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▲ Springtime 3 days ago

Youtube says this was done for select Youtube Shorts as a denoising process. However most popular channels on Youtube, which seem to be the pool selected for this experiment, typically already have well lit and graded videos shouldn't benefit much from extra denoising from a visual point of view.

It's true though that aggressive denoising gives things an artificially generated look since both processes use denoising heavily.

Perhaps this was done to optimize video encoding, since the less noise/surface detail there is the easier it is to compress.

▲alex1138 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Can I just start a petition to remove Shorts entirely?

▲makeitdouble 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

At this point, the stuff I'd want to remove:

- auto-dubbing

- auto-translation

- shorts (they're fine in a separate space, just not in the timeline)

- member only streams (if I'm not a member, which is 100% of them)

The only viable interface for that is the web and plenty of browser extensions.

▲chii 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The only viable interface for that is the web and plenty of browser extensions.

there are ways to get this same experience with android. Use https://github.com/ReVanced/ and make your phone work for you instead of working for someone else.

▲reddalo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

ReVanced also has the additional benefit of blocking ads, allowing background play and auto-skipping sponsorships thanks to SponsorBlock.

Also, if you have an Android TV, I'd suggest SmartTube, it's way better than the original app and it has the same benefits of ReVanced: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

▲machomaster 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn't help against autodubbing and autotranslation.

▲wolrah 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> - shorts (they're fine in a separate space, just not in the timeline)

No they're not. Nothing that mandates vertical video has ever been fine nor ever will be. Tiktok, Reels, Shorts, all bad and should be destroyed.

Unless the action is primarily vertical, which is rarely ever the case, it's always been and always will be wrong.

Yes I will die on this hill. Videos that are worse to watch on everything but a phone and have bad framing for most content are objectively bad.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of short videos of course, but this "built for phones, sucks for everything else" trash needs to go away.

▲dingaling 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Have you ever encountered portrait photos? They're orientated vertically because the human form, either head, bust or full body, fits better and excludes distractions.

Vertical videos, if they're focused on a human, work fine for the same reason.

▲smitelli 2 days ago | parent [-]

I'd be interested in seeing an example of a well-composed 9:16 portrait photo. All the ones I have found look awkward.

▲HankStallone 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah, portrait photos aren't as narrow as that. I just measured some of mine, and they're 5x7, 8x10, and 11x16. By comparison, 9x16 feels claustrophobic.

I suspect that a still image is also different from video because, without motion, there's no feeling that if the person might move a few inches to one side and go out of frame.

▲infecto 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You might be dead on that hill then. That ship has sailed long ago. Short format is mostly consumed on phones in vertical. Long form is still standard widths.

▲count 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

“Everything but a phone” is a tiny tiny percentage of the devices used to consume content on YouTube. It’s not just mobile first, it’s basically only mobile…

▲master-lincoln 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

SmartTube for Android TV can do that

▲FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Use the Unhook extension

▲computerfriend 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Or https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts.

▲Version467 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Unhook is great. Makes youtube on desktop bearable. Unfortunately does not work on phones :(

▲varelse 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

▲artninja1988 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Just don't watch them?

▲moi2388 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

How does that remove them?

▲exe34 3 days ago | parent [-]

do you feel a need to stop other people doing things you personally don't like?

▲close04 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I want to remove them from my own feed. I want the button that says "hide" or "show fewer shorts" to actually work and ideally hide them forever. I have to play whack-a-mole on the different devices and browsers to try to hide shorts.

▲exe34 3 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

▲close04 3 days ago | parent [-]

Well you aren’t wrong but the attitude isn’t helping.

It is my feed as far as it explains to you that it’s not about disabling something for others. It isn’t my feed as far as who actually controls it is concerned.

▲moi2388 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes. That’s the basis of literally every law and regulation known to man.

▲exe34 2 days ago | parent [-]

thank goodness that in some countries we have the concept of a private life, where you don't have to like what we do and you can't stop it.

▲moi2388 a day ago | parent [-]

Because there is a law that says I can’t do that? Gotcha xD

▲animuchan 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

▲exe34 3 days ago | parent [-]

are they making you go on YouTube?

▲animuchan 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

There are barely any alternatives, so yes, when I'm going to Google's or Meta's properties that's largely against my will. They literally make me, where "they" is a large and diverse group of entities.

To boycott Google I'd be forced to quit my job for example, as it literally forces me into Google's services.

Specifically YouTube has very little in the way of alternatives, but I get what you're saying — I just respectfully disagree with the coping method. Which is to say, on the gradient between "we should suck it up" and "we should Luigi Mangione the person responsible" I fall somewhere in the middle.

▲littlestymaar 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes?

Until content start being published elsewhere it's fair to say we are forced to go to YouTube to access it.

▲exe34 2 days ago | parent [-]

who's forcing you?

▲littlestymaar 2 days ago | parent [-]

Everyone who put mandatory stuff on YouTube and only here. Two last examples I faced recently:

- Companies who put their product instruction manual exclusively on YouTube

- university curriculum who require you to watch contain that is on YouTube only.

Sure I'm free not to buy any manufactured products or not resume my studies, but it's like saying the Gulag was OK because people were free not to criticize Stalin.

