Videos From Google's Music Hub Vevo Won't Play, Same Crappy Experience As YouTube

For all the talk of how many videos YouTube delivers each month and the number of hours of content that's uploaded to YouTube each minute, why is it no one seems to ever question Google on why their playback experience is so poor? Why does the media continue give Google a pass on this? This should be something that everyone is talking about, yet it seems that hardly anyone is writing about it, even while so many users continue to complain about it, myself included.

This morning, I had half a dozen emails in my inbox from people asking me who's doing the delivery of the videos for Vevo and why they won't play. While I know Vevo has only been up for less than 48 hours, that's no excuse for Google not to be able to have it working properly. How many times am I going to be given a message that says "We're sorry, there was an error processing your request" when I try to play a video? Even worse, most times I don't get a message at all. I just get a blank page when I click play or the video starts to buffer and gets stuck at 73% and goes no further.

I've been complaining for three years now (2008, 2007) that the quality of delivery for YouTube's videos, delivered via progressive download, continues to stink. It's a regular occurrence that videos take two minutes to buffer, don't buffer at all, or stops halfway through to re-buffer. And I'm taking about videos that are only ninety seconds in length. And every time I write a post about YouTube's playback problems, I get dozens and dozens of comments from viewers experiencing the same problems.

In a CNET article this morning, it was reported that in his speech introducing Vevo, Doug Morris, Universal Music Group's CEO said, "the best thing about Vevo is that it's our platform". Actually, no, it's Google's platform. But if this crappy, poor-quality user experience is the best thing about Vevo, then we should consider it to have already failed, less than 48 hours after launching.

And I still want to know, why does the media give Google a pass on the problems YouTube's platform has in delivering videos for so many years?

Updated: YouTube just announced the launch of the Vevo site on their blog saying, "it blends Google and YouTube's leading technology...." and will "redefine the way people watch and engage with music online". That's a great strategy, hype the launch, when it does not even work.

Comments

[Jeff]

Dan, as usual you are dead on. Vevo's experience stinks and YouTube should be getting slammed in the media for all the problems they have. But I think the media loves YouTube and does not want to make them mad. Any other service like this, that was having problems all the time, think Twitter, gets questioned all the time. I agree it makes no sense that the media gives YouTube a pass for a really bad experience.

[Trevor Dyck]

I hadn't tried Vevo, but after reading this article I went to it and got:

We're sorry, there was an error processing your request.Please try again later.

There are technologies to improve video quality - specialized CDNs, edge caching, and Service Deliver Routers that guarantee bandwidth all the way to the consumer. They should be taking advantage of these technologies and giving their users a high quality experience.

[Randy Wynmann]

Dan, I'm with you. Everyone in the media seems to rave about YouTube and how big they are, how many streams they serve and how important they are to the market. Yet, no one ever seems to write about the user experience, and isnt that all that matters? The moment YouTube offers HD, the media is all over it. But the moment it does not work, no one seems to make an issue out of it.

[Kevin]

I don't know about earlier but just a minute ago I went to Vevo for the first time and the 1 video I sampled for about 25 seconds was delivered by Akamai and so was the pre-roll ad. Just going to vevo.com also had something delivered by Akamai as well.

[Corey Kronengold]

Same experience, Dan. It kinda sucked. Check out my post, "Vevo Shmevo" http://www.onlinevideowatch.com/vevo-shmevo/

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. see Joost and Cuil for over hyped launches.

[Steve Lerner]

There are free add-ins for firefox that let you download youtube videos in the background so you don't have to suffer with playback issues.

Check out DownloadThemAll and DownloadHelper... why wait for bad playback when you can have the video on the desktop and play back at full quality?

[Raffe]

After downloading and analyzing one of their videos it would appear that they are using the Sorenson Spark codec. I'm sure that isn't helping matters.

[CF_Pro]

For some reason this Vevo video on lady Gaga's site plays fine. She must have a special back door link :)

[Kevin]

@CF pro

The video on Lady Gaga's site that you linked to is being delivered by a Limelight Networks flash streaming server.

[Steven]

I find it disgraceful Vevo and Hulu aren't available in the UK. Ok you can watch Vevo on youtube, but its not available if you go to the main website!

Such a pain in the ass. Why? Why must they introduce this national region thing, its the same with dvds! I was in Portugal last year, and I wanted to watch the Apprentice, and I couldnt as even BBC Iplayer didn't let me watch it!

Time for this region rubbish to end.

[Ted Brown]

2011 and still having problems with you tube, vevo clips will not play

[jtestes]

Someone needs to tell you tube/vevo to remove its head from its ass. I go to you tube to listen to music, not to watch the spinner in the middle of the screen for half an hour. Fix it, or tell me where i can watch videos again.