertlagrant ◴[05 Feb 25 16:28 UTC] No.42950872[source]▶
It would be really nice if YouTube could give uploaders the ability to schedule ad slots, rather than them appearing randomly.

Unless they do this already and stuff I watch just does it badly, of course.

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1. slongfield ◴[05 Feb 25 17:20 UTC] No.42951863[source]▶
Yeah, YouTube's UI lets you set where the ads go. The creator tools let you set how many, and where midroll ads will play. However, most creators just click the "insert automatically" button.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006

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2. mrandish ◴[05 Feb 25 17:48 UTC] No.42952301[source]▶
> However, most creators just click the "insert automatically" button.

That seems like a good opportunity for a neural net feature that's smarter than simple scene cut detection. While most theatrical films lack many good spots for commercial breaks, there are certainly a lot of "less bad" spots. Sadly, I doubt YT will bother since they no longer seem to care about viewer experience in recent years.

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3. not2b ◴[05 Feb 25 17:50 UTC] No.42952345[source]▶
YouTube doesn't even bother with scene cut detection; they'll insert ads mid-sentence. A lot.
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4. heywire ◴[05 Feb 25 18:32 UTC] No.42953007{3}[source]▶
That’s one way to keep you watching, you’ve at least gotta hear the rest of the sentence! /s