New Platform Launch Feedback & FAQ

[Onka]

My favorite Vessel videos are

https://www.vessel.com/videos/JYZEYDYx0

https://www.vessel.com/videos/LCoY5zfFf

User name: Onka

[wizpig64]

Personally I think this is great news as youtube needs some serious competition if the medium is going to evolve. As a viewer for almost 3 years now, it's really exciting to see you grow this fast, and taking this step (like moving into an office finally) is the right thing to do in order for that to keep happening, I think.

 

Other thoughts:

 

1. Going to two different sites for short form video content is going to be annoying. There's no way of aggregating vessel content into my normal folder of youtube must-watch channels (RIP RSS, which was built for articles and not video anyway). Youtube's almost monopolistic market share was at least convenient for my browsing habits.

2. I hope vessel supports 4K60 like youtube does (on a 1440p screen myself).

3. No android app yet

[Clubwho]

 

Let us know how the iOS app is!

 

The iOS app is good in concept but the thing I hate most is that the resolution is done automatically, I HATE this, due to multiple people in my household the wifi speeds vary and also i like to move around while I watch videos on my iPad, so with the video going from 144p to 720p and back is very annoying and I would like a selection or an "Always start with ____ resolution" option.

[aznboi128]

Personally I understand why, and I support it. 

 

For the real supporters we will support this because its a business and at the end it makes business sense. 

[FourCorners]

My gripes on on Vessel so far:

 

1. There is no Android app yet- a big issues for me as I watch most YouTube videos on my phone
2. The thumbnails for videos on the home screen are too big and cause a bit of lag when scrolling down
3. Video quality settings that are more specific than "HD-auto" or "on" would be nice (actually having specific resolutions
4. I really miss the ability to rewind or fast forward the video 5sec with arrow keys and pausing with the space bar

But I also wanted to ask if the in video preroll ads after the intro have been removed for the vessel videos and remain on YouTube videos?

[SGM]

Been watching a few videos on Vessel, and while it's great to see them early I just don't feel like the video quality on Vessel is as good as it is on YouTube (I'm used to watching it in 4K). Not that the overall production quality is bad, they're still awesome videos I'm just a resolution snob, haha.

With that said, I'm not really sure if I'll continue to use Vessel, I understand why you guys are using it as it provides you with better cash flow (or whatever you want to call it) but for me I'm quite happy to wait a few days for the video to come out on YouTube so I can see it in all of its 2160P glory. 

(Resolution is just a number, right guys?) 

Not going to stop being a contributor though, so don't worry.  

[Bekker]

My biggest issue must be lack of Android support. I usually watch when I commute to and from work

[Th3Z0ne]

Hello!

 

First of all I understand the move of finding additonal ways of income!

 

What realy puts me off about vessel is the fact that it's a resource hog. I am on  a new! notebook wich isn't that bad on specs though vessel immediately ramps up the processer usage of each and any browser I tried. Even on seemingly static pages, not to mention when the poor rez videos play.

 

Usually i blame it on linux (ubuntu) and the lack of hardware rendering but in chrome the hw-rendering works, and even without youtube's html5 player isnt hoging nearly as much resources as vessel does.

Vessel manages to get my poor lill i7 to a cozy 70°C wearas on youtube it stays at an acceptable 50-55°C .. so yet alone for the sake of my expensive pice of HW lifespan i cant use vessel.

 

I realy realy hope they put some work into increasing their videos quality and the efficency of their code. I realy do not need a startpage or overview where everything is moving!

 

tl;tr I am doomed, I watched the next week already on vessel.. omg what am I going to do now the next 7 days

[KRImSIN]

so far enjoying this new platform!

[Alaestor]

Well I spent a stupid amount of time on and off though out the last 8 or so hours in the comments correcting all the bulls***, misunderstandings, and misinformation being spread by people who didnt watch the video (Commenting as UrSoMeanBoss).

 

I strongly suggest you try again but for the love of GOD make it short, concise, and do freekin bullet points right at the start of the video because HOLY S*** the attention span of youtube for listening was like under a minute today. As someone who has only interacted with LTT through youtube; I guess I now understand what you mean about the comments. Never really noticed it before but WOAH is this an extreme example or what. (There was even some dude complaining about how Vessel would suck up video production time and that LTT was a computer store and shouldnt be sucking money from their buyers using advertisements [obviously confusing LMG with NCIX+Linus but SHESH])

 

Better luck next time .-. sorry about all that....

