SpaceX stops using YouTube; new content X only; effect on NSF content?

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/stevenyoungsfn/status/1698403857900978406

Looks like SpaceX is going all in on X. YouTube streams for Crew 6 splashdown and Starlink 6-12  webcasts have been removed and will now be streamed on X. Also links to all social media networks deleted from the SpaceX website menu.

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Just tried an experiment, the SDA launch yesterday was on both YouTube and X. First 2 screenshots attached are from YouTube and last 2 are from X.

They’re not exactly the same frames, I just went with same time stamps.

[EE Scott]

This is really an unfortunate development. While it shouldn't surprise me, it still sickens me. SpaceX's coverage of their launches has been such an enjoyable experience for me over the years. I'll miss it. Tying SpaceX and X closer together (even if only somewhat superficially) makes me shudder in disgust.

Sorry for the dramatics, but this is just so gross to me.

[Bob Shaw]

This is an understandable commercial decision. We have no right to complain about something which was free on one platform moving to another free platform! Musk sees an opportunity to staunch the flow of users from X and to reduce the revenue of YouTube! I hope, however, that the many independent space content creators survive this change.

[Chris Bergin]

Removed some rather unfortunate comments (and sorry for the one that quoted one, as that post was fine - but I need to keep the threads clean). Let's not get silly.

Needless to say NSF will continue to livestream on YT. X is not a viable proposition for livestreaming for us at this time.

This move from SpaceX (understandable by the way per Elon owning both) does not impact NSF as we provide original launch and livestream coverage via our people and cameras in the field.

As far as Crew-6's return, NASA will be livestreaming on YT.

[hartspace]

NASA related and possibly other government missions likely will remain on YouTube.  But I guess Elon must want fewer eyes on other SpaceX activities since a lot of people have easy access to YT and don't have X/Twitter accounts.  His business, so he can do whatever he wants.  Not a great plan in my opinion, but little of what he has done with X/Twitter since he took over has made much sense to me.  I'll be curious to see how NSF handles this, since the NSF coverage usually has a mix of NSF and SpaceX coverage.

[Ron Lee]

I assume that this means that to see the SpaceX coverage a person has to have a Twitter account and sign into it.

What is the NSF link for launch coverage?

[Chris Bergin]

NASA related and possibly other government missions likely will remain on YouTube.  But I guess Elon must want fewer eyes on other SpaceX activities since a lot of people have easy access to YT and don't have X/Twitter accounts.  His business, so he can do whatever he wants.  Not a great plan in my opinion, but little of what he has done with X/Twitter since he took over has made much sense to me.  I'll be curious to see how NSF handles this, since the NSF coverage usually has a mix of NSF and SpaceX coverage.

We have clever folk. Vast majority is our own cams, but for like a landing on a drone ship - when Jack isn't out there in his Kayak - we can still show it

If it's on a screen, we can show it.

[hartspace]

I assume that this means that to see the SpaceX coverage a person has to have a Twitter account and sign into it.

What is the NSF link for launch coverage?

The link for all NSF YouTube coverage is https://www.youtube.com/@NASASpaceflight

[Jarnis]

Terrible move as X has become pretty much unusable without logging in and "workarounds" like Nitter cannot handle livestreams. 

Used to spread the word by linking to SpaceX launch streams to various private chats to get more people watch (usually with good response) but no way I'm going to post a link to X livestream as it'll just generate ton of hate with "this crap doesn't work without an account".

Oh well, I guess they have considered the tradeoff - far less viewers, far less interest vs. some theoretical business advantage to X.

I would not consider this to be anywhere near this big of a deal if X was actually usable without logging in.

[Zed_Noir]

I assume that this means that to see the SpaceX coverage a person has to have a Twitter account and sign into it.
.....

You can still sign into X (formerly known as twitter) with a google account. Suggest setting up new Google account just for accessing X.

[Jarnis]

You do know that signing into X using Google account is same as creating an account. You just use Google OAuth as the login method instead of making another username/password. From the point of view of X, you are still signing in.

It is all about tracking, metrics and that sweet sweet data to target ads.

(and, I guess partially to block wholesale scraping of Twitter data for various uses, like say training your crappy AI chatbot...)

[catdlr]

As a content editor, I've noticed that X videos are no longer easily downloadable from these new "X's Broadcast Broadcast servers." Most of the third-party software used to download is no longer usable. But I'm sure in a few weeks third-party software will catch up and make the necessary updates.

[Kspbutitscursed]

Removed some rather unfortunate comments (and sorry for the one that quoted one, as that post was fine - but I need to keep the threads clean). Let's not get silly.

Needless to say NSF will continue to livestream on YT. X is not a viable proposition for livestreaming for us at this time.

This move from SpaceX (understandable by the way per Elon owning both) does not impact NSF as we provide original launch and livestream coverage via our people and cameras in the field.

As far as Crew-6's return, NASA will be livestreaming on YT.

Hi i was wondering if for the starship IFT you could steam both the Official spacex stream and your own

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I would not consider this to be anywhere near this big of a deal if X was actually usable without logging in.

AIUI, why logging in became necessary was to limited number of tweets read by an URL address daily. Some A.I. companies are harvesting thousands of tweet conversations per second from a single URL address within their server farms to train their A.I. systems for free without compensating X (formerly known as Twitter).

Think all social media will limit the quantity of messages(tweets) viewed by tracking usage per URL address eventually. Hopefully X and other social media platforms will offer passive non-posting accounts to access their platforms in the future.

[Ken the Bin]

In the past I've watched the NSF livestream only until the SpaceX livestream would go live. (Among other things, this system is an underpowered Windows 10 virtual machine running on a Windows 7 host, so too many livestreams drags it down, even at 480p.)

I'm not going to watch SpaceX on the deadbird site, so now I'll watch whatever NSF can provide (unless it's a launch that NASA is also covering).

In the past I've promoted both the SpaceX and NSF livestreams on Mastodon and in the Ars Technica forum. Now it will be just NSF. I've already posted about the situation both places.

Also, another user on Ars posted that he unsubscribed from the SpaceX YouTube channel. I've done the same.

[jackvancouver]

It doesn't hurt to boost SFN as an alternative for specifically Cape launches. There are people out there that like minimalist commentary vs zero commentary and now that SpaceX has done this, it's basically up to all other content providers to pick up the slack.

Another thing to keep in mind is X has zero presence in Smart TVs and set top boxes.

[Robotbeat]

That latter thing is a pretty good point, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before X is added to smart TVs.

[daveglo]

So much unfortunate complaining.  X is a perfectly decent platform, and of course SpaceX would go to it preferentially.  Looking forward to the Starlink launch shortly.

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

The NSF feed can be, well, a bit tiresome with the extraneous dialog.  But I get why it's there, and not going to vent about it, either.

Every source has a role to play.

[spacenuance]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

Yeah no MCC audio is terrible. Im not opposed to streaming on X, but just cutting out YT streams before X is even capable of 4k + many other features from YT? Dual streams not possible? This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

This is good news for NSF, SFN, etc. I guess.

[DanClemmensen]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

Why should SpaceX care? it only affects the real fanatics (like us), and we will work around the problem. Nobody else cares, so there is not effect on the bottom line.

[chopsticks]

So much unfortunate complaining.  X is a perfectly decent platform, and of course SpaceX would go to it preferentially.  Looking forward to the Starlink launch shortly.

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

The NSF feed can be, well, a bit tiresome with the extraneous dialog.  But I get why it's there, and not going to vent about it, either.

Every source has a role to play.

No. It's not unfortunate complaining. It's very well warranted complaining because X is exclusive (have to have an account to use it) and the video quality is terrible. YouTube has its own issues as well, but at least it works okay.

[chopsticks]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

Why should SpaceX care? it only affects the real fanatics (like us), and we will work around the problem. Nobody else cares, so there is not effect on the bottom line.

Only a few million care. Look at how many views some of the popular launches have gotten on YT.

[Torlek]

It's going to be funny if this causes !twitter's video servers to melt down and Elon throws another tantrum over it.

[daveglo]

No. It's not unfortunate complaining. It's very well warranted complaining because X is exclusive (have to have an account to use it) and the video quality is terrible. YouTube has its own issues as well, but at least it works okay.

Ahem.  Making an X account is not a challenge.  The video quality is not 4K (yet), but hardly terrible.

The Starlink launch just broadcast on X was watched live by about 9K users, and the replay already has 157K impressions.

