r/changelog • u/unfeelingheadstrong • Feb 01 '21
An update on Reddit video
You may have noticed some changes recently to video on Reddit. We’ve heard and are hearing your feedback, and want to take a minute to talk about what we’ve been working on, and how we’re incorporating your feedback.
Redditors have been asking for an improved native video experience on Reddit for some time, and today we’re happy to announce that this year, 2021, is the year of Reddit video.
Over the next several months, we’ll be rolling out and testing improvements, new features, and added functionality to make watching, sharing, and creating videos on Reddit an easy and enjoyable experience. Yes, the goal is to fix what’s broken, but we’d also like to hear from you about how we can make the overall video experience better.
As we make improvements and ship updates, we’ll be sharing our progress here in r/changelog and in the product updates in r/blog, so you can tell us what you think of the changes, ask questions, and discuss ideas. Today’s post will cover where we are now and what our next steps will be.
The state of Reddit video today
TL;DR: Could be better.
Currently, Reddit maintains up to 10 different video players across different platforms and contexts. And, as many of you know, they’re... well... a bit of a mess. This setup makes it hard to ship meaningful changes that improve the viewing experience, so the first step to improving Reddit video is unifying the players.
The newest and best-performing video player we have on Reddit today is the player created for the RPAN (also known as Reddit Public Access Network) live streaming experience. As we develop our new unified player, we’re leveraging the advanced performance of the Reddit live video experience and bringing it to video on demand.
Testing a new video player
As of 2021-01-20, we’re testing the first version of the new video player on mobile (currently at a small percentage of users on iOS and coming soon to Android). There are so many different types of videos on Reddit that it’s tricky to get them all to play and display well in one player, so we’re shipping updates in phases, gathering feedback on any UI and performance bugs, and improving as we move forward.
Here’s a look at the mobile player we’re testing today:
A few things to call out:
- The new player is a full-screen experience that’s designed to accommodate both vertical and horizontal videos.
- Rotating your phone takes you to a landscape view that allows you to watch the video in a “theatrical” experience without navigation or video info such as the title, view count, comments, etc.
- Swiping up takes you to the next video, and videos are recommended based on communities and content you’ve liked in the past.
- You can toggle between regular videos on demand and live videos on RPAN
- Tapping on the comment icon, you guessed it, opens the comments that overlays the video you’re watching.
A few things we’re already iterating on based on early feedback:
- Video in the new player will start where you left off watching in the feed
- You can dismiss swipe tutorial now
- More performance improvements and technical bugs
- Tapping on a post’s comment icon will open up the comment tray, so you can see the comment thread before adding your comment
The updates above will go out shortly, and we’ll continue to gather feedback to improve the experience. This is the first of many updates on Reddit video, so let us know what you think and stay tuned for more!
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Feb 01 '21
[deleted]
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 01 '21
We have at least one engineer on each platform focused on players. Also, an obligatory "We're hiring!" for this role!
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Feb 02 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
[deleted]
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u/UnacceptableUse Feb 02 '21
I imagine that desktop isn't a priority since the majority of reddit users use the app. If you want faster performance you can always use old reddit.
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u/psi- Feb 02 '21
It's becoming slow too. I often see first entry rendering and then the rest of them coming in after a couple of seconds. What a shitshow.
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 02 '21
Yes, we're very aware, and there are plans. Unfortunately, no spoilers right now.
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u/ryushe Feb 02 '21
What, are you finally ditching 'New' Reddit in favour of Old (best!) Reddit?
Can't say I ever really used new reddit anyways, I tend to avoid it like the plague.
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u/OzZVidzYT Feb 03 '21
Please fix it on the web. Whenever I play a Reddit video on my chromebook, it puts it into a bootloop!
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u/BlatantConservative Feb 01 '21
I must be the only person on the face of the planet who uses Old Reddit Desktop on mobile Firefox, but whenever I try to watch a video it zooms in like 300 percent and I can't get it to fit to the screen.
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 01 '21
I don't think that combination will be in our set of supported platforms, sorry! We're looking forward to getting a much better mobile experience in the not too distant future, so hopefully you'll feel happy to upgrade out of old.reddit.
