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Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SlashdotTV! (Video) 130

Posted by timothy
from the film-at-eleven dept.
You may have noticed that we've posted quite a few original videos on Slashdot in the past few months. Rather than being the work of a few rogue editors with newly-acquired Christmas cameras, this was part of the groundwork for a new site we're launching today. SlashdotTV, found at http://tv.slashdot.org, will let you easily find and watch all of our videos in one convenient location. In addition to Slashdot content, you also can watch videos from our sister sites, SourceForge and ThinkGeek. The site is brand new, and we're interested in hearing your feedback -- what you think about it, and what kind of videos you'd like to see. Currently, you can embed our videos on your own site or show them to your friends with our share feature. Commenting is coming soon. Check back often for new videos, and keep watching!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SlashdotTV! (Video) More | Reply

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to SlashdotTV! (Video)

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  • Timmeey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MasterMan (2603851) on Wednesday March 28, @09:10AM (#39495445)
    Timothy looks at Pixel Qi
    Timothy checks out Ubuntu TV
    Timothy Gets a MakerBot Replicator Demo at CES
    Timothy Lord Checks Out Keyboards & Tech At CES
    Timothy Lord @ Metrix Create:Space in Seattle
    Timothy Lord Checks Out Steve Jackson Games' Latest

    what you think about it, and what kind of videos you'd like to see

    We want more videos were timothy checks out and looks at things!

  • It's Not April Yet (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28, @09:14AM (#39495483)
    Are you sure this isn't intended as an April Fools article?

  • Stop doing it in Flash (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SgtChaireBourne (457691) on Wednesday March 28, @09:15AM (#39495491) Homepage
    Stop doing the videos in Flash. It's a proprietary wrapper usable on a decreasing number of platforms. Better formats for video already exist. If you want old, then go with MPEG. If you want new, go with WebM. Either way, you'll both reach a larger audience and future-proof your work.
  • As long as you fill it with tons of ads, that's cool with me. I love slashvertisements! Maybe you can even couch a few of them in "product reviews"? That may squeak a few more ads in front of people, what do you say?

  • Just make a YouTube page (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is about 12 years too late.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vlm (69642)

      They Could follow the advice of the comments and use modern container files, modern html to display it, high res (like HD res, not 360 px instead of 240 px like youtube), make torrent available, working RSS feeds of the video files ready to feed into mythnettv and the other TV appliances...

  • My Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eternaldoctorwho (2563923) on Wednesday March 28, @09:16AM (#39495505)

    I think that having a new tv.slashdot.org is completely fine and even a little cool. However, my preference is that these videos should only be posted to that site, and not to "regular" Slashdot. Or at least provide a standard tag or category which we can filter out if we choose. We know where to go if we want to watch videos - the TV icon at the top (nice job on that btw, it was immediately obvious to me what that new icon signified even before reading this article). Otherwise, I'm just looking for text blurbs and snarky/humorous user comments, sometimes with optional videos behind the summary's links. Maybe we can just get the story summary text, with a link below the summary that says "Check out the video over on Slashdot TV!"?

    Oh, transcripts for all videos on the TV site would be helpful for many as well.

    • I'd like to see a "Slashdot TV" addition to the "Exclude stories by topic:" list in the Options > Exclusions section. I read /. in off-time and don't have sound on my workstation, so all it does is create animosity towards the editors.

    • Oh, transcripts for all videos on the TV site would be helpful for many as well.

      I think that may just be in the pipeline ;)

      For now, here's the Transcript for this video.
      -----
      Title: Welcome to SlashdotTV
      Description: Welcoe to SlashdotTV, the / dedicated channel for all video on / Slashdot. This new site lets you / easily browse and watch videos / based on a number of criteria, / including title, subject keywords, / popularity, and those handpicked / by the site's dedicated editors.

      [00:00] <TITLE>
      The S

    • Of all the things that users have been asking for, this was not on the list. Do you even listen?

      What next - powerpoint slide decks?

      I want to be able to exclude it from the list of stories - life is too short to look at a video that takes 5 to 10 minutes to say what I can glom from reading a story in 30 seconds.