EDIT: Now showing over 60K viewers.

I think some patience is called for, instead of a lot of handwaving.

[Steven Pietrobon]

In the past I've watched the NSF livestream only until the SpaceX livestream would go live. (Among other things, this system is an underpowered Windows 10 virtual machine running on a Windows 7 host, so too many livestreams drags it down, even at 480p.)

I suggest using the MyPal browser for Windows 7 (works great with Windows XP as well) to view Twitter and other sites.

http://www.mypal-browser.org/

What I miss now that videos are on Twitter.

1) No countdown to when the video will start.
2) No separate mission control audio.
3) Poor video quality for some users.
4) Live pause and play not available.

What SpaceX could do is combine the previous mission control audio and hosted streams into one. The stream starts at about T-45 minutes with mission control audio and the launch animation. At T-5 minutes or earlier the hosted or non-hosted stream starts. For hosted streams, continue until the end. For non-hosted Starlink streams continue until the end of the second stage burn or shortly after. Then switch back to the animation and mission control audio until payload separation.

I found it amusing that you could adjust the play speed for a livestream! Much more useful would be to replace that with an adjustable video resolution.

[Step55]

Who still uses Windows 7 and XP?

[M.E.T.]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

Why should SpaceX care? it only affects the real fanatics (like us), and we will work around the problem. Nobody else cares, so there is not effect on the bottom line.

Only a few million care. Look at how many views some of the popular launches have gotten on YT.

What’s the problem with creating an X account? It’s free.

As for the quality issue - that’s just a matter of time. 4k and a Smart TV app are obvious next steps for X.

I don’t get the big deal. Unless one’s objection is ideologically driven, in which case that’s a self imposed constraint.

As for the potential business impact - pretty much zero. SpaceX makes no money from its launch broadcasts. It’s mostly for fanatics like us, who will watch it wherever we can get access to it.

[catdlr]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

Why should SpaceX care? it only affects the real fanatics (like us), and we will work around the problem. Nobody else cares, so there is not effect on the bottom line.

Only a few million care. Look at how many views some of the popular launches have gotten on YT.

As for the potential business impact - pretty much zero. SpaceX makes no money from its launch broadcasts. It’s mostly for fanatics like us, who will watch it wherever we can get access to it.

Isn't Google making money on ads that interfere with the YT viewing that Elon is not getting any of?

[M.E.T.]

Don’t know what this means for Mission Control audio

This whole thing feels like an elon idea that the spacex team let slip by into the real world . . .

Why should SpaceX care? it only affects the real fanatics (like us), and we will work around the problem. Nobody else cares, so there is not effect on the bottom line.

Only a few million care. Look at how many views some of the popular launches have gotten on YT.

As for the potential business impact - pretty much zero. SpaceX makes no money from its launch broadcasts. It’s mostly for fanatics like us, who will watch it wherever we can get access to it.

Isn't Google making money on ads that interfere with the YT viewing that Elon is not getting any of?

Let me rephrase. The minimal ad revenue involved is not material for SpaceX. And will probably be replicated on X.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Benji Reed is asked at Crew-6 press conference about why SpaceX has moved off YouTube. He answers he’s been focussed on Crew-6 and doesn’t know.

[catdlr]

Benji Reed is asked at Crew-6 press conference about why SpaceX has moved off YouTube. He answers he’s been focussed on Crew-6 and doesn’t know.

I just had a discussion with a popular Space Video provider (videos we link to many times) and they are not willing to support or willing to re-broadcast even if it's allowed.

[novo2044]

All this hand wringing over 4k vs 1080p is… something.  The general impression I’ve gotten is that Spacex is most indifferent, sometimes mildly annoyed at the ecosystem of social media leeching off their activities.

[zack]

The problems with using Twitter as as a video source are multiple:

- Lower quality, even the bad NASA 720p Youtube stream looked better
- Less accessible, you will get much more eyeballs on videos on Youtube, easier to inspire random viewers
- Search ability for older streams is going to be a pain

[HVM]

...As for the quality issue - that’s just a matter of time...

So maybe do the change when it's THE time. Now stream was dog $hit quality and even Elon Fan Club members like myself should be able to admit it.

[novo2044]

...As for the quality issue - that’s just a matter of time...

So maybe do the change when it's THE time. Now stream was dog $hit quality and even Elon Fan Club members like myself should be able to admit it.

I literally didn’t notice any difference, though I was watching the Crew6 recovery on my phone. What interesting is that apparently 90% of YouTube viewers use mobile devices in which case 4k doesn’t matter much. That statistic shocked me but the more I thought about it the more I realized it reflected my own viewing habits.

As far as reach goes just to pick a recent example, the SDA mission has 9k likes and 163k views on YouTube.  The clip of just the launch has 30k likes and 3.8M views on X.  Obviously they aren’t directly comparable but that is an absolutely massive advantage for X.  That doesn’t even count another 36k likes and another 4.3M views for the landing.  If you are going to argue YT has better reach I think you are going to need to back it up somehow.

Now search is an issue since advanced search is web only.  Don’t know why they don’t make it a default option.  Well I do know: features like that get shockingly little usage on mobile.

Overall I’m indifferent to the change. But looking at the numbers I’m a lot less surprised.  YouTube is bigger but Elon has the biggest X account and frequently retweets Spacex which is also very popular, so Spacex clips and posts get massive exposure in general.  Arguably more than on YouTube where I’m constantly blocking low quality SpaceX “commentary” and scams that the algorithm seems to love

[StevenOBrien]

Who still uses Windows 7 and XP?

The same people who still browse phpBB forums, probably.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

As far as reach goes just to pick a recent example, the SDA mission has 9k likes and 163k views on YouTube.  The clip of just the launch has 30k likes and 3.8M views on X.  Obviously they aren’t directly comparable but that is an absolutely massive advantage for X.  That doesn’t even count another 36k likes and another 4.3M views for the landing.  If you are going to argue YT has better reach I think you are going to need to back it up somehow.

Views on X of the SDA launch stream are now comparable to YouTube.  (Although I don’t know how long you have to watch on either platform to count as a view.)

The tweet containing the stream obviously has a much higher view count.

[M.E.T.]

I think the relatively small space fan community overestimate their importance in the bigger scheme of things. Elon doesn’t lose anything significant from SpaceX’s Youtube departure, while he gains a great deal from growing X.

And Elon has 78% control over SpaceX. So that’s pretty much that.

Best option is to get with the program and register those free X accounts. And thereby help to hasten X’s rise to 4k capability and Smart TV accessibility.

[Martin_G]

Would it work if someone with a Twitter account posts the link to the live stream? Videos can be accessed without an account when the direct URL is used, e.g. https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1695158759717474379.

[edkyle99]

All this hand wringing over 4k vs 1080p is… something.  ...

Especially when the launches are hidden by the oversized graphics, as they have been now for years. 

As for X, sorry but I can't. 

 - Ed Kyle

[abaddon]

All this hand wringing over 4k vs 1080p is… something.  ...

As for X, sorry but I can't. 

 - Ed Kyle

No apology necessary.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I have been able to download the archive videos using yt-dlp. Unfortunately for some reason some of the stream's best kept quality is 720p 60FPS instead of 1080p for some reason (e.g. Starlink 6-12; Crew-6 crew egress is too but that's the same for the ones hoisted on NASA TV). On the other hand Crew-6 splashdown and the SDA Tranche 0 launch can be found in 1080p on TwitterX.

Due to file sizes I personally keep these at 1080p if available. Shame that 2K and 4K versions aren't available since they definitely were there on Youtube.

[spacenut]

They are really pushing 5K phones now.  However, the industry hasn't caught up with the general population.  Many people are still using 720 TV's.  Some using 1080.  Broadcasts for TV is still only 1080 in most places.  Video games and some movies are in higher quality now, but you still have to have TV's to match to get the high quality and they have to be backwards compatable.  X will get better with time. 

[Robotbeat]

Yeah, people's understandable frustration with Musk and Twitter notwithstanding, Twitter still objectively sucks for video. I think they'll probably fix it eventually. Even something like Vimeo or any of the many streaming sites is better, so I think they'll figure it out.

I wish Musk would stop wasting time on "X." I don't even doubt that he can make it a valuable company, but it just seems like a waste of his resources (including time) as well as those around him.

As fellow weird tech billion Peter Thiel once said, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."

Then again, serving videos is something that might make sense to integrate into Starlink. Video is a significant portion of Comcast's revenue, for instance.