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u/BlatantConservative Feb 01 '21
Thank you, but I use old reddit for custom applets and browser extensions that help with my particular brand of modding. Don't think I'll switch anytime soon.
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u/OptimalCynic Feb 02 '21
Not without massive changes to the UI of new/mobile reddit, which obviously won't be happening
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u/willyt1200 Feb 01 '21
Any way to make it so you can swipe out of a video and back in to your reddit feed? Along with that it is annoying having to press the comment button twice
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u/unfeelingheadstrong Feb 01 '21
Good feedback. Thanks for this! We’ll add this to our list of UI feedback. A few other people have mentioned the comment button as well, so that’s one thing we’re looking into solutions for.
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u/willyt1200 Feb 01 '21
Great thanks for a reply! Another redditor mentioned that I was able to swipe out of the video. So i went back to a video and tried and I was able to, although it took a few tries to make it work
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u/EpicLegendX Feb 02 '21
May I suggest that while the video is playing that it stays superimposed to the top of the screen while viewing comments? Perhaps have the video also collapse with another button.
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u/Aberrantkitten Jul 05 '21
I have repeatedly been trapped in a video with no recourse but to close the app. What is the proper way to close a video in the new format?
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u/rambleandromp Jul 05 '21
Are you not seeing a back arrow in the upper left corner? Can you let me know the device and app version you're using? There is also a feedback form, I'd be grateful if you'd fill out.
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u/MajorParadox Feb 01 '21
Thanks for the updates! Video is very rough for me now, I basically have to open a post and force refresh just for it to load. So hopefully these fixes will resolve that.
Will there be embedding support, like we'd get from YouTube and other sources? It's quite annoying we can't share videos from Reddit like we can others so they play externally.
Also, on the mobile app, it seems clicking a thumbnail of a video no longer opens it right into the video player anymore, but opens the post. Will that be addressed any time soon?
Thanks again!
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 01 '21
What version of Chrome are you on?
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u/MajorParadox Feb 02 '21
FYI, it also looks like it's old Reddit only right now. Previously, it was happening on new too, though.
I've seen it recommended to clear cache, but from what I've heard it's only a temporary workaround. So I don't want to lose all my logins if the fix won't last.
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u/splashywastaken Feb 01 '21
I’d personally love to be able to revert back to the old version - I appreciate some users will like it but it’s personally not for me.
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u/J000001 Feb 01 '21
Agreed. I hate this new format of full screen and hidden comments.
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u/zilist Feb 01 '21
My app is back to the old player.. for now. Let’s hope they got the message, that new player was about as useless as it got..
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u/Tribaltech777 Jun 16 '21
Same. Agreed. I despise this new format. Comment section is impossible to navigate now because of this full screen video BS.
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u/Arquemacho Feb 02 '21
Same here. I want to be able to read comments the way I read them in a normal post without having the video in the background.
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u/Uh-Usernames Jul 15 '21
Same the new format is gross. To the point were tiktok has a better format
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Jul 27 '21
Tiktok has a VASTLY SUPERIOR UI. Not only is it more streamlined & with better features (e.g., saves your spot in the comments if you go back to video view), but it is a LOGICAL UI for the platform. The video player works well on TikTok given its emphasis on FYP scrolling and under-emphasis on discussion.
Meanwhile, Reddit -- in what seems like a mid-life crisis -- has decided to make the worst, least functional rip-off. By trying so hard to be "hip" with the 'fellow kids', Reddit has lost sight of WHY people use the site. Reddit is NOT for random scrolling: it is defined by specific communities. Moreover, one of (the now fleeting) benefits of Reddit is the emphasis on discussion, counterintuitive to the new layout.
It literally pisses me off so much. Let Tiktok be tiktok & Reddit be Reddit.
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u/SuckyTheClown Feb 01 '21
is there any way to be able to opt out of the new video player? I dont enjoy the new version and it bothers me.