 

P.s. I'm liking Vessel, seems to work fine for me but LOTS of legit complaints and issues. Hopefully they resolve it and this turns out to be as good as we're all hoping.

[mr32]

Well, as a follower of the videos produced by the Linus Media Group, I really understand the choice of moving to a new platform, Youtube's monetary system isn't that great and Vessel has the potential of delivering a more constant stream of income. 

 

Whereas I understand that the choice for Vessel is well considered and that the site is in its starting stage, I was surprised to see the possibilities and performance (or better: the lack of...). Watching videos in 'HD' is not that great, I certainly do not believe it is full HD (and yes, there is a fiber connection here, so network should certainly not be the problem). A shame, because these videos deserve much better. The performance in Safari is terrible (most buttons do not even work) and there isn't even an Android app released (yet). Last but not least: those comments, really? The comments itself is a huge improvement, but the layout is again terrible, and does not invite to comment or read the comments at all. 

 

Conclusion: I admire your choice to go and look somewhere else due to Youtube's (lack of) changes and possibilities. However, LMG deserves a lot better than a platform that even lack proper HD playback... 

[Vishmister]

I personally don't understand all the complaints about the move to Vessel, the free year is a hell of a long time and gives them more than adequate time to sort out the current issues in the website and video delivery system. That being said, why has the announcement video been removed/delisted?

[Hazy125]

Firstly, I’m mostly posting this because @Str_Mape thought it would be “halarious” incorrect spelling and all. I’ll probably only post some of the things

First, helpful things for other users:

Vessels default playback quality is 480p. HD on is 720p

Vessel uses HTML5 for it’s default video player- I have not seen evidence of flash support thus far.. At all.

Vessel does still serve ads sometimes, despite the paid platform.

The do not support 4k. They ARE NOT YouTube. They don’t have the same funding. They don’t have the same fancy custom video codecs. The may switch to h.265 or VP9 if they aren’t running those already, which will allow 4k in the future.  

Mobile support is possible through the Chrome Browser by “requesting desktop site”. See Mape's guide HERE 

They are looking for Android developers, so an app may be in the works/coming soon.

 

Now, some questions from me:

What is with all the web plugin use?

It seems that Vessel is pretty much using every possible plugin under the sun, from droopal to bootstrap to external analytics services. With everyone complaining about how unstable everything is and how broken everything is, you really don’t have to look far to find out where. Especially bootstrap. I have a feeling that most people’s problems are directly caused by bootstrap.

Their code minifcation

I know the importance of minifying your code. For complicated websites you can reduce your file size from 1 megabyte to 800kb, thus reducing the amount of data you need to send, easing your bandwidth requirements and making the page load faster for the end user. What I don’t understand however, why is only some of the code minified? It’s like the developers had the final version and had an “oh shit” and had to quickly patch it up.  It happens to everyone, but then to not minify the code you just made? That’s sloppy. Makes you wonder what else was rushed? Probably a lot considering how many libraries/plugins they use.

Video progress saving

Given how well like that feature is on YouTube this should have been a staple. Even much smaller sites like crunchyroll have an implementation of this, although theirs is quite primitive. How hard is it to send an async unload request to store the progress when you leave the page or refresh. Hell, even use Crunchyroll’s implementation and periodically send a time update. Speaking of which, Vessel does already send a time update to load the next section of video…. Can’t they just use that?

Browser Support

When you go to their website on a browser that they know just isn’t gonna work you get a nice error message like so

Kudos. You know your limits. You know you’re not god. And look at that browser, it obviously doesn’t support anything. But if you’re going to go down that road, you had better make sure every other browser that can access your page should work.

I’ve been letting that try for the better part of 2 hours now. Vessel doesn’t support that browser. But I didn’t get the error from vessel. It just doesn’t work. And yes, I opened a new tab and YouTube videos work perfectly which is why I doubt so strongly about flash support or at least, proper flash support

A brief conclusion of sorts

As mentioned up in the first spoiler tag. Vessel is NOT YouTube. They don’t have the resources they require. If a power house acquires them, like Google did with YouTube, then fantastic! But otherwise, their outlook is pretty bleak.  As it continues to grow they’re going to find their current site is too restrictive. Those plugins are gonna sting and require an almost full site rework. There are some key features lacking, I only covered one. But. For a first try, it’s pretty impressive. I do hope they change that awful UI and make it, but I don’t think that’s currently possible and unless that changes in the year I have free, I won’t continue membership and solely be a forum contributor.