…and streaming video is the majority of bandwidth usage of Starlink.

[spacenut]

Musk want's X to be the end all be all app.  He wants to incorporate financial into it, like bill paying and money transfers.  Trying to make it like Pay Pal.  Maybe he is trying to do too much all at the same time. 

[Jarnis]

Would it work if someone with a Twitter account posts the link to the live stream? Videos can be accessed without an account when the direct URL is used, e.g.

Video clips yes, livestreams no. This seems very very intentional.

I may consider signing into X around the time they have 4K, pauseable livestreams, actual watchable video window sizes (not "tiny postage stamp or full screen" that it is now) and actual way to search old events.

Elon is doing it wrong. You can give first impressions on new shiny feature that is trying to compete with existing providers exactly once. Making that first impression to be "video servers on fire, glorious 360p, no features, must login" means no-one will ever come watch another video on your platform for a very very long time. They tried, it is crap.

If intention is to push developers, multicast on YT and X. Watch which one people use. As long as X is losing, developers have work to do.

[Thorny]

They are really pushing 5K phones now.  However, the industry hasn't caught up with the general population.  Many people are still using 720 TV's.  Some using 1080.  Broadcasts for TV is still only 1080 in most places.  Video games and some movies are in higher quality now, but you still have to have TV's to match to get the high quality and they have to be backwards compatable.  X will get better with time. 

Or it will be the next MySpace, which customers dropped in great numbers once something better came along.

[novo2044]

As far as reach goes just to pick a recent example, the SDA mission has 9k likes and 163k views on YouTube.  The clip of just the launch has 30k likes and 3.8M views on X.  Obviously they aren’t directly comparable but that is an absolutely massive advantage for X.  That doesn’t even count another 36k likes and another 4.3M views for the landing.  If you are going to argue YT has better reach I think you are going to need to back it up somehow.

Views on X of the SDA launch stream are now comparable to YouTube.  (Although I don’t know how long you have to watch on either platform to count as a view.)

The tweet containing the stream obviously has a much higher view count.

Maybe I wasn’t being clear enough.  The actual livestream did similar numbers.  The short form clips of take off and landing did vastly better numbers.  This is an absolutely no surprise to anyone in the content creation sphere: an engaging 30 second clip gets many times more views/watch time than the source stream since people can’t be bothered to scroll through hours of content when someone can spoon feed them the interesting parts.  Classically the frustrating part was that other people would clip popular streams and get more views (and money) than the actual source. 

I doubt Spacex cares about ad rev or sponsorships.  But their own clips are being engaged and viewed far more than their actual streams on either platform.  In the short form arena X probably has an advantage over YouTube given the oddities of the algorithm.

Also I find the complaints about child abuse and hate speech etc unconvincing.  By what metric have they have increased or for that matter decreased?  Claims Twitter is about to die sound familiar to anyone who’s been on this forum for any length of time. Probably with more justification in the case of early Falcon mishaps.

[Ken the Bin]

A petition on Change.org (not by me) for SpaceX to bring back YouTube livestreams. I doubt it will do any good, but it can't hurt.

https://www.change.org/p/bring-back-spacex-live-streaming-on-youtube-for-all-space-enthusiasts

[Metalskin]

The biggest problem for me is that I subscribed to the SpaceX Youtube channel and could easily see when a launch was up and coming. With Twitter it feels like I have to search and scan for info and it's only sheer luck if you stumble across it.

Added to that is timezone issues. Often I cannot catch a flight, so seeing in my subscriptions which ones I've not yet watched makes it easy for me to watch a flight that happened overnight or during the day while working.

As for the NSF streams, I personally do not like them, as the endless chatter is off putting for me. I just want mission control audio. To be honest, I found the SpaceX stream frustrating for the same reason. Felt like watching a morning show program. The continual stating of the bloody obvious, repeating what the mission control audio said, over explaining what is happening, so annoying. In my mind, the commentators appear to be trained to fill silence.

[Nomadd]

 Twitter still refuses to restore my account, even after I fixed the wiring in the owner's garage for free, so I guess I'll stick with NSF's videos.

[Exastro]

The biggest problem for me is that I subscribed to the SpaceX Youtube channel and could easily see when a launch was up and coming. With Twitter it feels like I have to search and scan for info and it's only sheer luck if you stumble across it.

Added to that is timezone issues. Often I cannot catch a flight, so seeing in my subscriptions which ones I've not yet watched makes it easy for me to watch a flight that happened overnight or during the day while working.

You may find Next Spaceflight useful.  It lists upcoming launches (not just SpaceX) in local times, and provide links to livestreams.  There's also a list of recent launches and other info.

[Metalskin]

You may find Next Spaceflight useful.  It lists upcoming launches (not just SpaceX) in local times, and provide links to livestreams.  There's also a list of recent launches and other info.

Yep, thanks for the heads-up, but I already have it installed. I just find it incredibly slow, maybe they've improved it lately. The main issue for me is knowing what I've missed and being able to easily watch it.

[catdlr]

You may find Next Spaceflight useful.  It lists upcoming launches (not just SpaceX) in local times, and provide links to livestreams.  There's also a list of recent launches and other info.

Yep, thanks for the heads-up, but I already have it installed. I just find it incredibly slow, maybe they've improved it lately. The main issue for me is knowing what I've missed and being able to easily watch it.

Don't feel alone; a lot of us are in the same boat. Keep tuned, we'll come up with a better method. There are a lot of great minds here in the forum.

[DetailCurious]

No need for the app.

You can subscribe to a calendar that Thunderbird (Outlook, Google, icloud, Android Calendar, etc) can read (and automagically sync).

Calendar items include date/time, location, and a link to the website for details.

It's not prominent on the website; there's a link in the website's footer.

Direct link to instructions: https://nextspaceflight.com/calendar/

[ClayJar]

That the "Tweets from @NASASpaceflight" box has been permanently stuck on some old tweets has been annoying, but my TV doesn't even have a U+1D54F app to watch launches on a big screen (assuming I had a U+1D54F account).

[RedLineTrain]

I was under the impression that SpaceX has to pay for YouTube hosting.  And then you have to turn on ads in order for YouTube to provide reach (that's probably why SpaceX has turned them on, not because they expect to make any money off the ads).  Also, I have been having trouble finding the official SpaceX stream rather than the knock-offs.

YouTube is a great service, but it's not perfect.  I know that for many years, Tesla has often tried to use non-YouTube services for its livestreams.  It would not surprise me to learn that Musk was pushing those efforts.

I will watch the official stream wherever it is shown.  It would be nice to have a 4K stream that I can watch on my smart TV.  My expectation is that for the big upcoming launches, they will be simulcast on YouTube.

It should be noted that Twitter's video and streaming is under very active development.  It wouldn't surprise me to see Twitter have feature parity with YouTube in a half year or so.

[zubenelgenubi]

Moderator:
I edited the thread title to explicitly state that discussing this action's effect on NSF content is on-topic.

Also, I performed a slight thread trim of posts that veered into general complaints about Elon Musk and general policy changes at X, firings 🔥, etc.

I also created a splinter thread here: Comments on NSF video content commentary.  Please continue such discussion there.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/robotbeat/status/1699234289349484937

This video has much sharper quality than normal that I've noticed for Twitter videos.

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1699229958064005624

I know the SpaceX tweet is not a stream, but can anyone establish what resolution the drone video is at? Wouldn’t surprise me if Elon made sure SpaceX could use beta features not yet generally available.

[octavo]

I was under the impression that SpaceX has to pay for YouTube hosting.  And then you have to turn on ads in order for YouTube to provide reach (that's probably why SpaceX has turned them on, not because they expect to make any money off the ads).  Also, I have been having trouble finding the official SpaceX stream rather than the knock-offs.

No, you do not have to pay YouTube anything to host videos. You will not see adverts if you have a YouTube Premium subscription. YouTube keeps the service free by serving ads.

[RedLineTrain]

I was under the impression that SpaceX has to pay for YouTube hosting.  And then you have to turn on ads in order for YouTube to provide reach (that's probably why SpaceX has turned them on, not because they expect to make any money off the ads).  Also, I have been having trouble finding the official SpaceX stream rather than the knock-offs.

No, you do not have to pay YouTube anything to host videos. You will not see adverts if you have a YouTube Premium subscription. YouTube keeps the service free by serving ads.

Are you sure that there aren't charges for high-profile business accounts?  SpaceX has an extensive catalogue of videos, some of which have a high number of views.