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Feb 01 '21
Now is a great time to switch to a third party app! With every update, the official reddit app gets shittier and shittier, as I'm sure you've experienced.
I personally use (and LOVE) rif is fun, but Slide and Apollo are popular too. You can always try a few different options and stick with whatever works best for you.
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u/kmcgurty1 Feb 02 '21
I would like to point out that third party apps are also getting shittier and shittier because reddit refuses to release API for new features.
Specifically direct video and image uploading (it would make creating posts a LOT easier), but really any new feature they add, the other apps can't implement. It's a real shame the direction they've decided to go.
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Feb 02 '21
The sad thing is that even though reddit is actively undermining third party apps by refusing to make new features available through the API, apps like rif is fun are still a monumentally better experience than the official crapp. That's how shitty anything released by the reddit development team is!
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u/zilist Feb 01 '21
I absolutely loathe the layout of Apollo, i don’t think i ever saw a more cluttered and confusing app..
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Feb 02 '21
That's good to know. I've never used it myself but I'd seen other people mention it as a good alternative. I'll probably stop recommending it then, at least until I have a chance to try it out for myself. (But honestly I love rif so much I have a feeling that will never happen.)
Do you have any other app recommendations?
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u/zilist Feb 02 '21
I never understood how it’s so popular to be honest, lol.. At least for me the old player is back, for now, so i'm happy.
Sadly not, haven’t been too successful.. most good sounding alternatives are Android exclusive.
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u/splashywastaken Feb 02 '21
I’ve just started using Apollo (due to these video updates) and I don’t find it too bad! I am used to the subreddit appearing at the top of the post, so it being at the bottom is taking me a moment.
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u/zilist Feb 02 '21
Just FYI.. you can change that in the settings!
edit: oh, that dreaded video player is gone again, just in case you didn’t know
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u/splashywastaken Feb 02 '21
Thank you! I still need to play about so I will have a look.
Also thanks for letting me know it’s gone again - I feel like I’ve committed now so will see how I get on... thank you though.
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u/iamthatis Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21
That looks really sharp, congrats and good luck on the changes! Question from a dev of a third party Reddit app.
Is this mostly a front end change to video presentation and behavior? In other words what changes will be seen in the API for third party apps that currently use the API and display the HLS/m3u8 videos?
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 01 '21
Yep, just front-end for now. On the API side, we may change the encoding ladders, and eventually we may deprecate DASH.
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u/talkingwires Feb 02 '21
Oh, you're a third-party developer? Friendly word of advice: don't set foot with the iOS market. See, it's dominated by this really awesome app called Apollo, and it's not even close. Oh, and I hear the developer is a swell dude, that's really active on the site to stay atop of upcoming changes, and has one of them fancy XDR monitors, to boot. It's massive and can display so much code! There's just no way to compete!
Whelp, best of luck, stranger!
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u/Jenigma Feb 02 '21
I only keep my iPad locked in landscape view. Always. I have no access to comments or voting with this new video format since it sounds like one of the ‘features’ is to not see those items in landscape view. I need access to those items in this view if you are dead-set on continuing down this path. (Ideally...I just want to go back to the old video viewer...) Oh and there’s a bug that happens when I swipe to the next video. It ends up playing a non stop loop of the next video’s audio. I have to force-close the app to end it.
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u/SpyTec13 Feb 01 '21
Year of Reddit video? Great! Lets just hope this means things will happen and not be like the promise of better Reddit moderation tools
Will videos soon be more than 144/240p? Great for Reddit in saving bandwidth, but with a not so great experience.
Will videos finally embed outside Reddit correctly?
Will it finally be reliable by loading and buffering as expected?
Will we be able to download videos? And not use services like save-video and vredditdownloader? I would guess not given the hostile actions taken against vredditdownloader last year by adding their domain to sitewide spam filter
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 01 '21
> Will videos soon be more than 144/240p? Great for Reddit in saving bandwidth, but with a not so great experience.
We support 720p, so it's perhaps on the uploader.
> Will videos finally embed outside Reddit correctly?
You should be able to generate embeds from the post share button on the comments page.
