General thoughts on Vessel?

[Mushious]

They have the right idea but, since they don't own the internet, they don't have the same bandwidth Google does so there are some obvious buffering issues. It may be a teething issue, only time will tell.

 

/thread

[JohnnyFALLEN]

tip on vessel video quality make sure you change to HD instead of auto. Auto seems to not be switching to HD even when the speed is there.

[cragger89]

How do you feel about the content? Are you subscribed to many channels etc?

 

 

This goes to everyone! Lots of talk of the technical issues. Very little in the way of enjoying the platform.

 

Content is fine. Unbox therapy and I've subscribed to a couple of food/comedy ones as well. Cyanide and Happiness are on there too, although it's never really done much for me.

 

I like it.

[mxas6530]

Good concept. Execution still needs work, but it's only a few days old and loaded with money so should get on top of those issues relatively quickly.

Somehow I doubt that. Most beta/release websites have the owner in a *messaging* scenario, where they can give feed back / quickly update people on what's going on etc

[Wildlord12]

Vessel offer 1 year free gift for 24 hours from their twitter, you don't have to pay. Check it yourself

[Dredgy]

Somehow I doubt that. Most beta/release websites have the owner in a *messaging* scenario, where they can give feed back / quickly update people on what's going on etc

It's the founder of Hulu and a bunch of investors, they are going to be busy and unlikely to be reading every thing. Their PR people will communicate the gist of it to them and their engineers. Vessel has the money, expertise and the backing to react to issues faster than most other startups. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, but they certainly have the ability too.

[Davkat]

It's been usable for me here in Aus. Even on a fiber connection videos refuse to buffer. They just sit there and randomly play 2 seconds of the video every 10 minutes.

[Delphi1662]

it looks and feels to me like a mobile site. also a bit annoying how theres no real quality adjustment for videos .

[Guest]

Not going to sign up because I don't like signing up for new things and the videos..... Meh they will still appear on YouTube right?

So I have no idea how Vessel is and am not likely to ever sign up.

[smjpl]

It's been usable for me here in Aus. Even on a fiber connection videos refuse to buffer. They just sit there and randomly play 2 seconds of the video every 10 minutes.

 

I think you mean unusable.

 

You reckon it is just due to lack of servers in Australia?

[JSind11]

the Ipad version is dog crap, 

tried 10 videos last night, not one played from start to finish without needing to be restarted at least twice. started playing things off youtube instead and they were fine. 

[mxas6530]

It's the founder of Hulu and a bunch of investors, they are going to be busy and unlikely to be reading every thing. Their PR people will communicate the gist of it to them and their engineers. Vessel has the money, expertise and the backing to react to issues faster than most other startups. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, but they certainly have the ability too.

Whatever your company is doing, you__have__to listen to user feedback. Just have to.

[Dredgy]

Whatever your company is doing, you__have__to listen to user feedback. Just have to.

Yes, I'm not arguing that. I'm actually arguing the opposite - I'm saying that Vessel has the capability to address these problems quickly.

The CEO is not sitting and reading every comment though. He is a millionaire many times over, invested in many different companies and in high demand. Someone packages the feedback into an easily digestible format for him. Heck, even if he was reading everything, he's not in charge of development - he just has to make a phone call to the engineering team and tell them what he wants fixed. Not everyone is going to be sitting down doing nothing but listening.

[mxas6530]

Yes, I'm not arguing that. I'm actually arguing the opposite - I'm saying that Vessel has the capability to address these problems quickly.

The CEO is not sitting and reading every comment though. He is a millionaire many times over, invested in many different companies and in high demand. Someone packages the feedback into an easily digestible format for him. Heck, even if he was reading everything, he's not in charge of development - he just has to make a phone call to the engineering team and tell them what he wants fixed. Not everyone is going to be sitting down doing nothing but listening.

Probably an hour (s) after launching the site publicly, you couldn't log in. So yeah...

[tmlhalo]

I don't care for Vessel. If videos aren't on Youtube then I'll probably just not watch them (in reference to a hypothetical scenario in which any of my current Youtube subscriptions completely jump ship). I don't care for Vessel's UI. The homepage is mess of thumbnails that I don't want to dig through. I have Youtube's my subscription page bookmarked and can see what all my subs have posted in chronological order. I haven't found anything close to that on Vessel and no matter what page I'm on 95% of the thumbnails are from channels that I frankly don't give a shit about. I take that back, I do give a shit because I'm actually annoyed of having them there. 

[Zyphera]

I like the look of it. The navigation is easy enough. The comments are okay.
 

The image quality is not good enough. I have done some comparinsion (in an other thread) and found the quality compared to YouTube is somewhere between 720p and 480p leaning towards 480p. The fact that you cannot open a video in a new tab bothers me greatly. An Android app is needed. I have tried to use the site in a web browser and it is not good enough on the phone.