[cartman]

its 1080p@60fps. Bitrate could be higher, it is only 3MBits

https://twitter.com/robotbeat/status/1699234289349484937

This video has much sharper quality than normal that I've noticed for Twitter videos.

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1699229958064005624

I know the SpaceX tweet is not a stream, but can anyone establish what resolution the drone video is at? Wouldn’t surprise me if Elon made sure SpaceX could use beta features not yet generally available.

[Starmang10]

its 1080p@60fps. Bitrate could be higher, it is only 3MBits

https://twitter.com/robotbeat/status/1699234289349484937

This video has much sharper quality than normal that I've noticed for Twitter videos.

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1699229958064005624

I know the SpaceX tweet is not a stream, but can anyone establish what resolution the drone video is at? Wouldn’t surprise me if Elon made sure SpaceX could use beta features not yet generally available.

I would still prefer to use it on Youtube, though.

[Cabbage123]

Given the upcoming Starship launch the timing of this could not be worse.

Normally I have YouTube via Firefox on my Win 10 desktop with an HDMI cable running to a 55 inch 1080 TV as a second desktop. The picture is always perfect, and enjoyed by all the family.

I've just tried watching the latest Starlink launch on my desktop and, although the resolution seems to vary, this is what I am getting most of the time (1080 monitor).

How does that compare to what other people are getting, and are there any settings to play with or other tweaks (different browsers etc)?

[DaveS]

Given the upcoming Starship launch the timing of this could not be worse.

Normally I have YouTube via Firefox on my Win 10 desktop with an HDMI cable running to a 55 inch 1080 TV as a second desktop. The picture is always perfect, and enjoyed by all the family.

I've just tried watching the latest Starlink launch on my desktop and, although the resolution seems to vary, this is what I am getting most of the time (1080 monitor).

How does that compare to what other people are getting, and are there any settings to play with or other tweaks (different browsers etc)?

If you're talking about YT, then the stream resolution can be changed by clicking the gear icon in the lower right and selecting your desired resolution from the Quality submenu. Your screenshot looks like 480p rather than full HD (1080p).

[Cabbage123]

If you're talking about YT, then the stream resolution can be changed by clicking the gear icon in the lower right and selecting your desired resolution from the Quality submenu. Your screenshot looks like 480p rather than full HD (1080p).

Thanks Dave. No, I have no problems with YouTube and do set it to 1080.

The screenshot is watching the last Starlink launch webcast on X.com this evening. When I click on the cog in X, I just get the option to change the playback speed but no resolution options (please see screenshot below).

When I watch the last full stack short the resolution looks much better. The two screenshots below were both taken on X.com on the same machine a few seconds apart, so I don't think it is an internet connection speed issue,

[octavo]

Are you sure that there aren't charges for high-profile business accounts?  SpaceX has an extensive catalogue of videos, some of which have a high number of views.

I am yes, Youtube does not charge users for hosting. Youtube is entirely subscription and ad supported. I have multiple 4-6 hour livestreams of me playing Kerbal Space Program and Rocket League from my PS5 on YouTube and I have about 8 total subscribers.

[markbike528cbx]

Looking at the bright side, my hobby of watching launches just got easier by a factor of about 3 or more.
Won’t watch Spacex on X/Twitter without NSF
Won’t watch Roscosmos - boycott due to the invasion of Ukraine
Can’t find Chinese launches
That leaves ISRO, JAXA, ESA and miscellaneous.
So I’m back down to a few or none a month.   

[catdlr]

Looking at the bright side, my hobby of watching launches just got easier by a factor of about 3 or more.
Won’t watch Spacex on X/Twitter without NSF
Won’t watch Roscosmos - boycott due to the invasion of Ukraine
Can’t find Chinese launches
That leaves ISRO, JAXA, ESA and miscellaneous.
So I’m back down to a few or none a month.   

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows, and even then, we were lucky to receive a brief 1-2 minute story about a launch. In the 60s and 70s, there were hundreds of launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, but none of them ever made it to the news, let alone a launch video or picture. Thanks to posts in the NSF Historical Threads, I have learned more about those old launches than I ever did back then. Today, people are so eager for videos of space launches that they feel entitled to them, and when they are not available, we become frantic like snowbugs running around.

Tony

[woods170]

Looking at the bright side, my hobby of watching launches just got easier by a factor of about 3 or more.
Won’t watch Spacex on X/Twitter without NSF
Won’t watch Roscosmos - boycott due to the invasion of Ukraine
Can’t find Chinese launches
That leaves ISRO, JAXA, ESA and miscellaneous.
So I’m back down to a few or none a month.   

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows, and even then, we were lucky to receive a brief 1-2 minute story about a launch. In the 60s and 70s, there were hundreds of launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, but none of them ever made it to the news, let alone a launch video or picture. Thanks to posts in the NSF Historical Threads, I have learned more about those old launches than I ever did back then. Today, people are so eager for videos of space launches that they feel entitled to them, and when they are not available, we become frantic like snowbugs running around.

Tony

Emphasis mine.

Agreed 100%!

These kind of people would go through severe withdrawal symptoms if they were sent back in time a mere 20 years. Even at the beginning of this century the vast majority of launches were not live-streamed. Nor were they live-broadcasted on TV. Live-streaming on the internet was still in its infancy back then.

I lived through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and most launches shown on TV (most of the time not even live broadcasted) were shuttle launches. Other launches that made it to the news were either BIG launches or failed launches. My impressions of spaceflight existed not so much from moving images, but from still-images available in newspapers, magazines and the occassional mail-package from the NASA PR folks.

I was however fortunate enough to live in the Netherlands back then. Renowned Dutch spaceflight journalist Piet Smolders had a TV program called "Nieuws uit de Ruimte" (News from Space) appearing on Dutch TV about two or three times per year. It was THE Go-To TV event to get footage of the latest launches from the USA, Europe AND the Soviet Union (courtesy of Piet having good connections in all of these places). I always had the VCR ready to record when that program began.

The current generation of live-stream addicts can't even begin to imagine the situation where footage from a particular launch reaches their Mk. 1 eyesballs some three months after it happened, if ever. But that was the default in the latter half of last century.
So, it annoys the h*ll out of me when some of those folks start complaining about twitter not being able to live-stream in 4K. Spoiled little brats they are if you ask me.

[HVM]

^Woods

-And you were forced to ski to the school in winter and summer, and it always was uphill, in both directions.

Old Finnish Proverb.

[Barley]

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows,

Time, Life, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, occasionally Rolling Stone or Playboy.  There was plenty of coverage.  But tell kids that today and they won't believe you.

[Herb Schaltegger]

I was under the impression that SpaceX has to pay for YouTube hosting.  And then you have to turn on ads in order for YouTube to provide reach (that's probably why SpaceX has turned them on, not because they expect to make any money off the ads).  Also, I have been having trouble finding the official SpaceX stream rather than the knock-offs.

No, you do not have to pay YouTube anything to host videos. You will not see adverts if you have a YouTube Premium subscription. YouTube keeps the service free by serving ads.

Are you sure that there aren't charges for high-profile business accounts?  SpaceX has an extensive catalogue of videos, some of which have a high number of views.

No, even “high-profile business accounts” do not pay hosting charges. The true high-value clients (think: Disney, NewsCorp, UniversalComcast or whatever they call themselves these days ….) may have special co-marketing deals with special ad sales and placement agreements to maximize revenue generated by their content, and agreements to use some specially-created content as inserted ads in other users’ content, but they don’t pay for hosting.

(As an aside - it’s these kinds of deals which are the real money makers for Google and what Twitter - pre-Elon - was striving to emulate. Post-Elon, Twitter/X has shed advertisers - and those those sweet, sweet ad revenues - badly.)

[woods170]

^Woods

-And you were forced to ski to the school in winter and summer, and it always was uphill, in both directions.

Old Finnish Proverb.

No, I don't exaggerate.
I went to school by bike and cheated on the uphill portions by getting towed by my best friend who was riding his moped.

[JMS]

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows, and even then, we were lucky to receive a brief 1-2 minute story about a launch. In the 60s and 70s, there were hundreds of launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, but none of them ever made it to the news, let alone a launch video or picture. Thanks to posts in the NSF Historical Threads, I have learned more about those old launches than I ever did back then. Today, people are so eager for videos of space launches that they feel entitled to them, and when they are not available, we become frantic like snowbugs running around.