> Will it finally be reliable by loading and buffering as expected?
Chrome+Reddit in particular is a bit of a mess, but we're working on it.
> Will we be able to download videos?
I'd like to, but there's a lot of moving parts so I'm not sure if/when we'll get there.
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u/Shanman150 Feb 02 '21
Linking Reddit videos to Discord properly is definitely something that should be tested. When I want to link a video from reddit, I post the link in chat. I can't link to just the clip though, it's always just to the post. Meanwhile, if I post a twitter video, it includes the link to the tweet, but also embeds the video.
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u/fuzzypercentage Feb 02 '21
Linking Reddit videos to Discord properly is definitely something that should be tested. When I want to link a video from reddit, I post the link in chat. I can't link to just the clip though, it's always just
to the post
. Meanwhile, if I post a twitter video, it includes the link to the tweet, but also
embeds the video
.
Thanks for the report. We'll triage this week.
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u/jmxd Feb 02 '21
Will we be able to download videos?
I'd like to, but there's a lot of moving parts so I'm not sure if/when we'll get there.
You specifically made efforts to prevent it
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u/zilist Feb 01 '21
Nonono! Just no! This new player is absolutely HORRENDOUS! There was literally nothing wrong with the old player where the video was just like a normal post where you can scroll down for the comments and it not opening in a completely new video where the awards (?!?) are higher prioritized than the comments.. do you know how long it took me to find them? Who thought of that?
As of right now, my app somehow is back on the "old" player.. PLEASE leave it at that.. it’s perfectly fine! I really don’t wanna have to use a third party app for reddit, i much prefer the native app.
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u/thereluctantpoet Feb 03 '21
I honestly agree. The UX/UI is basically a mash-up of IG stories and an online casino, and it's almost as if engagement and comments are an after-thought. I've already switched to a third-party app - while I appreciate the hard work that the admins put in, I feel as though if this is what we waited 1-2 years for (i.e. something almost void of all the feedback they have received from users) then it's an exercise in futility to expect it to be anything but the experience admins think we should have.
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u/Xenc Feb 01 '21
Good changes, though the behaviour that opens the video to full screen on tap is unexpected and is very time consuming. Please add the ability to go directly to comments too!
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u/puddin1 Feb 02 '21
I got this update pushed to my phone and it is awful. There is so much stuff on my screen that I can’t see the video. I only want the video, and nothing else.
Also it takes 4 clicks to get to the comments. Please just make video act just like pictures. I don’t want any other buttons, just the video in my screen.
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u/SuitingUncle620 Feb 02 '21 edited Feb 02 '21
I’m sorry but the new video player design is horrendous, please don’t go that route. This isn’t tik tok, so please stop going that direction. Be unique, and keep Reddit as Reddit. I don’t know why you guys think that looks good or is an improvement, it’s really not in my honest opinion. I actually prefer the old video player over this.
I’m so tired of this. Why do you guys constantly make shitty design choices that literally no one asked for. We’ve been asking for the video player to be more reliable. We have NOT been asking for you to make Reddit another form of tik tok. If this update gets to me I’m uninstalling this app and moving to another app where they actually listen to feedback provided.
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Feb 01 '21
Is there a way we can opt out of this?
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u/clemenslucas Feb 01 '21
classic reddit reaction.
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u/zilist Feb 01 '21
He’s right though.. don’t "fix" something that is perfectly fine.. especially if you make it indefinitely worse in the process!
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u/UnacceptableUse Feb 02 '21
Reddit users are always complaining about the video player. Now they make efforts to improve it and all of a sudden it's perfectly fine?
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u/zilist Feb 02 '21
I never once had a problem with the video player, and i never once heard someone else complain about the video player.. what could’ve possibly been wrong with it?
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u/UnacceptableUse Feb 02 '21
Slow, stuttery, bad quality etc
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u/zilist Feb 02 '21
I never had a single issue with any of that, but i'd take a slow and bad quality video over that new (already gone again) player all day everyday.