▲exe34 2 days ago | parent [-]

the shorts are on the home page for doomscrolling. all the examples above will give you a playlist or will embed the videos in their pages. I don't see how shorts on the home page are a problem here? could you clarify please?

▲littlestymaar 2 days ago | parent [-]

Funny how the “are they making you go on YouTube?” goalpost moved.

▲exe34 a day ago | parent [-]

"going on YouTube" and complaining about shorts made it sound like you were going to the home page where shorts are shown as an option.

going on YouTube to watch a single video from a manual is a very different thing. I didn't move the goal post, I pointed out your motte and bailey position.

▲littlestymaar 13 hours ago | parent [-]

There no motte, and no bailey, I never talked about shorts in the first place (surprise, there are multiple users on this platform …) I just witnessed your bad faith argument about how people aren't forced to go on YouTube and proved it wrong.

The key problem isn't that YouTube has been degrading its user experience for a while, the problem is that we don't have anywhere else to go as YouTube is the most encroached monopoly in the tech scene (which is no small feat).

▲exe34 11 hours ago | parent [-]

the whole conversation was about YouTube shorts. I was under the impression you were arguing in good faith - my bad.

▲littlestymaar 11 hours ago | parent [-]

The fact the the conversation was previously about shorts doesn't excuse bad faith rhetorical questions like “are they making you go on YouTube?”.

The funny thing is that you never gave me a slight bit of impression that you were arguing in good faith, and now you whine about that.

▲exe34 8 hours ago | parent [-]

doesn't sound like you even know what good faith is.

▲littlestymaar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

lol

▲alex1138 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a very common response where users acquiesce to an internet of mediocrity rather than demanding the corporations do better

I mostly don't watch them. But they literally spam every single search. (While we're at it, Youtube also isn't very good at honoring keywords in searches either)

▲seb1204 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Easy on the website. Very click and swipe intensive on the phone in my opinion. Shorts are front and centre of the app and the search screens. I don't see any feed of suggested videos anymore.

▲gblargg 3 days ago | parent [-]

Why would someone use the YouTube app? It's cancer.

▲reddalo 2 days ago | parent [-]

It's cancer unless you use ReVanced, which makes it almost nice.

▲globular-toast 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Just don't smoke/eat junk/do drugs etc. They put addictive shit in your face and force you to use their bloated interface to access the service.

▲mschuster91 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The worst thing for me is they don't show the channel names. So much of the channels pushing Star Wars shorts are quite obvious bot names, and it's hard to filter these from legitimate SW content creators who are, on top of that, all using the same damn AI voice.

▲sfn42 3 days ago | parent [-]

If I hear an AI voice I click the little menu button with three dots, then click don't show this channel or whatever it says.

The Venn diagram of AI voice users and good content creators is pretty close to two separate circles. I don't really care about the minority in the intersection.

▲mablopoule 3 days ago | parent [-]

Except that now Youtube also "helpfully" auto-dub legitimate videos in other languages (along with translating the titles) by default, so even the 'AI voice' isn't a good signal for gauging if it's quality content or not.

As a french-speaking person, I now find myself seeing french youtubers seemingly posting videos with english titles and robotic voice, before realizing that it's Youtube being stupid again.

What's more infuriating is that it's legitimately at heart a cool feature, just executed in the most brain-dead way possible, by making it opt-out and without the ability to specify known languages.

▲sfn42 3 days ago | parent [-]

That's gonna have to be the content creators' and YouTube's problem, I don't care.

▲meowface 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The response to junk food and cigarettes and drugs is to avoid them, not make them illegal.

▲ndriscoll 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's fair to make it illegal to sell or advertise those things to children at least.

▲meowface 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's fair, yeah. To a degree. Else you go full UK.

▲globular-toast 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Didn't say make them illegal, it's more about advertising and forcing people into situations that make it difficult to say no.

▲djmips 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If we take them at their word then it's just an extension of technology to optimize video... and it's called AI because buzzwords and hence controversy.

▲QuantumNomad_ 3 days ago | parent [-]

> it's just an extension of technology to optimize video... and it's called AI because buzzwords and hence controversy.

The controversy is that YouTube is making strange changes to the videos of users, that make the videos look fake.

YouTube creators put hours upon hours on writing, shooting and editing their videos. And those that do it full time often depend on YouTube and their audience for income.

If YouTube messes up the videos of creators and makes the videos look like they are fake, of course the creators are gonna be upset!

▲cma 2 days ago | parent [-]

It might be for making them compress better and be more likely to not buffer when you swipe up/preload more, like Tiktok serving them unencrypted to be more likely to be in a local cache for the ISP.

▲zozbot234 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Perhaps this was done to optimize video encoding, since the less noise/surface detail there is the easier it is to compress.

If so it's really just another kind of lossy compression. No different in principle from encoding a video to AV-1 format.

▲Springtime 3 days ago | parent [-]

Given the denoising is said to be aggressive enough to be noticeable on already compressed video I think criticism of it is fair. Just that it should be distinguished from something like Tiktok's 'beautifier' modifications, which from titles like the BBC's come to mind.