Vessel improves streaming quality/bit-rate

[mvitkun]

Vessel.com has finally responded to the negative feedback from users who complained about them not having enough options for the streaming quality and not having high enough streaming quality in general.
And to those of you who had issues buffering the video you can now download it in the quality of your choice using a download manager of your choice.
--
Where before you had Auto and HD options with a nearly opaque background.

you now have Auto, High, Medium, and Low options on a much more transparent background.

 
High quality streams the video in 1080p at 4.8Mb/s.
Medium quality streams the video in 720p at 2.4Mb/s, this was previously their HD setting.
Low quality streams the video in 360p at  .5Mb/s.
I used my download speed while watching the video as the initial guess at bit-rate and then confirmed the bit-rate by downloading the file as shown below.
 
Am I just guessing at the resolution and bit-rate though?
No, it's written in the code for the page.
1080p - 4800 kb/s
720p - 2400 kb/s
360p - 500 kb/s

 

 

 
Now if you copy and paste that URL into something like JDownloader or IDM you can download the video at whatever quality you currently had selected, MAKE SURE TO PAUSE VIDEO OTHERWISE THE DOWNLOAD NEVER STARTS.
This is great for people who had trouble buffering before.
 
And if you download the files, the datamancer video in this case, you get the bit-rates I mentioned above.
 

 

 

 --
Vessel 1080p 

Youtube 1080p

Usually Vessel looks as good as it needs to.
I'd say that the quality is heading in the right direction but there are certain parts throughout the video I was watching that still look oddly horrible in comparison to the youtube counterparts.
Either way we're seeing very fast improvements from Vessel considering they've only been out of beta for a little over a week.
--

Update:4/3/15:

Vessel still hasn't made any announcement or anything about the improved streaming quality, not even a tweet, they may be working on rolling out more improvements and small fixes before announcing.

 

Vessel replied to a user who reported having issues with streaming on IOS that a recently pushed update should improve stream stability with those who had problems buffering.They may simply be referring to the option to stream at 500K or they may have improved on something else.

I didn't have any problems before so I can't confirm any improvement but feel free to reply if you did have problems before and no longer do or did have problems before but still do experience problems despite the mysterious fix.

As if, Vessel hasn't even updated their own help page with the new streaming quality options.
https://support.vessel.com/hc/en-us/articles/203476025-Web-Video-Quality

[Brawhammer]

10/10 Update was really needed!

[C0LL0SS0S]

Still hope that they redesign their webpage, the amount of wasted space is just way too much

[Sidiox]

Good good. And they now also have middle click support I believe. So I'm happy

[mvitkun]

Good good. And they now also have middle click support I believe. So I'm happy

Only if you middle click videos though.

If you go on a video and then middle click the channel name to go to the channel it'll just ignore the middle click like before.

[AxelRantila]

Looking better. Now I'm wondering when we'll get 1440p and 4k support

[mackncheesiest]

I wonder if they'll end up supporting video-annotation-like features so that things like the credit sequence or sponsor spots of "click my face to learn more" can actually be useful on Vessel.

[Geldar]

thank god, i couldnt watch vessel at work because it was using too much bandwidth!

[mvitkun]

Looking better. Now I'm wondering when we'll get 1440p and 4k support

Depends on how many people want it.

I think a lot of people wanted 1080p, and a lot fewer people will actually complain about the lack of 1440p and 2160p.

[mvitkun]

I wonder if they'll end up supporting video-annotation-like features so that things like the credit sequence or sponsor spots of "click my face to learn more" can actually be useful on Vessel.

Fairly sure they've been cutting out sponsor spots from the videos on Vessel.

[Razarza]

It still isn't good enough, are resolutions higher than 1080p even supported? If so the options really should be what resolution (and bitrate too would be nice) the video is playing in, 'high', 'medium' and 'low' just aren't descriptive enough.

[mvitkun]

It still isn't good enough, are resolutions higher than 1080p even supported? If so the options really should be what resolution (and bitrate too would be nice) the video is playing in, 'high', 'medium' and 'low' just aren't descriptive enough.

wow.

Clearly I wasted my time writing this post since you didn't even read past the first paragraph.

 

High quality streams the video in 1080p at 4.8Mb/s.

Medium quality streams the video in 720p at 2.4Mb/s, this was previously their HD setting.

Low quality streams the video in 360p at  .5Mb/s.

Sure they could rename the options to the resolutions but it's their second week after launching and they've already raised the streaming quality to double the original HD setting.

[Mew]

wow.

Clearly I wasted my time writing this post since you didn't even read past the first paragraph.

Sure they could rename the options to the resolutions but it's their second week after launching and they've already raised the streaming quality to double the original HD setting.

Still lower than Netflix's 5800kbps but idk what bitrate YouTube is, probably higher. And everything is better than the garbage bitrate that twitch maxes out on of 3500kbps.

[mvitkun]

Still lower than Netflix's 5800kbps but idk what bitrate YouTube is, probably higher. And everything is better than the garbage bitrate that twitch maxes out on of 3500kbps.

You've got to remember Vessel just launched a week ago.

[Casperian]

I want Vessel to make an Android App. After they do that, I'm completely happy with it. This is a good step forward and I think letting mobile devices play video without changing to "Show Desktop Page" would be great as I watch on a tablet next to me cause no spare screen real estate

[Casperian]

Still lower than Netflix's 5800kbps but idk what bitrate YouTube is, probably higher. And everything is better than the garbage bitrate that twitch maxes out on of 3500kbps.

Youtube seems to be 1Mbps at 1080p according to https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en - That might be recommended for upload though

[welshname]

They now just need an Android App for FireTV and I'm sold.

[LAwLz]

I did a comparison (link here) and Vessel high is as good (or bad depending on how you look at it) as YouTube 1080p.
I think it's awesome of them to allow video downloading as well. Two big thumbs up for that. Now if only they fixed their horrible site layout...

[Brughc]

This is a welcome change as I also never watch youtube in 1080p (because we have terrible slow internet at home). 720p is the way to go for me .

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

I would have personally preferred a 480P ~750kb/s option in tandem with the rest, but that is just me.

[Real_PhillBert]

Good, a quality update was really needed quite badly. 

[EChondo]

Great to see they are updating and reading feedback.

 

As long as they keep up their side of things we can't really fault them in the end. The main problem I have with Vessel is that content creators are not uploading there first or almost at all as compared to YouTube. For a platform like this to grow and thrive they need content creators to upload videos first there and have videos up there for at least 24 hours and then they post to YouTube. YouTubers that I follow that also have Vessel accounts are clearly either not uploading to Vessel at all or only upload a couple videos a week while they upload daily to YouTube.

 

Vessel is stepping up their game, let's see if content creators will do the same.

[Will_Man_Dude]

If they only had an android app then they would take me as soon as they have that and some of the other gaming and tech channels I watch I would do super happy.

[dmegatool]

Is there an actual place to suggest features (read complains) ? 

 

Things that bother me the most is the lack of keyboard support for the playback (space bar and arrows). Also the fact that it doesn't save where you left off. 

 

I would gladly use Vessel if it offers me the video without ads or sponsor spots... 

[ErickS89]

10/10 on the update, but the website... my god! do they know how to design for desktops? The web design is just...fail!