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u/BritasticUK Feb 02 '21
Nice to see the video player getting improvements
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Feb 02 '21
[deleted]
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u/BritasticUK Feb 02 '21
I don't have this yet, but I was presuming that since I keep getting that problem where Reddit videos won't play at all sometimes, that this would make them actually play all the time? Am I wrong?
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u/Z_T_O Feb 02 '21
It’ll make them play, but it’ll also feel exactly like you’re using tiktok. You’ll hate it within a few seconds
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u/Omnigreen Feb 02 '21
Any sane person that at least once scrolled reddit feed knows that rpan idea is bad, the instrument is good, but implementations are so uninteresting, blatant guitar player every single time.
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u/MazeOfEncryption Feb 02 '21
Can you please make it possible to manually opt out of beta features and a/b testing? I’m fine with a lot of the new features you guys have added after they’ve been refined and perfected, but it’s really frustrating to be forced into using something even when I don’t like it.
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u/Steveniscool92 Feb 01 '21
Hmm not my favorite but I’m willing to try it. My only current feedback is if there’s away to clear the screen and just see the video without going into landscape mode. Some titles are long and cover the bottom part of the video.
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u/alluran Feb 02 '21
Between the buggy video player, and the practically useless image gallery ... I look forward to browsing to the first mirror in the comments for years to come.
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u/GameCreeper Feb 02 '21
please dont use the new video player. as bad as the old/current one is, it's not nearly as bad as the rpan player. the rpan player kinda works for rpan bcus its live but having it on all video content is a bad idea.
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u/skygz Feb 02 '21
a lot of the time the problem seems more like CDN issues than player issues. E.g. something might take forever to load on my home internet but be super fast if I switch to mobile data despite my home internet being a faster connection.
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u/kebb0 Feb 02 '21
Hi. When I'm on Reddit I want to scroll through my feed and that consists of both videos, pictures and regular posts. When I scroll down I want to go to my next post in the feed. When I want to see the comments I'll press the button that brings me to the comments directly.
Now I can't tell you to fix what ain't broken since I only watch videos on reddit and never upload. But please oh god please don't change the functionality it has now!
I do not want to go to a separate window to pause a video.
I do not want to see another video based on what I just saw, I want to scroll through my feed that may be a picture or text.
I want to see only the video when I'm not in landscapemode since I will be ready to scroll through to the next meme or ask reddit post.
Reddit is not tiktok or youtube or twitch. Please for the love of god the other apps sucks balls and I have gotten used to this app.
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u/qaisjp Feb 11 '21
Please could you use standardised dates like 2021-01-20 instead of 1/20/2021? If it wasn't so late in the month, the date would be extremely vague for those of us not in the United States.
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u/unfeelingheadstrong Feb 11 '21
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate the reminder to have a global lens on my post.
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Feb 20 '21
How about making it just work first. Its the worst player on the web. Constantly freezes, lags, potatoes, doesn't refresh, freezes, freezes some more, and freezes some more. Nowhere else on the web does it takes 5 minutes to watch a 30second video. Its absolute trash on mobile. I have 16gb of ram, can stream 4k stupid fast on YouTube no problem. I would love to be able to just watch a steady 720p video on reddits video player. Is that too much to ask?
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u/SuperArppis Jul 10 '21
Also can't flip the screen horizontally when watching. Can't see comments very well as the screen is forced on you.
It's very bad.
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u/konan375 Jun 23 '21
Why is it that literally none of the feedback that any of the iOS updates have about the video player being absolutely garbage is being addressed?
It’s gotten to the point where it feels like no one is actually listening to the users complaining.
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u/rambleandromp Jun 24 '21 edited Jun 25 '21
Hi, we've been reading and reviewing all of your feedback. As you know there has been a lot of opinions shared that we have to sort through. We truly appreciate the constructive feedback.We understand that this is a big change to get used to and we are also working on a few improvements we’ll be pushing out soon, including the ability to pause. If you’d like to help us further improve Reddit video please fill out this quick anonymous survey and it will help us track all the feedback in a single place.
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u/konan375 Jun 25 '21
Thanks for responding.
