General thoughts on Vessel?

[smjpl]

Other than the look, it's junk.  It's like all the annoying YouTubers that should be avoided got together and made you pay a subscription to see their content.

 

LOL. I am pretty close to agreeing with this.

[mightytech]

I'm looking forward to seeing if Vessel will become something I would want to use. Right now i could see me overlooking it because youtube is a habit nowadays. I have it set to open with chrome so i'll most likely forget vessel even exists. If they get more content then I could see myself using it.

[NoMooreMercy]

LOL. I am pretty close to agreeing with this.

If it wasn't for Linus and the free year I would've never even gave this site a look.

[smjpl]

I'm looking forward to seeing if Vessel will become something I would want to use. Right now i could see me overlooking it because youtube is a habit nowadays. I have it set to open with chrome so i'll most likely forget vessel even exists. If they get more content then I could see myself using it.

 

I'd agree. Definitely think conent is its biggest issue so far.

 

 

If it wasn't for Linus and the free year I would've never even gave this site a look.

 

I'd 100% agree with this too. Even Linus telling us about it did nothing to push me towards it. Only the free year got me there.

[superjarod]

It's kind of meh. I like watching linus tech tip videos but all the other shows and channels on their aren't something i'm interested in watching.

[Compass]

It does not have a mobile app therefore it is no good in my books. 

[biggiebigs123]

I think its going to be a huge flop its like vemo but you have to pay to view no thanks its not like LTT is a TV series that uses millions of dollars to make a episode 

[michaelk12]

I like the idea, but the speed of the site needs to be improved. My guess is that they weren't expecting all this traffic so soon. I won't mind giving Linus $3 per month, I enjoy the content so much.

[Tacitus]

Not a fan.

[Cognoggin]

I think if there were an Android app I might use it in passing since the UI seems to be favour a mobile OS. With the dozens of streaming services out there with established content, I am completely unmotivated to go out of my way to log in to yet another medicore service with little engaging content. Out of the 38 youtube subscriptions I have only Linus Tech has content on Vessel.

[Robi_g]

What’s everyone else’s thoughts?

The content doesn't buffer, therer have been a couple of bugs like it getting stuck in fullscreen after a video ended and once the HD wasn't actually HD.

But apart from this it's fine, I click on videos and they play, the ads are only about 3s long too.

[Briggsy]

If it continues to grow, expect youtube to copy the "pay and get content early" model. I will be blunt and say I think vessel has a steep hill to climb. you just know that someone is going to download/screencap early videos and re-upload them for everyone. 

[bbtgp]

I probably wouldnt visit vessel if it wasnt for linus tech tips, id rather support LMG in other ways. Anways, has anyone noticed that MIDDLE clicking a video doesnt open up in a new window? Why would they override that functianly? To save bandwidth perhaps... Thats my only gripe so far.

[Fluffinator]

The bad Quality of videos compared to youtube hurts, I only watched videos at 4k, now.....it seems like 720p at best on "HD".

[-iSynthesis]

So what is everyone's general opinion of Vessel?

 

Do you like/dislike the look, content, concept, back end implementation, UI implementation?

 

My general thoughts so far are mixed. I suppose I am quite critical at the moment because it has some issues that I don't like but the main reason so far; it’s kind of boring. I understand that it is a new platform and it requires time to grow but it is going to have to grow a butt tonne in the next year because in its current state it is nowhere near ready for me to throw my money down. Not even close!

 

Little things that need sorting I feel are achievable. Things like the comment system (400 character limit has got to go). It could do with a better UI for the comments system too (I don't like the YT implementation either). Adding features to the player is required (easy ways to pause and FW/RW),  more quality options etc.

 

My main issue so far is the content. There simply isn't enough, and what is there is boring (to me). There are far too little categories at the moment (2/20 interest me) and many of the channels have very little content. This is its biggest issue for its survival imo. Vessel relies on poaching content creators from YT. Therefore they are always lagging in the sense of the 'new and exciting'. I have seen very little in terms of educational channels which is something I am very interested in. The science and tech is a bit of a joke as well.

 

So to sum up, I will keep going back for the odd look as it would be cool if it was done right, but for the time being I will still be watching almost all of my content on YT (even LTT for the time being).

 

What’s everyone else’s thoughts?

It may be a good idea, though i dont like single youtubers moving to it, it'll be annoying to go to the site just for one video a day.

I hope they make a good app.(They may already have)

[RogueCow]

I've found that the search function doesn't work very well (searched for "Linus Squirtle" and it didn't return any results), but perhaps the search function is limited to channels in this early stage....

 

The scaling on the player (through firefox) is also somewhat Annoying. Minimizing or resizing my window causes a chunk of the top to be cut off, and you cannot scroll up like you can in youtube

 

Overall I'm sure we'll get used to it

[-iSynthesis]

The bad Quality of videos compared to youtube hurts, I only watched videos at 4k, now.....it seems like 720p at best on "HD".

720p is HD...

[Fluffinator]

720p is HD...

Of course.

[smjpl]

If it continues to grow, expect youtube to copy the "pay and get content early" model. I will be blunt and say I think vessel has a steep hill to climb. you just know that someone is going to download/screencap early videos and re-upload them for everyone. 

 

Possibly but there is the slight difference that YT allows anyone to post videos. At what point do you start charging people to watch the videos (i.e. 10 subs or 100000000 subs)? You know what I mean? This would be a lot different for YT and so the model would be far more complex.

 

It may be a good idea, though i dont like single youtubers moving to it, it'll be annoying to go to the site just for one video a day.

I hope they make a good app.(They may already have)

 

Its a good idea. Will it work is a different story. But completely agree on the slow migration of content. It isn't easy though and so it will be interesting to see how agressively they try to get more channels over to it.

 

And by the looks of it they don't have a good app yet (for andriod anyway). Reports of something for iOS. No word on how good it is.

 

I've found that the search function doesn't work very well (searched for "Linus Squirtle" and it didn't return any results), but perhaps the search function is limited to channels in this early stage....

 

The scaling on the player (through firefox) is also somewhat Annoying. Minimizing or resizing my window causes a chunk of the top to be cut off, and you cannot scroll up like you can in youtube

 

Overall I'm sure we'll get used to it

 

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they can fix many of the technical issues (well that's hoping they actually listen to customer feedback; like this thread). You seem confident in its success though. I am more skeptical about the increase in a wide range of content. What's there so far is far too limited to keep me around, let alone pay for it.

[Blebekblebek]

I don't see how video quality is worse than YT

because for me personally it was actually better than YT
 

better buffering and with neat UI

 

but the problem is... it is not free.

[LapX]

Pros : I like the interface and the dark theme.

 

Cons : I need a mobile android app. HD quality video sucks, it's far worse than Youtube's. Comment section isn't well organized.

[thenewguy]

Hey LMG (Nick?), could you forward some of this stuff to Vessel? IMO, community interaction is extremely important!

[Huntsman]

It looks good aesthetically. Very easy to find videos and using the Guy feels intuitive.

What I don't like is that it is less adaptive to poor network conditions. On YouTube when the connection gets poor it automatically goes to lower quality but on Vessel it doesn't have those low quality options to go down to. Think there is only HQ and Normal Quality. Network is quite unstable here in Asia.

Also, there's no Android app. I like to watch videos on my Nvidia Shield Tablet.

[Ivan6k]

So then do we have to pay after that free year? That's my biggest problem about this

[Jade]

@nicklmg