Tony

I remember the excitement of the TV cart (black & white) being rolled into my classroom for Gemini and Apollo launches. And the updates on the CBS evening news ... my father's preference. So, while not being a fan of twitter/X, if that's where SpaceX will be going forward, I'll be there without complaint. NSF as well.
As an original space cadet, you bet your turtle I appreciate the current abundance of riches.

Now, get off my lawn.

[Psynchro]

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

Ads? I have no idea of which you speak.

It is pretty annoying for many reasons. The quality, the notifications, the relative difficulty of finding previous streams.

IMO, a very bad move.

[catdlr]

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows,

Time, Life, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, occasionally Rolling Stone or Playboy.  There was plenty of coverage.  But tell kids that today and they won't believe you.

Right,Kids now want to live-stream their personal media display equipment (smartphones, etc.) with chat alongside the stream to ask silly questions. I was excited to wait a month to read an in-depth space-related article with diagrams and a few well-composed photos in any of the aforementioned periodicals, delivered to my mailbox via snail mail. ( .....but perhaps not Playboy).  Thanks, Barlrey.

[catdlr]

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

I understand that you get ads while watching YouTube or Roku directly on your Smart TV. That can be annoying. But, as Yoda would say; "There is another." Ad blockers are available to eliminate that entirely for PCs and smartphones. Just screencast or drive the PC screen to the TV via HDMI and voila, no ads.

[Robotbeat]

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

I understand that you get ads while watching YouTube or Roku directly on your Smart TV. That can be annoying. But, as Yoda would say; "There is another." Ad blockers are available to eliminate that entirely for PCs and smartphones. Just screencast or drive the PC screen to the TV via HDMI and voila, no ads.

I wonder how long Google will allow that.

[Navier–Stokes]

I'm glad that NSF livestreams will still be an option at least. I don't see myself coming back to Twitter/X anytime soon as much as I miss following Eric Berger/Jeff Foust and watching SpaceX livestreams.

[catdlr]

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

I understand that you get ads while watching YouTube or Roku directly on your Smart TV. That can be annoying. But, as Yoda would say; "There is another." Ad blockers are available to eliminate that entirely for PCs and smartphones. Just screencast or drive the PC screen to the TV via HDMI and voila, no ads.

I wonder how long Google will allow that.

I've been using them for quite some time. If one doesn't do the job, another will.  I can't provide the name Chris would be mad if I told you.

[Metalskin]

I understand that you get ads while watching YouTube or Roku directly on your Smart TV. That can be annoying. But, as Yoda would say; "There is another." Ad blockers are available to eliminate that entirely for PCs and smartphones. Just screencast or drive the PC screen to the TV via HDMI and voila, no ads.

I wonder how long Google will allow that.

New version of how plugins are managed in chrome (Manifest 3) will stop a lot of what adblockers can do. Google have delayed the testing, but when it comes in then adblockers will be rendered useless for things like youtube. It will impact chromecasting.

Initially it was going to be tested early this year, but it's been delayed and there has been no update from Google.

[jimvela]

New version of how plugins are managed in chrome (Manifest 3) will stop a lot of what adblockers can do. Google.

That marks the time to be off Chrome and on to FireFox or other browser full time.

[edzieba]

I get annoyed at the YT ads that pop up right at staging when watching replays, but not going to vent about it.

I understand that you get ads while watching YouTube or Roku directly on your Smart TV. That can be annoying. But, as Yoda would say; "There is another." Ad blockers are available to eliminate that entirely for PCs and smartphones. Just screencast or drive the PC screen to the TV via HDMI and voila, no ads.

I wonder how long Google will allow that.

Until they start re-encoding every single youtube video for every viewer to embed the ads into a single stream.

When your ad delivery mechanism requires on asking the browser on a user's device to pretty-please pause the video and play a different video, then they are reliant on winning a quixotic arms race between nerds who hate ads who want to not see them and have full control of the computer that is displaying the ads, and nerds who hate ads but are paid to implement them on a computer they have no control over.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I'm glad that NSF livestreams will still be an option at least. I don't see myself coming back to Twitter/X anytime soon as much as I miss following Eric Berger/Jeff Foust and watching SpaceX livestreams.

Unfortunately this isn't an option for Vandenberg launches (at least some of them), as seen from today.

[HelixSpiral]

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows,

Time, Life, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, occasionally Rolling Stone or Playboy.  There was plenty of coverage.  But tell kids that today and they won't believe you.

Right,Kids now want to live-stream their personal media display equipment (smartphones, etc.) with chat alongside the stream to ask silly questions. I was excited to wait a month to read an in-depth space-related article with diagrams and a few well-composed photos in any of the aforementioned periodicals, delivered to my mailbox via snail mail. ( .....but perhaps not Playboy).  Thanks, Barlrey.

Why do you assume it's "kids"? And what's the point here? Can someone not express disappointment that something that was pretty good is now just meh at best without the cliche "back in my day" retorts?

[psionedge]

New version of how plugins are managed in chrome (Manifest 3) will stop a lot of what adblockers can do. Google.

That marks the time to be off Chrome and on to FireFox or other browser full time.

Or just pay for youtube premium. No ads plus the channels you like make more money than they would from ads.

[Prettz]

I will be surprised if this policy lasts to the end of October. Even with twitter's BS view statistics, they'll have to notice at some point that no one is watching.

[RedLineTrain]

I can recall a time when news about space was only available on the three major Network evening news shows,

Time, Life, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, occasionally Rolling Stone or Playboy.  There was plenty of coverage.  But tell kids that today and they won't believe you.

Right,Kids now want to live-stream their personal media display equipment (smartphones, etc.) with chat alongside the stream to ask silly questions. I was excited to wait a month to read an in-depth space-related article with diagrams and a few well-composed photos in any of the aforementioned periodicals, delivered to my mailbox via snail mail. ( .....but perhaps not Playboy).  Thanks, Barlrey.

Why do you assume it's "kids"? And what's the point here? Can someone not express disappointment that something that was pretty good is now just meh at best without the cliche "back in my day" retorts?

This is the point.  It was always better than "pretty good" with SpaceX.  More like "the best by all measures."  And even with X/Twitter, "just meh" is an inaccurate description.

[Robotbeat]

The SpaceX videos I’ve seen lately on Twitter have been much higher than the usual Twitter videos. 1080p or so.

I honestly think people are exaggerating the importance of this. SpaceX used to not be on YouTube at all. You could download videos from their website and stream launches. Without YouTube.

And the quality isn’t terrible like it used to be for Twitter videos.

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

[chopsticks]

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I think there is an effort by folks to sort of separate Musk from SpaceX in a way, or rather focus on SpaceX on their own merits instead of putting the focus on Musk. The subject of this thread only ties SpaceX closer to Musk personally which is a little bit distasteful if you're not part of the cult of personality surrounding him.

Aside from that, the video quality is objectively worse on Twitter as others have said. You can't spin this into an improvement on the quality although you can think what you like about the Twitter/X platform as a whole.

[alugobi]

That is sufficient to care.

[Robotbeat]

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I think there is an effort by folks to sort of separate Musk from SpaceX in a way, or rather focus on SpaceX on their own merits instead of putting the focus on Musk. The subject of this thread only ties SpaceX closer to Musk personally which is a little bit distasteful if you're not part of the cult of personality surrounding him.

Aside from that, the video quality is objectively worse on Twitter as others have said. You can't spin this into an improvement on the quality although you can think what you like about the Twitter/X platform as a whole.

Im not trying to spin anything, just saying reality. I think Elon got SpaceX streams to be higher resolution on Twitter. Actually look at the most recent ones, they’re 1080p.

[Metalskin]

...
Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I don't give a rat's furry behind about Musk. This has nothing to do with me liking him.

This is all about poor UX (user experience). End of the day, it boils down to does SpaceX care about the general public (or space fans) and how they perceive SpaceX or not. If they don't care, then not a problem. But if they do care, then they have reduced the user experience by removing it from YouTube.

[Robotbeat]

I agree the interface is worse. Just annoying when people falsely claim that 1080p is 480p.

And I don’t think it’s a big deal.

[Jarnis]

The codec is older and worse quality. They are wasting a lot of bits streaming that 1080p and it is still worse than any Youtube 1080p.

The streaming also does not support rewinding or starting late.

It is "my bobbys first fisher price streaming service" vs the industry leader. Viewers not impressed.

Should have first made an actual good streaming feature before jumping to the "force people to watch here because reasons" bandwagon to try to get users to a service that is not interesting users.

