HWI website & Youtube videos

[Dave]

Hello everyone,

This is a new easy-to-find thread pinned near the top of the Media board, to let us highlight the Index pages of HWI videos on the main site and the selected ones on YouTube (hwivid). We will occasionally use it too for posting interesting statistics about video and website "traffic". Here they are:

HWI Website Videos

HWI YouTube Videos (hwivid)

We've done it because links to the downloadable videos we post in Media threads etc. tend to get lost among the discussions, so we are trying to make the videos a bit easier for members and guests to find.

As with YouTube videos generally, and it's similar on our main site, they can be viewed by most people as often as you like but they can't be downloaded unless you know how. We'll continue to post downloadable links as usual in the individual threads.

Hopefully if members and guests click on our videos more often, HWI will get a higher ranking in the Google and YouTube search engines, helping us to spread the word and benefit Hayley, which is why we are here. So even if you have all the videos downloaded to your own PC, please click on our HWI and YouTube links and videos from time to time, you know it makes sense and we'd love to give a boost to our Views and Hits! [/img]

HWI staff can post separate links to any new HWI videos or interesting old ones (main site or YouTube) in this thread but otherwise, this thread will be locked and members cannot post messages in it. Discussions about the videos can of course continue as usual in the relevant Media, Charities or Concerts board threads.

Thanks everyone, let's click away!

Dave

[Dave]

Reminder!

Dave

[Dave]

Hi everyone,

I've decided to unlock this thread for any general comments that members wish to make about HWI's videos on YouTube or HWI. If comments are about a specific video, the best place will usually be the relevant thread - mostly in the Media Board, or the Concerts board. There's always a thread (I think!) so please don't get into discussions about specific videos unless it relates to how it is presented (or not!) on HWI or hwivid on YouTube (links at the top of this thread and below).

Roger and I have had a chat about the way videos have always been presented at HWI, right from the beginning. That has been by "streaming" Windows Media (wmv) files embedded in a web page and the main reason we stuck to it, even though some people cannot play them (Mac Users apparently) is that we could put up higher bitrate and better quality versions than YouTube could manage. It was also originally hard for people to download the actual video files, which pleased the "powers that be" - but of course, free software to do that is now widely available.

Over the last couple of years, things have changed and now, YouTube can do as well as anyone - with high quality and high definition video (if that's what is uploaded). As everyone seems to be able to play YouTube videos and the quality is selectable by users, depending on their internet connection speed, we think it is now the right time for us to try using our YouTube videos on the HWI website as well, embedding them (at our own size) in the webpage.

The first batch of videos to use this method is from the World Games 2009 in Taiwan and we will see how it goes before deciding whether or not to use this method permanently from now on. We hope those who have never been able to view HWI videos before will like this change... for the new and future videos.

HWI Website Videos

HWI YouTube Videos (hwivid)

Cheers, Dave

[martindn]

Hi Dave,

I keep getting "An error occurred, please try again later" when I try to play the YT ones. The HWI ones are fine.

Martin

[Dave]

Hello everyone,

I thought I'd mention an interesting "copyright" development at YouTube, something that's already affected a couple of our videos.

YT now have a system which allows copyright owners such as record companies to provide them with a "master copy" of video and audio material they think has been uploaded without permission, and YouTube electronically compares it to all YT videos to identify any matches. I assume that comparisons can also be done manually.

When a match is found, in part or all of any YT video, YT mark the video with details of who claims "ownership" of the copyright... and tell the uploader (us!) what must be done. In neither case have we been asked to take down the videos (Vivo Per Lei US version, and one of our Variety Club Award videos) but we were advised that "relevant advertising" may appear beside the videos. They have now started doing this... there's a link on Vivo Per Lei to the iTunes download of the song (Italian version with Giorgia as there is no Hayley or English version).

The Variety Club Awards video is interesting! The link inserted is to... wait for it... "So What" by P!nk

This is because it is the intro. song to the awards ceremony and stupidly, I left it in... if only I'd known! I won't make that mistake again!

Anyway, I thought some of you would like to know that The Times They Are A Changin' over at YouTube... which must, I feel, be a good sign because the implication is that the true copyright owners have the final say on what is done... and they now have a way to make some money from millions of unofficially uploaded videos. Let's hope Decca do some of this, to benefit themselves and especially, Hayley.

Cheers, Dave

[Dave]

Here's some more use(ful/less) information! It's as much for my own future use as anyone elses but some may be interested in it.

Here is a snapshot of the latest full day's Youtube stats for hwivid - 6th August.