  • Does this bring back the chat roulette feature?

  • I was curious if the sites that the sharing button has will be expanded? I specifically was not seeing google+ in there, but I'm sure there are other sites that might be wanted. I'm sure that as a tech site there is a bit more g+ users here than on a normal site. Slashdot tv looks like a neat site and I'll have to check it out when I'm not at work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm (69642)

      and I'll have to check it out when I'm not at work.

      The specs on this are going to be interesting. Not at work, not on a phone with poor data coverage, not in a meeting, not in a teleconference, not while "watching" tv... this is what, like 1% of my /. time?

  • Is it just me...or? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa (657393) <skennedy@@@tpno-co...org> on Wednesday March 28, @09:17AM (#39495523) Homepage

    I actually don't like video content on the web; for a variety of reasons, but the primary one is that the audio from the video would give me away at work.

    I mean, I hope this works out and is the revenue generator you hope it is, but as I think many of us are viewing the site from work, I don't know how popular a destination it's going to be.

    • My video usage:

      At work: Videos without audio (double points if it has closed captioning)
      At home: Videos in the background so I only hear the audio... usually pulling up a song I haven't heard in a while on YouTube.

      The only time I pay attention to both the audio and video is when watching Netflix... and even then I usually have Netflix on my right monitor, Minecraft on my center monitor and Opera on my left monitor so it doesn't get my undivided attention. Videos lack the interactivity to keep me fully enter

    • The contents of a three-minute video can generally be typed up into a half-page of text and read in thirty seconds.

      The exceptions are walk-throughs that are difficult to describe in writing, or content that requires visual or audio.

      For me, it's not a matter of being seen goofing off. I have headphones. But it's more a use of my time. If I'm going to goof off, I want to goof off *efficiently*.

    • Your boss doesn't allow headphones at work?

  • TLDW (Score:2)

    by vlm (69642)

    what kind of videos you'd like to see

    Rickrolls and pr0n? Mostly the latter?

    Seriously, short videos. TLDW = too long didn't watch. Please no "I recorded this rant because I can't be bothered to transcribe it"

    Even more seriously you're not going to displace youtube as the home of precious kitty videos. Or even pony videos. On the other hand, as far as I know, the "screencast" market is unserved. Yes there is "A" site for ruby screencasts, and "A" site for vim screencasts. But there is no "the tech screencast" site... that I know of.

  • Does not work in Safari (Score:3)

    by objekt (232270) on Wednesday March 28, @09:19AM (#39495547) Homepage

    Does not work in Safari, unlike youtube and 99% of all other online video sites which work fine in Safari (Mac OS X)

    • Works fine for me in Safari 5.1.4 on OS X and ClickToPlugin installed. I see a grey box, just as I'd expect.
      • Please forgive my son/daughter/thing (we never could tell which he/she/it was); we used to give APK a little LSD to get him/her/it to sleep at night. The dropping on the head likely didn't help either.

    • Does not work in Safari, unlike youtube and 99% of all other online video sites which work fine in Safari (Mac OS X)

      also doesnt work in Opera
      clip embedded in this post works, but all the clips under tv.slash... just dont show up

  • I like the Related Links that Slashdot gives for this.

    Linode Exploit Caused Theft of Thousands of Bitcoins
    European Parliament Blocks Copyright Reform With 113% Voter Turnout
    Microsoft's Azure Cloud Suffers Major Downtime
    Foxconn's Other Dirty Secret: the World's Largest "Internship" Program
    Sony's New CEO To Look Beyond Hardware

    Which boils down to theft, fraud, downtime, unpaid labor and Sony (always a winner). Nice to know what we can expect.

  • flash? seriously? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It always make me laugh the way slashdot posts all these supposedly technologically progressive articles but then uses some obsolete proprietary tech like flash for its videos. Did Adobe give you some payola to use that crap or what?

    • You'll not how whenever Slashdot is hiring, they studiously avoid posting job adverts on Slashdot. They wouldn't want anyone technically competent (or literate) applying...
  • ... oh come on... you know where I'm going with this! ;) I'm glad there's an announcement, I noticed a new tab at the top this morning and said ".. hey... that wasn't there yesterday!"