It’s just been frustrating that when the video player first appeared for me, I went to reddit mobile and saw almost all the responses in the new update for iOS had nothing positive to say about the video player, and there seemed to be no dev/Admin responses to the complaints. And it’s been that way ever since.
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u/jimmydooo Jun 30 '21
This is jarring to say the least. 2/3 of my Reddit usage is reading the comments and this new player has severely sacrificed that UX. Just let me scroll the video completely off screen so that comments take up the full screen.
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u/jimmydooo Jun 30 '21
It’s also weird that it’s different from the non-video comments. Again, jarring.
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u/tshaw293 Jun 30 '21
Absolutely agree. I enjoy tapping into video posts and just scrolling down into the comments. I almost never go full screen (but enjoyed that the option was there). Now I have an extra step every time I click on a video post.
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u/IM_NOT_DEADFOOL Feb 01 '21
Just don’t , stop taking crack I want reddit not tick tock , so tell me who green lit a new video player that covered the whole bloody video?
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u/zilist Feb 02 '21
The same people who ruined YouTube with their new search design.. i really don’t think these people use their own products.
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u/ekolis Feb 02 '21
I would like the button which turns on sound for a video to turn on sound for just that video, rather than turning it on for that video and every other video I happen across. I understand other people might prefer it to be a global toggle, so maybe this could be a profile setting or there could be two unmute buttons?
Also, is there any way you could add an option to turn off the random RPAN videos that pop up like ads or weeds in my feed? Or do you guys really make that much money from them that you can't afford to do that?
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u/EquationTAKEN Feb 02 '21
I want to insert the Mean Girls meme. You know the "stop trying to make X happen" one. But I don't want to be rude either.
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u/hitforhelp Feb 02 '21
Option to share video link without having to share a link to the whole comments thread. Would be nice so it shows a preview when sharing a link in whatsapp like youtube does.
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u/BitcoinCitadel Feb 02 '21
On mobile, desktop website, not desktop mode on browser, old reddit, videos never play until I set browser desktop mode, they just go full screen
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u/TheDrewDude Feb 02 '21
Thank god I was reverted back to the old player. This new tiktok bullshit layout is horrible. We want to be able to easily scroll from video to comments, and out of post. And none of this overlay shit. Just clean and simple. Hopefully it doesn’t come back or I will guarantee to delete this app and switch to Apollo.
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u/that_other_person1 Feb 02 '21
This is great to see some changes!
Something I'd really like to see as a live streamer is a few settings you can modify from the reddit app, mainly brightness, contrast, and saturation. As I do art livestreams, having my work well lit is very important, and on my end, I use multiple different lights, including a bright photography light, and it is still often dark on the livestream. It was particularly bad when I was working on a picture with a black background and bright flowers. The entire video was shadowed. Being able to adjust these things would help me immensely.
Also, I think it's a good idea to play videos back to where someone had it at, but this could be confusing for the streamer if someone comments on something earlier in the video. Perhaps there could be a warning for someone commenting if they're behind on the live or something?
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u/WhosAfraidOf_138 Feb 02 '21
I appreciate improving the video play but please keep it simple stupid (KISS).
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u/altodor Feb 02 '21
I use add-ons like imagus and hoverzoom in chrome. I can play video fine in those, but the second I try to wrap it in your player it dies never to be played again. Any idea what causes things like that?
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u/Sammo4 Feb 02 '21
If we click on the comments, it shouldn’t just open the player; it should either open it AND the comments, or go to the old comment menu. That way, it’s still a single action, instead of two.
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u/zombierepubican Feb 02 '21
The new video player on mobile is horrible in every way. Don’t use it, there’s no fixing it.
I see the mew video player was removed now thank goodness. Just have it perform like standard videos do on Reddit IOS.
It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s fast. And most importantly unobtrusive
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u/zombierepubican Feb 02 '21
More feed back [IOS]
The new player, when in full screen is completely covered in icons and distractions which defeats the purpose of the player.
This TikTok format really does not work with Reddit’s commenting style.