Top 20 Countries for total views

Rank/Code/Views/Details

01 TW 378 Taiwan
02 US 355 US
03 GB 110 UK
04 CA 77 Canada
05 JP 75 Japan
06 HK 64 Hong K
07 NZ 54 NZ
08 RO 53 Romania
09 DE 36 Germany
10 HU 31 Hungary
11 SG 31 Singap're
12 BR 29 Brazil
13 AU 28 Australia
14 NL 21 Neth'lands
15 PE 19 Peru
16 PL 19 Poland
17 IT 17 Italy
18 KR 17 Korea
19 AR 15 Argentina
20 CH 14 Switz'ld

Relative Popularity within each Country

Rank/Code/Views/Details

01 TW 378 Taiwan
02 NZ 54 NZ
03 HK 64 Hong Kong
04 US 355 US
05 GB 110 UK
06 CH 14 Switz'ld ***
07 CA 77 Canada
08 SG 31 Singapore
09 RO 53 Romania
10 AU 28 Australia
11 KR 17 Korea
12 CZ 14 Czech
13 PE 19 Peru
14 NL 21 Netherl'd
15 AR 15 Argentina
16 JP 75 Japan
17 HU 31 Hungary
18 PH 14 Philippines
19 IT 17 Italy
20 PL 19 Poland

Three weeks after that sensational World Games opening ceremony, the viewing numbers seem to have stabilised this week (after initially surging then slowly dropping away). I'll leave others to draw any conclusions.

Cheers, Dave

*** I suspect the Swiss "popularity" figure to be inaccurate, possibly due to the way IP addresses are allocated in this small Country surrounded by other much larger ones.

[martindn]

Hi Dave,

What is YT Country Size? Is it based on population, and area or what?

The figure for the US is a surprise, and I'm surprises that the US is rated only three times the size of Taiwan!

Martin

[Dave]

Hi Martin,

YT ranks all its videos each day according to the number of views of each video from each Country. The Popularity table above is, from the limited explanation YT provide, the cumulative total of rankings for all hwi videos, for each country.

So it is supposed to reflect hwivid's overall popularity among viewers from each country, not the total number of views from there. The two tables may rank videos the same (Taiwan at the moment) but in general, Popularity pushes large developed countries down the list compared to Total Views, and smaller countries (developed or otherwise) like NZ and Singapore tend to go up the Popularity list.

So "YT country size" refers to the total number of views of all YT videos from each country, not population or anything else. The US as you would expect is the biggest "YT country". I don't know where you get the "3 x the size of Taiwan" from as I haven't provided enough data for you to calculate it. But I've now changed the heading to read "Relative Popularity within each Country" which may be a bit clearer... I hope!

Dave

[martindn]

Hi Dave,

I still don't understand what "popularity" means. Since NZ and Hk are above US in the popularity rankings, some measure of country size must have been used to adjust the rankings in that way. It is just that I don't understand what that meausre is, and perhaps you don't either.

Martin

[Dave]

Aug 9, 2009 19:53:22 GMT martindn said:

Hi Dave,

I still don't understand what "popularity" means. Since NZ and Hk are above US in the popularity rankings, some measure of country size must have been used to adjust the rankings in that way. It is just that I don't understand what that meausre is, and perhaps you don't either.Martin

Hi Martin,

Indeed it has and yes I do.

Aug 9, 2009 0:07:20 GMT Dave said:

"YT country size" refers to the total number of views of all YT videos from each country, not population or anything else.

There is, as you would expect, a rough correlation between the population of developed countries and the daily number of views of all YouTube videos.

I may delete our little discussion about it when we've finished, if I do I will incorporate any revised definition into my original post and any future follow-ups.

Dave

[martindn]

Hi Dave,

Sorry for being so thick - I see what you mean now. Thank you. So this probably is not that good a meausre, since it is a ratio of Hayley's popularity amoung YT users only. It seems to me that there are a lot of possible reasons why that would not be a meaure of Hayley's real popularity.

But US rated above UK is still a surprise! And look where Japan is!!

Martin

[Dave]

Hello Martin!

As we are considering the relative popularity mainly of Hayley's music (ignoring duet partners), one Country against another, I think the popularity measure does work. It would be more accurate of course to do the analysis over a longer period of time... and based on Hayley's solo songs only.

Popularity in most Countries varies according to Hayley's recent level of visibility there, hence Taiwan and NZ being so high (where the WG ceremony was shown on TV). Japan and UK are higher whenever Hayley is on TV there.

But the US is always fairly high not only in total number of views (where it's usually top) but also in Popularity, even though Hayley is never "active" there, these days. Food for thought, although I do have some concerns about how YT handle views from AOL subscribers. It is possible that European AOL users are included with the US because of their use of the Virginia proxy servers, I need to find out more about this.

Cheers, Dave

[Libby]

How many hits a day do you get, would you say? Do you get a notice every time someone views them, or you just check them every once in a while?

I'm just curious, because my sister has been viewing the Whispering Hope from Cornwall every day for about a week. It's because she finally succumbed and bought her own Celtic Treasure CD. She's stuck on that song right now, and she likes the video, too.

[Dave]

Hi Libby, it's around 1,500 a day for all our YT videos, at the moment - with around 1,000 "unique" views i.e. repeat IP addresses are ignored for the day if videos are replayed. YT update the stats daily and I usually check once a day. It's still very much higher than before the World Games but obviously, it's lower than during them.

Good work there with your sister, that's what it's all about! Perhaps she'll join the forum one day?

Cheers, Dave

[Libby]

Probably not, she's usually so busy. But I guess you never know.