  • Well, good luck with it, but text rules (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I find text to be 10x faster to process than watching a video. Text is easier to skim, it's easier to search, a page of text can explain something in more detail and more precisely than 10 minutes of video, and it probably takes up 1000x less space/bandwidth, etc. When I watch video documentation it feels like everything is in slow motion compared to reading. As a bonus, text is also usable by people with visual and/or sound impairments, when using the right equipment.

    Resorting to video is like the equiv

    • I find text to be 10x faster to process than watching a video. Text is easier to skim, it's easier to search, a page of text can explain something in more detail and more precisely than 10 minutes of video, and it probably takes up 1000x less space/bandwidth, etc. When I watch video documentation it feels like everything is in slow motion compared to reading. As a bonus, text is also usable by people with visual and/or sound impairments, when using the right equipment.

      Resorting to video is like the equivale

  • I can't watch... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr. Droopy Drawers (215436) on Wednesday March 28, @09:31AM (#39495665)

    If I watch, I think it will count against my Bandwidth Cap

  • Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
    You play the video on the STV
    That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
    Money for nothin' and chicks for free
    Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
    Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
    Maybe get a blister on your little finger
    Maybe get a blister on your thumb

  • I Want My /.TV (Score:3)

    by theodp (442580) on Wednesday March 28, @09:35AM (#39495709)

    Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
    You play the keyboards [slashdot.org] on the /.TV

  • Now Slashdot is going to be come synonymous with something people use to waste time, except for nerds.
  • I heard my Congressman (I'm from Texas - take your pick) say that posting videos on the Internet was piracy and cost Americans jobs. I guess we should have had them pass SOPA after all.
  • I don't mind watching the odd commercial, but one per video is too much. Other video sites fall into the same trap.

    How about an initial commercial and then 1 per 15 minutes of video content viewed.

  • Slashdot TV is what happens when more than one person tears off calendar pages in the office.

  • I find that unless there's actually something cool which you really need to see in action to understand, I'm much happier reading than watching something. So if you're doing an interview, provide a transcript.

  • I'd like to see a time-based analysis on the use of exclamation marks in article titles (such as this one). I reckon that it'll be indicative and illuminating :|

  • Slashdot TV looks great and it looks like you'll do something good with it.

    Here is my concern however. Eventually, all internet sites try to become Facebook or Myspace or whatever the "it" network is that week. The problem with this is that what makes Slashdot great is that it's not for general consumption. It's for a higher standard of technical knowledge or those with the desire to attain that.

    If you try to make Slashdot into a cash cow that behaves just like Facebook, you will fail two ways. First, the p

  • Will never visit.

    Just like idle.slashdot.org (whose sarcastic "Waste of your time. Don't ever go there" I feel is the best advice I've heard).

    Whenever there's been a video post, I've been quite quick to complain about it (and I'm not the only one), so yeah, shove them off into tv.slashdot.org so I can ignore it totally.

    Sorry, but I (used to) come on here for information and news. It takes HUNDREDS of times longer to convey that information in a video than it does on a text page, which is why I don't watch

  • Partner with YouTube or Vimeo, or do HTML5 please. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DdJ (10790) on Wednesday March 28, @09:52AM (#39495905) Homepage Journal

    I hate watching videos on a conventional computer. I prefer to watch them on a tablet or real TV.

    If you were to partner with either YouTube or Vimeo, I could use existing integrations for set-top boxes or the app on my iPad to view the stuff.

    If you were to just to HTML5 video, I could at least bring the video up on my iPhone and "AirPlay" it to my TV.

    As it is, I can't even watch it in Google Chrome. I've removed the generic Flash player from my computer, but I do allow Chrome to maintain and use its own internal copy. But even that copy can't play your videos. I am guessing that this is because I've got paranoid security settings, forbidding Flash from ever using any local storage at all (because I don't trust advertisers).