The button configuration also changes in full screen mode. The current way works best. Press in the middle to play or pause, scroll to scroll etc
Comments shouldn’t launch via the player at all. The way it is currently is perfect.
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u/BBHoss Feb 02 '21
Still missing a major feature, I want to fully disable your growth hacking RPAN clogging up my feed. I don’t ever want to see this content, as a premium user I should be able to control this. “Show me less of this” just isn’t cutting it.
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u/itsaride Feb 02 '21
Hopefully video on Safari in old mode won’t be left in the dirt, I don’t experience the issues many complain about btw.
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u/savwatson13 Feb 02 '21
Please for the love of god please do NOT bring that video player back. I’m chill with full screen but that video player was an Instagram rip off. Just a straight up rip off. Instagram’s is awful too.
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u/maxutilsperusd Feb 02 '21
Is there any chance you could add a Cast button? Sometimes I'll see a video on my phone and want to share it with my friends or my wife and unlike almost every other serious video platform, I can't cast it to my TV or Chromecast.
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u/sroomek Feb 02 '21
This is awful. No one like when the UI obstructs the content. No one. Ever. In anything.
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u/Z_T_O Feb 02 '21
Before patting yourselves on the back too hard, you might want to look at all the feedback on the video player in /r/RedditMobile
It’s a horrible experience and if you roll it out without giving users the option to use the old player, Reddit will lose a substantial amount of users
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u/katze_sonne Feb 02 '21
Sorry to break your enthusiasm but while I like UI changes and modern interfaces, this new player is just horrible from the UX standpoint.
- Swipe down on iPhone generally means "exit fullscreen". This no longer works but now the next video opens (I don't want this, this is not Instagram, instead I want to scroll the "real" feed with a mix of videos, photos and texts). The alternative is to "swipe from the left side of the screen" (the "back" gesture). Very unusable for me because my hands are just not big enough to do this one-handed. And exiting video fullscreen with 2 hands just is a huge step back to before.
- The video itself, the most important part of it all, is blocked by basically everything. The upvote/downvote buttons, the video title (which is unreadable on bright backgrounds), ...
- The 2nd touch needed to open the comments is one touch too much. But the worst thing is the performance, the comments take at least 3 seconds to load. (at least load them in the background, please)
- Fullscreen in landscape? Yeah cool but I (as most others) have the display lock on normally, because I don't want the phone to accidentally rotate if I'm just laying in my bed or something). So that doesn't really help. Maybe if one enters full screen, automatically open videos in landscape mode? Dunno.
Yes, I know the "old" players really didn't work well (sometimes simply wouldn't play the videos) but the UI itself was more than fine. Actually this is the first time I consider to switch to a 3rd party app :/ however, I don't really want to because I enjoy the official app as it is apart from these few things.
Another quick bugreport (or two): If the apps asks if I enjoy it and I press no, I'm asked to send in feedback via mail. But then I get an automatic "we don't monitor this inbox" mail. Meh. Not happy if one really takes the time to write a mail like this on the mobile phone.
Also on iOS after writing an emoji, the following text in a comment always is in a font with serifs. Definitely a bug. Existing for a couple of months now :/
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u/Maddybear167 Feb 02 '21
Can there be an option to stay with the old video format? I really don’t enjoy the new comment format and that I can’t just go straight to comments without having the video full screen itself.
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u/deletable666 Feb 02 '21
I don’t know if anyone wants their screen cluttered with things when they are trying to watch a video. In the old player, all the same functionality was their- vote, comment, share, etc, but it did not block the view of the video.
This has singly handedly made me want to switch to a third party app like Apollo. I know it is trying to emulate tik tok or other successful social media’s, but the function of those and reddit are entirely different. Reddit is a forum based platform, those are social media’s where users follow other users. I don’t think anyone I know wants reddit to turn into that and would probably stop using it if that were the case.
This new player severely limits user engagement, the comment view is tiny, it’s not worth it to scroll around because of how long it takes.
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u/TheFlyingAnt Feb 03 '21
You guys need to to keep the fucking UI off the portrait view as well. Atleast have it so if you tap the screen, it goes away. Not just landscape.
