Back in May, YouTube teased some of the stuff they were working on to improve the experience for both users and creators. Just this week at Vidcon, they provided more details about new features they are working on, including a Vimeo-like Tip Jar that will allow fans to contribute $1-$500 to any channel. While it will be more beneficial to those uploading video game clips, the company also announced that they are introducing higher frame rates, including support for 48fps and 60fps.
First, here are a few sample videos showing some high-frame rate material:
The high frame rates are definitely going to be more beneficial for video games, but if high frame rates ever take off for other kinds of entertainment, like movies or sports, YouTube is already prepared. The response hasn't been too positive for fiction content, but these things are not set in stone, and could certainly change in a big way down the line.
Here is a list of most of the changes, taken from their Creators Blog (slightly condensed):
- YouTube Creator Studio: To help you manage your videos on the go, the new YouTube Creator Studio app lets you see analytics, manage your videos and more. The app is available now on Android and launching on iOS in coming weeks and you’ll see some redesign of the Creator Studio on desktop too.
- Audio Library, now with sound effects: To make your lives easier and videos better, from today you now have thousands of royalty-free sound effects at your disposal. We’ve also added more tracks to the Audio Library.
- 60 (yeah, six-zero) frames per second: Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you’re playing, when we launch support for 48 and even 60 frames per second in the coming months. Take a look at some preview videos on the YT Creator Channel. Make sure you’re watching in HD!
- Fan Funding: Your fans aren’t just watching your videos, they’re also helping support your channel through services like KickStarter, IndieGogo,Patreon and more. We’ll be adding another option for you, where fans will be able to contribute money to support your channel at any time, for any reason. A handful of creators are testing this feature soon on desktop and Android, including Dulce Delight, Fitness Blender, The Healthcare Triage,The King of Random, Soul Pancake, Steve Spangler Science, The Young Turks, and Thug Notes. If you’re interested in trying it on your channel, sign up here.
- Creator Credits: Collaboration is a key to great videos on YouTube. You’re already giving your collaborators shout outs in your video descriptions. But what if those text-based shout outs were tags that let viewers click through to their channels, or let you search for a collaborator based on their work and location? That’s our vision for Creator Credits, stay tuned for more.
- Subtitles contributed from fans: In the coming months, your fans will be able to submit translations in any language based on the subtitles or captions you’ve created, helping you reach even more viewers. You can try this out now on Barely Political, Fine Art-Tips, Got Talent Global and Unicoos.
- Info Cards: In the near future, you’ll see our new interactive information cards with a clean look, which you’ll beable to program once to work across desktop, phones and tablets.
We'll see how effective the fan funding becomes (it's unclear how well it has worked out for Vimeo), but it's a welcome change for anyone who makes videos for YouTube. There are options to contribute $1, $5, or any amount up to $500 directly on the channel page:
If you want to be a beta tester for the fan funding option, there is a sign up form here:
YouTube will be rolling out these features for all users over the coming months, but to read more about the changes, check out the links below.
Links:
Your Comment
23 Comments
They should add the possibility to give contributions in Bitcoins. Would be the perfect system for this.
June 28, 2014 at 5:56PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
bitcoins are worthless :)
June 29, 2014 at 10:51AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Fan Funding sounds great, but obviously YouTube takes a cut.
June 28, 2014 at 6:07PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
For skateboarding video 60 fps will be a big step up! Finally we will see a real fluid motion.
June 28, 2014 at 6:58PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Exactly what I was thinking! I would LOVE to see action sports shot at 60fps.
July 3, 2014 at 7:52AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
ok I checked out the high frame rate support...
watch a video right click you mouse on the video while playing..
select " stats for nerds"
a window will pop up and give you info on frame rates drops and bit rates ect.....
I am not getting anything over 30 but you can see for your self!
June 28, 2014 at 7:44PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
I am, but it's changing constantly from 38 to 52 and everything in between. That's not how frame rates work, that's how variable bitrates work. Framerates should be constant.
On top of that it doesn't look high framerate to me. It looks no better than 30fps.
June 29, 2014 at 7:18AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
+10 points for youtube, -1 point for vimeo
June 28, 2014 at 7:58PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Now I want youtube viewer to give us more options in terms of aspect ratio and am making the switch :) #goodbyeletterbox
June 28, 2014 at 8:07PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Will that really make a difference? It looks nice for embeds but once I full screen a video I can never tell anyway.
June 29, 2014 at 10:51AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Nice! I have been shooting a lot of nature/stock video at 48fps and have been holding off on posting anything. I have always thought the HFR stuff worked for nature videos...
June 28, 2014 at 11:14PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
What do these SPAM comments accomplish? I might be asking a ridiculous question here but...seriously, who is profiting from these and how exactly are they making anything? No one actually clicks on them. Is there a company behind them?
Do they get paid to post ANYTHING or are they supposed to be advertising something? If so, this guy isn't doing his job. It has to lead to a profit somewhere.
June 29, 2014 at 1:22AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
spam comments? I don't see any - have they been removed already?
HFR will make handheld footage more watchable. I guess travel videos will benefit too.
June 29, 2014 at 2:59AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
It was probably removed.
June 29, 2014 at 4:54AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Nice. The only other thing I want is support for support ratios.
June 29, 2014 at 5:58AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Will that really make a difference? It looks nice for embeds but once I full screen a video I can never tell anyway.
June 29, 2014 at 10:51AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Google/YouTube is just adding pressure on other companies to up their game. 4K, higher frame rate, fan funding - let's see other match it. Better yet, let's see others beat YouTube to the punch.
June 29, 2014 at 8:32AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Something tells me the higher frame rates will make it over to the movie rentals. An extra ~$3 to rent the Hobbit in 48fps seems like a logical roadmap for YouTube.
June 29, 2014 at 11:06AM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
High frame rates aside, I'm surprised that it hasn't dawned on vimeo or YouTube that HD with a much lower compression ratio looks sharper and has better tonality than 4k that had to be heavily compressed for streaming.
Once again we are throwing out overall image quality in favor of pixel resolution, which is probably the least important component to overall image fidelity.
June 29, 2014 at 12:12PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Did you feel the same way on SD vs. HD?
June 29, 2014 at 12:18PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
Early HD on cable was heavily pixelated until they gained enough bandwidth.
But if you prefer to watch 4k that is soft with poor tonality and blocked up shadows just for the sake of being able to watch 4k go ahead. Also, do you actually own a 4k TV and is it big enough for you to actually see a difference between 4k and HD without pressing your nose against the glass?
I'm interested in watching the image with the best IQ, not a spec sheet measuring contest. When there is enough bandwidth to properly stream 4k I'll be interested, but at the moment they are putting the cart in front of the horse.
June 29, 2014 at 12:35PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
VP9 makes all the difference...
June 29, 2014 at 12:37PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM
@Uncompressed - I do notice the artifacts when they're present in the 4K footage but the higher detail of 4K and/or 2.5K really blows away 1080p for me. In other words, I'd much rather watch clips shot on GH4, FS-700 or BMPC4K (without the FPN) than Amira or Alexa.
.
Full disclosure - I have an older monitor and limited bandwidth (due it being a volume/group buy), so I mostly watch the 4K footage in 2.5K (1440p) because it buffers less and because there's very little difference on my old monitor between 1440 and 2160 on YouTube. That said, I see a huge improvement from 1080p to 1440p, meaning that one does not need a 4K monitor/TV to enjoy a higher resolution that is already available.
June 29, 2014 at 5:04PM, Edited September 4, 8:56AM