VIMEO removed our ability to control playback quality - please email them with me.

[DPStewart]

Hey gang,

You may have noticed that VIMEO recently changed their public playback structure to be exactly like YouTube's - meaning it will now "Auto-Select" a playback quality for viewers. The tab where you could specify what playback quality got assigned has been removed. 

So far their P.R. people have been saying "Too bad, we're being competitive." but controlling the playback quality is pretty much the ONLY reason any of us use Vimeo over YouTube. It is ABSOLUTELY the ONLY reason I pay for their "Plus" or "Pro" service.

This little campaign here got started by Oron over on DVXUser and he has already had some email exchanges with them that he posted for all to see.
When he told them that controlling playback quality was his ONLY reason for buying their paid service, and that he would be terminating it if this control is not restored - well, they quickly stated changing their tune.

To be certain - ANYTIME I have watched any of YOUR Vimeo videos recently, my stream defaulted to their "Auto" setting EVEN THOUGH THE "HD" INDICATOR WAS STILL ON.
My system and connection plays 1080p perfectly smoothly all day long - and ALL of YOUR videos are displaying at a drastically reduced quality for me because of this "Auto" YouTube-style setting.


Here is some of the email exchange Oron posted:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is part of an emails they sent me from customer support: 
part of email 1: "Unfortunately, adaptive streaming is the future of Vimeo’s streaming capabilities and we completely understand your hesitation if you content is not displaying as you’d like it to."

Part of email 2 (after I replied I don't like this idea): "I’m sorry to hear that my rely has disappointed you. We strongly encourage you being able to find and use a video hosting platform that is best for your needs and we’re sorry to hear that we cannot be that for you at this time."

After I decided to stop my Vimeo plus membership that will end next month, they send me this email: 
"I want to be clear that I do understand your concerns about HD video, and having control over what qualities your viewer sees. Our product team is evaluating this kind of feedback, and I will certainly pass yours along for consideration."

So, again, if more people will say something it will change, I'm sure people that have Vimeo Plus or Pro don't want other people to view their videos on 720p or 360p just because vimeo thinks they don't have the bandwidth, I want to decide those things, that's the all point of vimeo.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PLEASE join in and send VIMEO's customer service an email if you are a paying customer of their "Plus" and "Pro" subscriptions.

Thanks all !

[Jonesy Jones]

Here's the link right to their Contact page, just to save you 3 seconds of clicking with your mouse.

https://vimeo.com/help/contact

[Zak Forsman]

done. and i didn't even swear.

[kaylee]

1 hour ago, Zak Forsman said:

and i didn't even swear.

i didnt either i was nice!! lol

im a vimeo user but i dont pay for plus or pro – ive just used it for ~watching~ video. i was *planning* on getting a plus or pro account to support the new stuff im working on but as soon as they made these changes i was like Uhhh no.

anyway, i wrote them feedback, they even have an option for people who arent paying members yet

i wrote:

Hi friends, 

I've enjoyed using Vimeo very much over the last several years, and I have been looking forward to upgrading to a Pro account to support my first feature film, but it has come to my attention that Vimeo's public playback structure has changed insofar as it will now "Auto-Select" a playback quality for viewers; and the tab where one could specify what playback quality is assigned has been removed.

Since controlling playback quality is the one and only reason that I would pay for a Plus or Pro account, I am no longer planning to do so. I wanted to share this feedback in hopes that your product team will take it under advisement.

Very best wishes,

Me

 

see how nice i was Zak??

[DPStewart]

Ooh...dayum. 

You're good with the warrior words there Kaylee. Nicely done.

[Mattias Burling]

Just to be sure. You are talking about people that aren't plus members right?
Since I have the selector and have always had it.

[DPStewart]

3 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Just to be sure. You are talking about people that aren't plus members right?
Since I have the selector and have always had it.

No. I am a PLUS member and that tab where we select a pre-determined stream quality has been removed.

In the email exchange shown in the first post you can see that they are aware they did that, and that they are to some degree proud of it.

Now I cannot yet confirm if European Vimeo users are seeing anything differently.

[graphicnatured]

Done.

[bamigoreng]

11 minutes ago, DPStewart said:

No. I am a PLUS member and that tab where we select a pre-determined stream quality has been removed.

In the email exchange shown in the first post you can see that they are aware they did that, and that they are to some degree proud of it.

Now I cannot yet confirm if European Vimeo users are seeing anything differently.

Well, selector is still there. Europe; 'ordinary' member.

[DPStewart]

13 minutes ago, graphicnatured said:

Done.

Thanks mate!

12 minutes ago, bamigoreng said:

Well, selector is still there. Europe; 'ordinary' member.

Here in the USA, under that section called "UPGRADE THIS VIDEO" - beneath it "Choose the HD format(s) for this video" is now greyed out and I cannot make any selection.
But here's the biggest problem, as I wrote originally:

"To be certain - ANYTIME I have watched any of YOUR Vimeo videos recently, my stream defaulted to their "Auto" setting EVEN THOUGH THE "HD" INDICATOR WAS STILL ON.
My system and connection plays 1080p perfectly smoothly all day long - and ALL of YOUR videos are displaying at a drastically reduced quality for me because of this "Auto" YouTube-style setting."

When I say "drastically" I mean LESS than 720p.

It won't "say" what it is because it just says "Auto" until I go in and change it to one of the other quality sizes.

