Google Videos going "down the Memory Hole"

:Mods Please move. I thought this was posting in Other Current Events:

I did a search and didn't find anything current on the demise of Google Video so I thought I'd let you know that as of April 29, 2011, videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback.

I received that info in an email from Google just a few hours ago. It looks like they'll let you download your own videos but no one else's. Oh, and if you do want to save your videos, hurry up you'll only have a few days to do it.

We’ve added a Download button to the video status page, so you can download any video content you want to save. If you don’t want to download your content, you don’t need to do anything. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

Of course Google encourages you to save your downloaded videos to YouTube but what about all those videos that go over YouTube's 15 minute upload limit? It seems all those independent movies, films and documentaries are headed for the memory hole.

Why don't Google just make the whole thing read-only - it's not like they can't afford it!

2nd line.

reply to post by survivalstation


youtube's 15 minute time limit is flexible though, so long as the video meets the size restriction. There was one on there earlier that i saw was 59mins long

reply to post by onyx718


I've seen some that went over 2 hours. They tend to have ads in them every 30min or so however.

reply to post by AdamsMurmur

It's my understanding that a 'regular Joe' Youtube account is limited to 2GB file size and 15 minutes in length but 'select' users may have their upload time limit removed. I remember a few years back when the limit was only 100MB and 10 minutes, unless you had a special publisher account.

Yeah, youtube will provide better accounts for some people. A normal account is 15 min max. I'm not sure if the better accounts have a cap or not, but I've seen video up to an hour on youtube.

Google videos was a great source for documentaries; I am sad to see it go. However, there are lots of other places to get such things; the aforementioned youtube is one.

Originally posted by survivalstation
reply to post by AdamsMurmur

 

It's my understanding that a 'regular Joe' Youtube account is limited to 2GB file size and 15 minutes in length but 'select' users may have their upload time limit removed. I remember a few years back when the limit was only 100MB and 10 minutes, unless you had a special publisher account.

You can purchase a pro-account or you can get those limits removed if you provide good content without copyright warnings etc. I believe. I have this:

Congratulations! Your account is now enabled for uploads longer than 15 minutes. Click the Upload button below to select a video.

Haven't needed it yet or tried.