A few days ago, a video that was taken down across the internet was released by Film Hurricane, and I watched the enthusiastic netizens' backup. The content mainly criticizes streaming platforms for their unlimited compression of video quality and for pushing different video streams to different devices. Moreover, to make the video appear clearer, sharpening technology was used. Finally, it compared the changes in video bitrate of streaming platforms from 2020 to today, calling on users to unite and pressure video platforms.
Of course, this video resonated with many viewers, including those on Bilibili, who flooded the comments and bullet screens with remarks like "protect our UP master," implying a strong criticism of Bilibili. But I can only say that everyone who leaves their familiar field can only become He Tongxue; now Tim has become He Tongxue. In any case, from an encoding perspective, the video has many errors, and blindly promoting the advantages of AVC encoding is a form of stagnation. Advocating for users to pressure platforms fails to recognize the commercial value of Bilibili users. The fact that such a video can still be revered by so many after being backed up only shows that videos like He Tongxue's are still very popular.
First, let me talk about my starting point, which is that people should not have to pay for services they cannot enjoy. This "cannot enjoy" generally refers to objective conditions that prevent enjoyment; if one insists on saying they can experience emotional value (like a sense of superiority), that's also fine.
For example, the so-called lossless music; now QQ Music emphasizes premium master 2.0. Taking Stefanie Sun's Encounter as an example, the size of the premium master 2.0 is 16.46 times that of high-quality music at 320kbps. So how much difference in sound quality is there? With my lousy phone and an Oppo Bluetooth headset, I really can't tell.
Previously, when experimenting with AI voice changing, I tried to distinguish different bitrate music using a double-blind test, and the result was that with my equipment and my ears, I could not distinguish high-quality music (320kbps) from lossless music at all. The human ear is the weakest link in the listening process; what is there to pursue?
Video quality is similar; I usually watch videos on my phone, and with such a small screen, there is no difference between 1080p and 4k. I wouldn't enlarge the video to an almost unwatchable level just to count every hair, so the compression of video quality by streaming services is basically imperceptible to me. I believe most people's usage situation should be similar to mine; otherwise, long before Film Hurricane exposed it, everyone would have already raised a fuss. Now, when Film Hurricane releases a video, everyone rubs their eyes in confusion, noticing that it does seem a bit blurry (still unsure if it's an illusion), and raises the banner to jointly attack the "capitalists," which is quite touching.
Some might say that even if I can't tell, the service quality provided by the video platform should not change 😡. They need to offer users options for different bitrates and video encodings, even if after the user makes a choice, the network lags or the device doesn't support hardware decoding, it's still good civilization.
First, let's talk about the loss of service quality caused by switching video encodings. Tim depicted a pastoral paradise where, back in 2020, Bilibili's video bitrate was 1080P AVC 6M, while the current Bilibili, which has drawn public outrage, is at 1080P HEVC 1M bitrate. I captured an image from a Zhihu user; I wonder if anyone can distinguish the difference between these two videos with different encodings and bitrates.
At least from my perspective, I cannot distinguish them. If people are cursing on various social platforms just because of this slight quality loss, I think slow internet and device overheating due to software decoding would provoke even more intense complaints.
Surely some will say I am whitewashing for the capitalists, and even without payment, my spirit has been poisoned. It feels great to criticize from a high ground, especially since Bilibili is performing so poorly. They don't do ads well, inserting some ads into the streaming; they don't do e-commerce well, with a bunch of overpriced membership purchases. However, in terms of playback experience and membership prices, it's still better than iQIYI and Tencent Video. We can't just watch the market's big hand sweep Bilibili into the trash can.
If Bilibili must improve video quality, who will compensate for the lost membership fees? 😦
If Bilibili must go bankrupt due to losses, who will compensate me for the poor video experience? 😦
I hope Film Hurricane can set up a website to compensate me, rather than just posting Bilibili video links and Baidu Cloud links.
Additionally, some are promoting PCDN, which can only be described as unethical, and that's it.
This article is synchronized and updated to xLog by Mix Space The original link is https://www.actorr.cn/posts/default/ysjfqxd