Again - we PAY for the ability to control; that - YouTube already has that "default to 'Auto' thing"  and so for many of us Vimeo users it is the ONLY reason we PAY for Vimeo instead.

If viewers are going to randomly get DEGRADED playback streams ONLY UNLESS they take the extra step and go in to the playback settings and change that - then what the hell am I paying for - that's already YouTube.
But we know that MANY users won't do that EVERY SINGLE TIME. And we also know that that choice is very often not even available if the video has been embedded.
 

[Mattias Burling]

All good here in PAL-Land

 

[Zak Forsman]

yeah, all my recent uploads default to 'auto' now. have a Plus account.

[graphicnatured]

Their response to me:

"Unfortunately, adaptive streaming is the wave of the future of video streaming at Vimeo.

If you’re having trouble with a specific video,we’d like to get some more detailed technical information about the playback experience you’re receiving. To do this, I’ll need you to play a video one more time and log the experience with our “debug” tool.
Instructions:

1) Open any video you’ve noticed this issue on.
2) Press “D” on your keyboard to open a debug panel in the player.
3) Press play and watch the video for a full minute (or to the end of the video, whichever comes first).
4) Click the blue “Open link” button.
5) Copy the link below the words “Share your results by copying this URL” and send it my way. Be sure to include a description of the problem you’re seeing."

[DPStewart]

1 hour ago, Mattias Burling said:

All good here in PAL-Land

 

Mattias - post a link here to one of your Vimeo videos.
We'll play it here in the USA and we'll see if your video displays itself for us at the lower "Auto" resolution. I bet it will no matter what setting you choose on your end.
So far for me - EVERY video defaults to this low-resolution "Auto" even though my connection and PC play 1080p streams just fine all day long if I go into the selector and manually choose 1080p

[Mars]

It seems they haven't rolled out that "feature" to everybody yet...

https://vimeo.com/help/faq/watching-videos/playback-issues#what-is-adaptive-streaming-and-how-does-it-impact-my-videos

In theory this sounds good... "What is adaptive streaming? It means that viewers will no longer need to choose the quality of the video they're viewing. Instead, the player will intelligently choose the highest quality possible based on the viewer's network connection, graphics processing ability, and other factors."

"Viewers won't have to worry about the HD toggle anymore. Over the course of viewing a video, the quality will change (hence the term "adaptive streaming") to accommodate any changes in network connection or graphics processing. We'll make sure they always receive the highest quality video possible, whether that's 720p, 1080p, or even 4K."

In practice it's them who decide which quality arrives at your viewers displays. And in doubt, i.e. if it is poorly implemented, the quality will be lower than necessary. The uploader is not in control any more.

Would be better if the uploader could choose between Auto and a specific default quality he thinks is appropriate.

[Andrew Reid]

Something that needs to be explained by Vimeo is why they give us less playback quality than YouTube yet we pay for the privilege of an account.

Also their streaming speeds at least from my perspective in Europe have always been atrocious for anything above 720p.

[Bioskop.Inc]

5 hours ago, DPStewart said:

Here in the USA, under that section called "UPGRADE THIS VIDEO" - beneath it "Choose the HD format(s) for this video" is now greyed out and I cannot make any selection.
But here's the biggest problem, as I wrote originally:

I'm in the UK and this happened to me the other day - it was greyed out and only the 720p had been checked. Normally, in the past, the 720p box was always checked and once the video had been uploaded, the 1080p box would appear and then I could choose that as the default viewing resolution.

However, this time I had to go back and forth into the video's settings section and eventually the 1080p box appeared to have been checked automatically (still greyed out though) - so a bonus, but a bit worrying for a while.

Now my video still has the HD button and yes, it is by default on auto, but I can choose to click on 1080p or whatever.

This is exactly like YouTube (luckily Firefox has a plugin that automatically plays all videos in 1080 or whatever your prefered flavour is) & can help people who DO NOT have up-to-date computers that can play say Full-HD or 4K videos.

The only worrying aspect of this is how does Vimeo decide or compute what the best viewing quality is? Because without getting full access to your computer (without your permission, which is better known as hacking), how can they they know what the best resolution is for your computer? I've had no one ask me or is there a new box/section in your Account Settings that you can check & so they remember that Auto for you is 1080p?

[Andrew Reid]

Does it also remove the viewer's ability to select 1080p manually from the HD button, only giving one option "Auto"?

Or just the 'default to HD' on our settings page?

Which by the way, was one of the reasons many people upgraded to Plus back in the day.

[Mars]

7 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Or just the 'default to HD' on our settings page?

Which by the way, was one of the reasons many people upgraded to Plus back in the day.

Exactly. If this is removed, I'd discontinue my Plus subscription. Plain and simple.

[Jonesy Jones]

10 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Does it also remove the viewer's ability to select 1080p manually from the HD button, only giving one option "Auto"?

Or just the 'default to HD' on our settings page?

Which by the way, was one of the reasons many people upgraded to Plus back in the day.

The viewer has the option of playback quality (1080, 720, 540, 360, and Auto), but they are 'hidden' by the HD button. You must click HD to see these options, and it is always set to Auto by default. We no longer have the option to choose that. However, under the 'Video File' tab there are the Player links specific to certain resolutions that can be copied and pasted, but these are not without caveats. (I have a Pro account).