Frankly my biggest beef is that I can no longer promote the fact that hey, there is a launch happening. If I link to the X tweet (which is appearing very late so I can't do that an hour in advance like I could with YT streams), people just say the won't sign into X to watch it. So I can't really share it. For a social media service that supposedly is designed to share things, this is... mind-boggling.

[chopsticks]

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I think there is an effort by folks to sort of separate Musk from SpaceX in a way, or rather focus on SpaceX on their own merits instead of putting the focus on Musk. The subject of this thread only ties SpaceX closer to Musk personally which is a little bit distasteful if you're not part of the cult of personality surrounding him.

Aside from that, the video quality is objectively worse on Twitter as others have said. You can't spin this into an improvement on the quality although you can think what you like about the Twitter/X platform as a whole.

Im not trying to spin anything, just saying reality. I think Elon got SpaceX streams to be higher resolution on Twitter. Actually look at the most recent ones, they’re 1080p.

And they were 4k on YouTube.

[edzieba]

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I think there is an effort by folks to sort of separate Musk from SpaceX in a way, or rather focus on SpaceX on their own merits instead of putting the focus on Musk. The subject of this thread only ties SpaceX closer to Musk personally which is a little bit distasteful if you're not part of the cult of personality surrounding him.

Aside from that, the video quality is objectively worse on Twitter as others have said. You can't spin this into an improvement on the quality although you can think what you like about the Twitter/X platform as a whole.

Im not trying to spin anything, just saying reality. I think Elon got SpaceX streams to be higher resolution on Twitter. Actually look at the most recent ones, they’re 1080p.

Resolution means little, it's bitrate that's the problem. Youtube can easily stream upwards of 10Mbps if your connection can handle it (and you are two mouseclicks from forcing it to give you the maximum bitrate, buffering be damned). Twitter will rarely break 5Mbps even for non-streaming video, and what bitrate is actually presented is based on the random and capricious whims of pixies and faeries.

[Robotbeat]

The codec is older and worse quality. They are wasting a lot of bits streaming that 1080p and it is still worse than any Youtube 1080p.

The streaming also does not support rewinding or starting late.

It is "my bobbys first fisher price streaming service" vs the industry leader. Viewers not impressed.

Should have first made an actual good streaming feature before jumping to the "force people to watch here because reasons" bandwagon to try to get users to a service that is not interesting users.

Frankly my biggest beef is that I can no longer promote the fact that hey, there is a launch happening. If I link to the X tweet (which is appearing very late so I can't do that an hour in advance like I could with YT streams), people just say the won't sign into X to watch it. So I can't really share it. For a social media service that supposedly is designed to share things, this is... mind-boggling.

I’m not sure I follow you here. Ive been able to watch Twitter videos without signing in if I have a direct link.

A lot of streaming platforms, actually most of them from Hulu to Netflix to Disney+ to Amazon Prime, require you sign in first before watching, and most of those require a subscription to see anything. Twitter lets you watch videos without signing in.

[Robotbeat]

Who really cares?

I think this is the case of people not liking Musk for other reasons again, thus exaggerating how important different changes are. (And I get why people don’t like Musk. He has dipped deeply into politics lately and made increasingly questionable decisions about the kind of folks he sort of associates with… all a very bad look.)

I think there is an effort by folks to sort of separate Musk from SpaceX in a way, or rather focus on SpaceX on their own merits instead of putting the focus on Musk. The subject of this thread only ties SpaceX closer to Musk personally which is a little bit distasteful if you're not part of the cult of personality surrounding him.

Aside from that, the video quality is objectively worse on Twitter as others have said. You can't spin this into an improvement on the quality although you can think what you like about the Twitter/X platform as a whole.

Im not trying to spin anything, just saying reality. I think Elon got SpaceX streams to be higher resolution on Twitter. Actually look at the most recent ones, they’re 1080p.

Resolution means little, it's bitrate that's the problem. Youtube can easily stream upwards of 10Mbps if your connection can handle it (and you are two mouseclicks from forcing it to give you the maximum bitrate, buffering be damned). Twitter will rarely break 5Mbps even for non-streaming video, and what bitrate is actually presented is based on the random and capricious whims of pixies and faeries.

That’s fair. On the other hand, putting SpaceX videos on Twitter exclusively will probably lead to improvements to Twitter’s video service as the guy who controls one company knows the other guy.

[RedLineTrain]

That’s fair. On the other hand, putting SpaceX videos on Twitter exclusively will probably lead to improvements to Twitter’s video service as the guy who controls one company knows the other guy.

To put a finer point on this, SpaceX is now an internet infrastructure company and probably shares some employees with Twitter who are improving the video service.

[HVM]

You're instilling me with a lot of confidence of X image quality. Elon.

[Ghoti]

Cheap shot. You know perfectly well that the original post was high res and that if you click on the low res photo you get the high res version.

[r8ix]

You're instilling me with a lot of confidence of X image quality. Elon.

Try getting Starlink, then your connection will be able to handle higher resolution images…
 

Here's mine, for comparison...

[WindnWar]

I think the fact that short of having a direct link to a vid, you can't easily watch it without an account pretty much negates it's usefulness for a large number of people. I've never had an account there, I never will. Previously I could easily pull up a persons twitter handle and see the things they were posting, without needing to be a member of the platform, now it's just splash screens of sign in to X... for a site that relies on ad revenue to basically create a walled garden seems like a poor way to increase the eyeballs on the platform, but even if you are a member the interface is just terrible.

You switch things up when the experience is actually better, yet nothing about this is and given as haphazard as everything else over there has been, I fail to see the experience improving no matter how much torment he gives his staff there to make it better.

At least I know the streams of NSF being watched helps the site and the folks creating it with revenue to help cover it.

[HVM]

You're instilling me with a lot of confidence of X image quality. Elon.

Try getting Starlink, then your connection will be able to handle higher resolution images…
 

Here's mine, for comparison...

I’m joking, and so are you. But you know, images load slower not just stop to thumbnail or minimum bit/MPEG level at with slower connection. And this only happens with reXposts (The hentai on my timeline is fine, as you can see ; ). The latest SpaceX stream was 720p for 10 seconds and then dropped to 480p. I tried a random YouTube stream and it worked fine at 1440p. Maybe the codec is just inefficient like Jarnis said above. I even checked if Robotbeat had the blue check mark of the devil, but no.

[alugobi]

Anyways, human spaceflight launches are forecast to reduce in the years/decades ahead.  Like maybe one or two more this decade. 

Says who?

[edkyle99]

Elon suggesting that X may switch to a paywall.  Will Spacex launch webcasts then be available only to subscribers? 

 - Ed Kyle

[russianhalo117]

Elon suggesting that X may switch to a paywall.  Will Spacex launch webcasts then be available only to subscribers? 

 - Ed Kyle

Very likely as some other X Corp entities have already done so.

[alugobi]

Good.  Hoping NSF contributors who use it as their go-to begin to rethink, and find another venue for sharing their work.  I don't know what that is, but twitter is getting no clicks from me, and I DO want to see your work photogs. 

[Metalskin]

Good.  Hoping NSF contributors who use it as their go-to begin to rethink, and find another venue for sharing their work.  I don't know what that is, but twitter is getting no clicks from me, and I DO want to see your work photogs.

Agree. Unfortunately there are no good alternatives within social media for sharing high resolution work. Sure, there are photo oriented sites, but they just don't have the reach as the generic social media. I really hope facebook doesn't become the replacement, I avoid facebook. And Instagram isn't an option.

Maybe it comes down to the motivation as to why they share their work. If it's for internet likes, then I suspect facebook will replace twiter, or maybe some instagram morphed solution.   

[russianhalo117]

Good.  Hoping NSF contributors who use it as their go-to begin to rethink, and find another venue for sharing their work.  I don't know what that is, but twitter is getting no clicks from me, and I DO want to see your work photogs.

Agree. Unfortunately there are no good alternatives within social media for sharing high resolution work. Sure, there are photo oriented sites, but they just don't have the reach as the generic social media. I really hope facebook doesn't become the replacement, I avoid facebook. And Instagram isn't an option.

Maybe it comes down to the motivation as to why they share their work. If it's for internet likes, then I suspect facebook will replace twiter, or maybe some instagram morphed solution.   

META created threads as their immediate alternative to Twitter with it absorbering former Twitter personnel from executive management to collared workers.