 

For an image quality comparinsion take a look here: http://imgur.com/a/HnxZE

[chilicheeseburger]

I don't like it. It takes way to long to buffer, it won't even let me pause and pre-buffer the whole video. Quality selection doesn't do much for me, it always looks like 480p. 

Haven't looked at other aspects of it much. It also feels a lot like a mobile page.

I hope it improves, it does have potential.

[bpw87]

I overall like the site, the UI is a bit strange but at least it's very visually pleasing for a first attempt. The navigation of the page leaves a bit to be desired, I hope they will at some stage add an easier way to search new content from all your subs. The front page, new videos and not the drop down menu options are a little cumbersome and cluttered at best. I find using my 100Mb internet I struggle to load videos. If I use Tunnelbear it's not quite as bad but it's not great. Guess my ISP is probably throttling my traffic. Looking through the settings I can't seem to find a way to have it auto select HD and I'd like to know the resolution I'm streaming other then "auto or HD on". I'm sure a lot of this issues will get fixed in due time. Hopefully it will be a success and become a name synonymous with steaming and allow creators to make videos for many more years to come. 

 

I'll keep using Vessel either way cause for $2.99 a month it's well worth it to support all my favourite content creators. Also if I'm not mistaken even if I pay for the service and I don't actually watch videos on there creators that I'm subbed to still get a contribution either way.

[failblox]

I can't stand the quality of the videos on vessel. If I'm paying a monthly fee I'd expect to watch my content in at least 1080p. I'm 99% sure just from looking (not even closely - for me the difference was noticeable immediately) that the quality of LTT videos uploaded to vessel are 720p or less. What year is it again? Excuse me? 720p?

It bothers me so much that even though I have a free year of access, I'm not going to use it and I'd rather wait a few days so I can watch it glorious 4K on YouTube.

[bpw87]

I'm sure when Vessel has more support, funding and members they will upgrade there streaming service and 4k would be available sometime soon. They are probably doing all they can at the moment to bring the best service possible. A lot of there members would be 1 year free subscriptions like myself and they are probably running on a business plan factoring that they will be receiving minimal funds from the public for a while and trying to keep themselves a float without stretching to far and running out of money until subscriptions start turning a profit and they can expand their infrastructure.

 

I guess at the moment it's a game of chance to see if it will be a viable service and it will gain support of the masses so it can expand it's services or if the starting limitations of Vessel will ultimately be it's undoing. I'll support now and into the foreseeable future it even if it is a worse service at the moment in the hope it will grow into something much greater.

[Templar848]

Is anyone else having trouble logging in on Vessel?  Just tonight I've started getting a message that they don't recognize the account, but if I try to re-register, it tells me there is already an account from that email. 

[C0LL0SS0S]

After using it for quite a good week, I kinda hate it, the "sub box" is complete wasting space, some videos playback some don't. It looks like someone who is pretty rich played too much with squarespace and came up with vessel, the site looks like its in alpha or something. I think LMG signed the contract too soon, they should've wait for a resonse from YT. Can't imagine how no one noticed that the site looks ugly, but maybe its personal reference

[Zyphera]

The loading problem seems to be very different depending on where you live. I have no buffering problem whatsoever. It would be nice to see a map of where the problems are so that you can get a better idea off how many that has this problem with buffering.

[lkl_Vessel]

Somehow I doubt that. Most beta/release websites have the owner in a *messaging* scenario, where they can give feed back / quickly update people on what's going on etc

 

Hi everyone, you guys have a great community here, and totally appreciate hearing all the feedback and thoughts on Vessel. Really. Constructive or positive, it's all helpful. We've been replying to people that write in to us directly as much as we can, and the folks here at LTT have been great and bubbling up feedback. The one thing I will say is that we're reading/listening/learning. That doesn't necessarily equate to the ability to respond to everyone's post here, or adding new features right away, nor will we do everything that is requested, but building something new is both fun and challenging and we're glad to have the support of LMG and have LTT on the service, and will keep working on things.

 

Just wanted to say hello, and thanks!

Lonn

 

ps. i work at Vessel.

[smjpl]

Hi everyone, you guys have a great community here, and totally appreciate hearing all the feedback and thoughts on Vessel. Really. Constructive or positive, it's all helpful. We've been replying to people that write in to us directly as much as we can, and the folks here at LTT have been great and bubbling up feedback. The one thing I will say is that we're reading/listening/learning. That doesn't necessarily equate to the ability to respond to everyone's post here, or adding new features right away, nor will we do everything that is requested, but building something new is both fun and challenging and we're glad to have the support of LMG and have LTT on the service, and will keep working on things.

 

Just wanted to say hello, and thanks!

Lonn

 

ps. i work at Vessel.

 

Hey Lonn,

 

Thank you very much for your response. I am sure many of the people who posted in this thread will be delighted that Vessel are taking customer feedback seriously and that you've taken your time to come on here to let us know. Greatly appreciated!

 

Best of luck with all the work ahead of you, and we will work to give you constructive feedback as you do. 

 

Cheers!