[user#frost]

thanks for the free one year subcription to vessel 

 

and can be vessel have a lite version because i cannot load it very well and

 

still thanks for making  awesome videos

[sTrustrupJ]

Oh okay so my subscription and donations i've done because of the youtube channel is basically worth one week less to you now. 
I'm not going to join Vessel for several reasons, mostly lack of options and having to pay after a year and i have to go across platforms to see all channels i subscribe to. 

Your like the good guys, like Jedis, going over to the dark side now - No longer giving your all and serve youtube subscribers for the greater good of learning and become enlightened - but limitting us due to currency and dividing people based on a financial factor... 

Cloudy, your future is...

[Zewsan]

I really have to say that I'm confused about this format.

 

In a normal situation, I have two options:

 

Option 1 - Watch free content and deal with watching ads, for this content to be delivered to me for free. (Youtube)

Option 2 - Pay for content / Subscription and watch videos WITHOUT ads. (Netflix)

 

Now, with Vessel, we have Option 3 ? - Pay for content AND receive ads? Or "messages from our sponsors at the end / last 2-4 minute of the videos"

[Brawhammer]

vessel account user name: nicsim

https://www.vessel.com/videos/JYZEYDYx0

https://www.vessel.com/videos/DkWN4qqW1

 

 

Vessel Username : samratjinagouda

 

Videos i liked : https://www.vessel.com/videos/JemZ8O7Hy(Linus tech tips)

                        https://www.vessel.com/videos/Q3YIu6LBS (Unbox Therapy)

 

 

My favorite Vessel videos are

https://www.vessel.com/videos/JYZEYDYx0

https://www.vessel.com/videos/LCoY5zfFf

User name: Onka

 

Guys post your entries over here pls.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/334107-platform-launch-and-massive-giveaway/

[Rune]

Anyone else having random audio issues with vessel? On six different videos now I have lost sound three quarters the way through and had to close browser and reopen to reestablish it. I was willing to tolerate 720p for no ads, but not having audio is actually kind of a problem...

[bobri]

I can't even watch videos on vessel, they buffer too slowly. Worse quality than youtube and 4 times the loading time. Not a good start tbh.

[cesrai]

Worse service ever, buffering too slow, website is shitty.

[Ilias Velaoras]

To which countries does this giveaway refer to? Is it worldwide?

[Juggernautilus]

Wow so many people actually thinking that Vessel is a must feature and you guys are leaving YouTube even though you mentioned it multiple times that you don't.

 

Just think of it as an early access for the videos. Even if you ignore it, you get the same content as before Vessel launch.

[Hazy125]

To which countries does this giveaway refer to? Is it worldwide?

It is worldwide and the giveaway thread is here http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/334107-platform-launch-and-massive-giveaway/ NOT this thread 

 

Good luck

[Master Disaster]

@LinusTech

 

Perhaps you could reach out to Vessel and tell them it might be a good idea to add a login button to their homepage. I signed up yesterday but for some reason my browser didn't cookie my info so when i returned today the only option available to me was Sign Up. After a few minutes of solidly looking around it dawned on me that there was no way of getting from the sign up page (which is the home page) to the login page and even when i tried to sign up again it didn't provide a link to the login page either, it just spewed a error about my email already being used.

 

Eventually i had to look through my history so find the login page so i could actually log in to the site.

[Hazy125]

@LinusTech

 

Perhaps you could reach out to Vessel and tell them it might be a good idea to add a login button to their homepage. I signed up yesterday but for some reason my browser didn't cookie my info so when i returned today the only option available to me was Sign Up. After a few minutes of solidly looking around it dawned on me that there was no way of getting from the sign up page (which is the home page) to the login page and even when i tried to sign up again it didn't provide a link to the login page either, it just spewed a error about my email already being used.

 

Eventually i had to look through my history so find the login page so i could actually log in to the site.

 

Login button is towards the top right of the page. All caps, white text