[Robotbeat]

Vimeo is better than Twitter, Facebook, Threads, and arguably even better than Youtube.

[tyrred]

Vimeo is better than Twitter, Facebook, Threads, and arguably even better than Youtube.

Objectively, how?

[edkyle99]

Good.  Hoping NSF contributors who use it as their go-to begin to rethink, and find another venue for sharing their work.  I don't know what that is, but twitter is getting no clicks from me, and I DO want to see your work photogs. 

Here's the problem.  SpaceX has shifted to X for hosting its launch webcasts.  If this happens, I  presume you don't see SpaceX launches unless you pay going forward.

 - Ed Kyle

[alugobi]

Yeah. They've already lost me as one of the audience by leaving YouTube. I'll follow vicariously through Pietrobon's summaries.

[catdlr]

Yeah. They've already lost me as one of the audience by leaving YouTube. I'll follow vicariously through Pietrobon's summaries.

and I'll continue to post the latest playback from SpaceDeck when they release it from their re-broadcast.

[rokan2003]

Elon suggesting that X may switch to a paywall.  Will Spacex launch webcasts then be available only to subscribers? 

 - Ed Kyle

Per X Community Notes, this reporting is incorrect. Musk was talking about introducing a new lower-priced tier of X Premium, not contemplating taking the entire site behind a pay wall.

[ZachS09]

Elon suggesting that X may switch to a paywall.  Will Spacex launch webcasts then be available only to subscribers? 

 - Ed Kyle

Per X Community Notes, this reporting is incorrect. Musk was talking about introducing a new lower-priced tier of X Premium, not contemplating taking the entire site behind a pay wall.

*sighs with relief* Thank God for that. I’m a regular X member, so I don’t have to worry about the Premium side.

[M.E.T.]

Resistance is futile.

[HVM]

This time I was going to Watch NSF stream, no snapping back to the 480p... And no problem with my connection, it was X to NSF connection that failed (There can be artistic exaggeration on the second image).

[HVM]

Resistance is futile.

I'm not a trekker, but if I remember correctly resistance worked every time at the end for the Star Fleet.

Elon suggesting that X may switch to a paywall.  Will Spacex launch webcasts then be available only to subscribers? 

 - Ed Kyle

Here's the twee... XPost and CN:

[alugobi]

Eric Berger article about this:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/spacex-breaks-another-booster-reuse-record-but-did-anyone-see-it/

[meekGee]

Resistance is futile.

Well at least it's temperature dependent.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

NEWS: Here's some updates on X's livestreaming features from media engineering lead @marmars:

- Quality and latency updates on the way
- No current plans for 4k streams, but this could change if more people start watching on TVs
- finally updated to new usernames in comments

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1705347862672937154

4K is definitely coming, but we need to complete several other features first

[Jarnis]

I’m not sure I follow you here. Ive been able to watch Twitter videos without signing in if I have a direct link.

A lot of streaming platforms, actually most of them from Hulu to Netflix to Disney+ to Amazon Prime, require you sign in first before watching, and most of those require a subscription to see anything. Twitter lets you watch videos without signing in.

Videos, yes. Saved ones, after the event.

Livestreams, no. Unless they changed something in the past two weeks.

Comparing Twitter to premium streaming services like Disney+ or Amazon Prime is just silly. For one, those actually serve high quality streams. (4K, often HDR) and those services have no free option.

[M.E.T.]

I’m not sure I follow you here. Ive been able to watch Twitter videos without signing in if I have a direct link.

A lot of streaming platforms, actually most of them from Hulu to Netflix to Disney+ to Amazon Prime, require you sign in first before watching, and most of those require a subscription to see anything. Twitter lets you watch videos without signing in.

Videos, yes. Saved ones, after the event.

Livestreams, no. Unless they changed something in the past two weeks.

Comparing Twitter to premium streaming services like Disney+ or Amazon Prime is just silly. For one, those actually serve high quality streams. (4K, often HDR) and those services have no free option.

But premium streaming services don’t have SpaceX launches, so X for the win there.

[jtrame]

For us less technically minded folks it would be nice if they did an app (Xcast?) for the smart TVs.  That's how I access YouTube.  I do have an old Apple TV box lying around, maybe I can send the stream from my phone to that? 

[chopsticks]

I think one of the fundamental problems with moving this to Twitter is that Twitter is social media whereas YouTube is a video hosting site. Many people, myself included do not use or want to use Twitter or other social media. It's a lot more exclusive to use a social media website for this purpose.

[daveglo]

I think one of the fundamental problems with moving this to Twitter is that Twitter is social media whereas YouTube is a video hosting site. Many people, myself included do not use or want to use Twitter or other social media. It's a lot more exclusive to use a social media website for this purpose.

YT certainly IS "social media", it left the basic video hosting milieu a long time ago.  You can share content with subscribers, generate followers, and interact through chat sessions.  Sounds like social media to me.  Even Wikipedia admits it.

You can avoid all that on YT, but it's still there. Close chat windows, never subscribe, etc.  Just like you can avoid all the conversations on X if you prefer.  Set up an account and do nothing but follow SpaceX.  It will be pretty sanitary.

X started out differently from YT, sure, but it's evolving into a full-service platform, under Elon's vision.

You'll end up going where the content you want is served.  The marketplace of ideas will determine the winner.

[chopsticks]

I think one of the fundamental problems with moving this to Twitter is that Twitter is social media whereas YouTube is a video hosting site. Many people, myself included do not use or want to use Twitter or other social media. It's a lot more exclusive to use a social media website for this purpose.

YT certainly IS "social media", it left the basic video hosting milieu a long time ago.  You can share content with subscribers, generate followers, and interact through chat sessions.  Sounds like social media to me.  Even Wikipedia admits it.

You can avoid all that on YT, but it's still there. Close chat windows, never subscribe, etc.  Just like you can avoid all the conversations on X if you prefer.  Set up an account and do nothing but follow SpaceX.  It will be pretty sanitary.

X started out differently from YT, sure, but it's evolving into a full-service platform, under Elon's vision.

You'll end up going where the content you want is served.  The marketplace of ideas will determine the winner.

You can't really say that YT is the same sort of social media as Twitter. I see what you're saying with chats and stuff, but YT is still a website where you go to watch a video. Twitter is a place where you mainly go to yell at people on the internet.

[edzieba]

I think one of the fundamental problems with moving this to Twitter is that Twitter is social media whereas YouTube is a video hosting site. Many people, myself included do not use or want to use Twitter or other social media. It's a lot more exclusive to use a social media website for this purpose.

YT certainly IS "social media", it left the basic video hosting milieu a long time ago.  You can share content with subscribers, generate followers, and interact through chat sessions.  Sounds like social media to me.  Even Wikipedia admits it.

You can avoid all that on YT, but it's still there. Close chat windows, never subscribe, etc.  Just like you can avoid all the conversations on X if you prefer.  Set up an account and do nothing but follow SpaceX.  It will be pretty sanitary.

X started out differently from YT, sure, but it's evolving into a full-service platform, under Elon's vision.

You'll end up going where the content you want is served.  The marketplace of ideas will determine the winner.

Youtube: Subscribe to channels of interest, visit subscriptions page URL directly. No 'social' functions, no posts, no images, no comments, no algorithmic content, just a chronological list of linked videos.
This absolute basic functionality cannot be recreated on Twitter. There is not even a list of past SpaceX launch streams (the 'media' tab omits them for some reason, and there is no 'broadcasts' tab). If you want to go back and check a stream, you need to go look up the launch date elsewhere, then scroll interminably though an unfiltered list of other random stuff until you get to the desired date, and hope the website has actually decided to serve up the link within the content stream (if it was posted as a reply to another post, then there's a good chance it will not ever appear).

[ClayJar]

This absolute basic functionality cannot be recreated on Twitter. There is not even a list of past SpaceX launch streams (the 'media' tab omits them for some reason, and there is no 'broadcasts' tab). If you want to go back and check a stream, you need to go look up the launch date elsewhere, then scroll interminably though an unfiltered list of other random stuff until you get to the desired date, and hope the website has actually decided to serve up the link within the content stream (if it was posted as a reply to another post, then there's a good chance it will not ever appear).

With all the middle-of-my-night launches, I've been watching them when I get up in the morning.  Tracking down the streams a few hours later is annoying enough, but I can only imagine how much more annoying it would be long after the fact.