    So, in short, I certainly can't see the videos in my preferred way, and when I try to view them the way I'm "supposed to", I get a blank screen with no warnings or errors or anything.

    Do Not Want.

  • The clueless twats who took over /. are destroying the site and the community with your hare-brained ideas. I'd like to see videos of them choking on wiffle-bats.

  • There are more important things for Slashdot to do (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk (75490) on Wednesday March 28, @09:59AM (#39496017) Homepage

    At this risk of sounding like a troll, or maybe just a fuddy-duddy: I think there are more important things for Slashdot to work on than adding new features.

    There are a lot of bugs and limitations on the site. The last time Slashdot posted one of their "Hey, look what we did!" [slashdot.org] stories there were a lot of good positive often-repeated suggestions - many of which were ignored. Unicode support was moderated to 5 many times in that story. Instead we get achievements, idle, and Slashdot TV. Unicode support, working & faster preview, better comments section, etc. were top suggestions that have been ignored for years. Maybe I'm biased: I use Slashdot because it is entirely text based so this feature doesn't excite me terribly. Nonetheless, I think priorities need to be straightened here.

  • Maybe you shall focus on enabling IPv6 on your existing sites before launching new ones.

  • In and by itself, video: why not. But the "essence" of Slashdot, if I may use so vague a term, seems to reside in two strongly defined and profiled points: tech news in text format, and user-user-moderation. Video does not enhance either of these. Nor is it "stuff that matters".Therefore: irrelevant. Does not add any value to the core business. It MAY increase the site's worth in the eyes of a potential buyer. To me as a loooooooooooooong-time slashdotter, however, video on /. is... well... howshalliputit.... of no use.
  • I'm forced to use IE7 at work. Yes, it's old and it would be nice if I could upgrade but I can't. This is a news blog with some forum functionality though. I expected it to at least let me read without a crazy layout. The change from last summer meant I was no longer able to moderate with that machine, and now with this TV icon, it's entirely unusable. Can someone enlighten me as to what all these changes improved? Visually the site isn't much different, green with white and black text. Links on the
    • Here's a better idea: start a campaign to get IE7 updated at work. That way website developers everywhere won't want to lynch mob you. (That said they should at least do due diligence and try to make it work in IE7 (which I assume they already have).

  • I think each video should have subtitles. There's many deaf readers here on slashdot and also many like to check in at work where they have to keep sound off.

    Really it's a basic accessibility feature that is often ignored. Not to thrilled about Apple's digital textbooks containing non-subtitled videos. Yay the first book I can't "read", now THAT'S thinking differently. So as more of the web becomes video more people are finding themselves shut out.

    So please add subtitles to all videos.

  • how about a story on the technology behind the site.
    I have videos on my site and it is not easy to implement (without using an external provider)

  • I have enjoyed the videos so far and I think this is a great idea.

    This will be added to the stuff I watch on PATV [penny-arcade.com] as well as Geek And Sundry [geekandsundry.com]. (Which has a slew of great shows - though I'm most stoked about Wil Wheaton's tabletop gaming show and The Guild.)

    Here I'd love to see stuff that shows off what slashdot is about - tech (especially FOSS tech) at a deeper depth than the 'non-technical' folks are interested in. I enjoyed the HD tv bit - since I don't know jack about tvs. But it did feel awfully fluffy.

  • How about spending less time on ... stuff ... like this, and more time on learning how to write headlines, how to select good submissions, how to avoid duplicate stories, how to perform even cursory verification of content, how to avoid typographical errors, and how to copyedit poor text? You know, things that enhance quality.

  • How about fixing the glaring UI problems with the main site before wasting time on this crap? Broken AJAX and horrid android support. Let's move that archive link more than a millimeter away from the 'many more' link.

  • Will it be all repeats, just like the main site?

  • Why does the Slashdot TV have antennae?
  • i give you, ZDnet 2.0.

  • Do not want.

    Over 50% wasted white space when I go full screen is not going to make it an enjoyable experience.
    Slashdot has a chance here to one-up YouTube and get it right.

    -
    Lotto - A tax on people who are bad at math

There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil. -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"