Actually, I don't really have to imagine, as I just tracked down all the links and used them to create a new thread: SpaceX Launch Stream Links

We can't change what SpaceX is doing, but we *can* make it easier for NSFers to keep up with the streams.   

[catdlr]

This absolute basic functionality cannot be recreated on Twitter. There is not even a list of past SpaceX launch streams (the 'media' tab omits them for some reason, and there is no 'broadcasts' tab). If you want to go back and check a stream, you need to go look up the launch date elsewhere, then scroll interminably though an unfiltered list of other random stuff until you get to the desired date, and hope the website has actually decided to serve up the link within the content stream (if it was posted as a reply to another post, then there's a good chance it will not ever appear).

With all the middle-of-my-night launches, I've been watching them when I get up in the morning.  Tracking down the streams a few hours later is annoying enough, but I can only imagine how much more annoying it would be long after the fact.

Actually, I don't really have to imagine, as I just tracked down all the links and used them to create a new thread:

This absolute basic functionality cannot be recreated on Twitter. There is not even a list of past SpaceX launch streams (the 'media' tab omits them for some reason, and there is no 'broadcasts' tab). If you want to go back and check a stream, you need to go look up the launch date elsewhere, then scroll interminably though an unfiltered list of other random stuff until you get to the desired date, and hope the website has actually decided to serve up the link within the content stream (if it was posted as a reply to another post, then there's a good chance it will not ever appear).

With all the middle-of-my-night launches, I've been watching them when I get up in the morning.  Tracking down the streams a few hours later is annoying enough, but I can only imagine how much more annoying it would be long after the fact.

Actually, I don't really have to imagine, as I just tracked down all the links and used them to create a new thread: SpaceX Launch Stream Links

We can't change what SpaceX is doing, but we *can* make it easier for NSFers to keep up with the streams.   

ClayJar,
I've been posting all the HD re-broadcasts of SpaceX published by Space Dev when they post it on YT minutes after the launch live stream is complete, and then I post the YT link on the launch thread.  If you are not available during the launch, I'll be happy to also update your thread with the "X" post to keep it current.
Tony

[psionedge]

I tried to load a recent livestream on the app formerly known as twitter and it would simply load to a frozen image about around T+6min. That's just one problem among many with video on X.

Doesn't mean much to me since they've become pretty boring. I care more about the missions themselves than the fact of launch. And yet another starlink launch isn't appointment viewing for me. And if replays aren't available then I guess I won't be watching them.

[butters]

I think one of the fundamental problems with moving this to Twitter is that Twitter is social media whereas YouTube is a video hosting site. Many people, myself included do not use or want to use Twitter or other social media. It's a lot more exclusive to use a social media website for this purpose.

Vimeo, Brightcove, and Spotlightr are examples of video hosting platforms. You know they're video hosting platforms because when you go to their websites, you see a b2b marketing pitch, not a selection of videos to watch. The videos they host are usually embedded on the customer's website, app, marketing materials, etc.

YouTube is video-focused social media. You consume content on their platform. There's an algorithm that tries to get you to consume more content and view more ads, which is how they make money. Users subscribe, like, and comment, which are important inputs to the algorithm. Creators don't have to pay to post content. These are all hallmarks of social media.

Twitter/X is the same concept, but starting with short-form text as the content medium and expanding multimedia options more recently. Reddit is social media. And you know what? So is phpBB. The NSF forums are social media. We're using it right now. We love it. Smash the like button if you agree.

So if you don't like X, which is a totally valid expression of preference, then it must be for reasons other than it being social media. Perhaps those reasons define "social media" in your mind. For example, if you don't like social media platforms that are prone to snarky, polarizing, or toxic content, then perhaps social media platforms which lack those attributes are not "social media" to you. It's a term you use to describe things you don't like.

As another example, many social media properties are based on the same software, and yet they feel like very different communities with very different social norms. You may love NSF, there are undoubtedly other phpBB forums that you would loathe. This is a great community. With other communities, your mileage will vary.

And on the topic of community, I hope our's does not succumb to the kind of polarization and thoughtless virtue signaling that has impacted a lot of social media and frankly our civilization. We have many more substantive topics to disagree about, debate, and discuss than which social platforms we prefer. Pretty much everything in our lives should be more important than where launch webcasts are hosted.

The fact that this topic has inspired so much conversation suggests to me that we're really not talking about video streaming. We're talking about who we are, how we see ourselves, what we stand for, etc. and presenting that image to our peers for their approval. That's the stuff that gets us all riled up about trivialities, and social media in all its forms does have a way of bringing these human behaviors to the forefront.

[edzieba]

The fact that this topic has inspired so much conversation suggests to me that we're really not talking about video streaming.

No, we're tlaking about poor UI for video. On one hand, you have a firehose of random content with some videos sometimes present in it, shuffled by 'the algorithm', with little to no effective archiving and a search function that is ineffective at best. On the other, you have a chronological list of video streams (with some optional social stuff that can be entirely ignored with no consequence or impact) searchable within a single channel.

tl;dr: here is a list of every SpaceX livestream on Youtube up until they stopped hosting them. There are no social posts to wade through, no randomly missed links because an algorithm forget to include them, are in simple newest-first chronological order, are clearly titled, and are trivially searchable without random content from other channels being included.
No such equivalent exists on Twitter.

[RedLineTrain]

The fact that this topic has inspired so much conversation suggests to me that we're really not talking about video streaming.

No, we're tlaking about poor UI for video. On one hand, you have a firehose of random content with some videos sometimes present in it, shuffled by 'the algorithm', with little to no effective archiving and a search function that is ineffective at best. On the other, you have a chronological list of video streams (with some optional social stuff that can be entirely ignored with no consequence or impact) searchable within a single channel.

YouTube is a great service, but it's not perfect.  Discovery of interesting streams and videos outside of specific searches is not very good.  Twitter's is better in some respects for my purposes.

The YouTube search function varies by device.  The desktop YouTube search function is pretty good.  But the TV YouTube search function isn't very useful on my TV.  It was becoming a hit or miss whether I could find an ongoing official launch livestream.  Even going specifically into the SpaceX subscription would give you a more or less unusable list of videos.

This is all a moving target.  YouTube improves and regresses as well as Twitter does.

[catdlr]

I had a past discussion with the "Videos from Space" from SPACE.com team and, at that time, they would not commit to re-broadcasting any SpaceX live streams, only replays afterward. Well, they changed their minds, and starting today, they plan to rebroadcast the SpaceX flight. Broadcast courtesy: SpaceX.

My other contact is The Space Devs, but they will continue to provide a HD replay after the launch broadcast is completed.

[alugobi]

So they're just channeling twitter in real time?

[catdlr]

So they're just channeling twitter in real time?

Yes.  Till this launch, they couldn't get permission from X to do so.  But I can not verify the quality at this time.

[Metalskin]

The fact that this topic has inspired so much conversation suggests to me that we're really not talking about video streaming.

No, we're tlaking about poor UI for video. On one hand, you have a firehose of random content with some videos sometimes present in it, shuffled by 'the algorithm', with little to no effective archiving and a search function that is ineffective at best. On the other, you have a chronological list of video streams (with some optional social stuff that can be entirely ignored with no consequence or impact) searchable within a single channel.

tl;dr: here is a list of every SpaceX livestream on Youtube up until they stopped hosting them. There are no social posts to wade through, no randomly missed links because an algorithm forget to include them, are in simple newest-first chronological order, are clearly titled, and are trivially searchable without random content from other channels being included.
No such equivalent exists on Twitter.

In addition, it's very easy to understand which ones you have watched and which ones you haven't watched. I can go to Subscribed on youtube and only see a history of all the channels I subscribe to and know instantly what I have watched and what I haven't watched.

You cannot do that on X.

[catdlr]

Another YouTube channel is broadcasting a live stream of SpaceX and other launches: SPACE AFFAIRS

They have been hosting other launches and have a few lined up for future Livestream.


https://www.youtube.com/@Space-Affairs/streams

[docmordrid]

We watched last launch on the space.com YouTube stream, videofromspace

[catdlr]

So the current alternate LIVE Streaming SpaceX launch (non-X) viewing are the following two YouTube Channels:

"Videos from Space" from SPACE.com:   https://www.youtube.com/@VideoFromSpace/videos

Space-Affairs:   https://www.youtube.com/@Space-Affairs/streams

Be sure to set Notification On so that you are alerted to future launches and when the live stream starts.

After Launch Replays in HD quality:
Sapce Devs   https://www.youtube.com/@thespacedevs