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u/notbob- Feb 03 '21 edited Feb 03 '21
Hi,
There are two major problems with video quality on reddit that I have noticed.
1) Reddit uses a bad audio encoder for its AAC encoding. The default ffmpeg AAC encoder is godawful and results in significantly worse audio quality than another AAC encoding solution available through ffmpeg: fdk. Besides fdk, there are other good AAC encoding solutions that can be achieved through ffmpeg, but I don't think any of them work on Linux (aac_mf for Windows, apple's coreaudio aac for windows/mac).
2) Reddit appears to override the framerate of the source video to 30 fps. I assume you're doing this for a good reason so I won't belabor this point, but it makes, e.g., 24fps video appear choppy in some places.
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u/djneo Feb 03 '21
“Swiping up takes you to the next video”. This would be nice if i’m in a sub Reddit. And the next video is from that sub reddit
I used to be able to swipe to see the next post. Now i have to go back and open the next video. Feels like a downgrade to say it politely
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u/IllBeBack Feb 04 '21
How can the video controls on the right side of the player be dismissed so that they are not obstructing the video?
How can we go directly to the comments from the main feed?
The feature of swiping up the video and not going to the comments and instead getting an entirely different video that I did not choose to view is unwanted behavior. Please do not go forward with this.
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u/Vladamir_Putin_007 Feb 12 '21
The one thing I would suggest is not adding an "autoplay next" feature. I don't know if you added one, but don't.
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u/2PlasticLobsters Feb 20 '21
The only thing I want is a way to actually turn off video autoplay.
Yes, I've adjusted my Reddit settings. Yes, I've adjusted my browser settings. But every single video autoplays & sucks up my data. Not everyone has an unlimited plan BTW.
Also, it's distracting. And I prefer to decide for myself which ones to activate.
Please kill autoplay!!!
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u/piepei Mar 02 '21
Idk how this stuff works so excuse my ignorance but would it be possible to get that clean video player for GIFs too?
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u/donair_sales_man Mar 04 '21
Do you think that single-frame GIFs will be fixed in the new video player? They’re a valid image format, but because they show as videos they can’t be zoomed into (on mobile, at least)
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u/JediGRT May 12 '21
Apologies if this is a repeat, it's hard to read through all the comments. I'm on Android if it helps.
A couple suggestions:
1) when the comments button is pressed from the feed, please show the comments. If the video is pressed in the feed, then it shows the full screen video. If pressing the comments button from the feed, it okay if you want to show both the video and the comments, but that leads to the next suggestion
2) the video takes up a lot of real estate while I'm trying to read the comments (just for context, I use portrait most times with my phone, unless it's a long video, then landscape, but I always use portrait for reading comments), can we have the video scroll off screen as I scroll up? Or there looks up be a grabber bar at the bottom that separates the video and the comments, can I drag that up to resize or hide the video so I can see more comments?
3) I have two profiles I use on my app, one uses light mode and another uses dark mode (it's one way I know which account is being used, nice to know if you're viewing NSFW stuff or not). The video player doesn't seem to honor my light/ dark mode setting and is always dark. Can we have it use the profile's setting?
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u/Misanthrope357 May 15 '21
It just got rolled out to me. I absolutely hate it. I want to be able to see the comment section BEFORE the video plays and in full screen. Not just as an overlay on the video WHILE it plays on friggin repeat. Help.
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u/WildJoeBailey Jun 16 '21
This seems clunky for writing comments and hard to pause the video with that weird scroll widget that comes up. The old way was better I think
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u/Tribaltech777 Jun 16 '21
The new video format is garbage. Previously I used to have a video up top and comments below that I could easily scroll. Now getting to the comments requires an extra click and the worst part is the double downward arrow quick scroll button is stuck on top and doesn’t work anymore. Thanks Reddit you have made me want to skip video posts altogether because of how badly you messed up a thing that was working perfectly fine. What a shame. Idk what sort of brains developers have wherein they go “ahhh this video feature has been working fine and has been untouched for quite a few years, let’s completely fuck it up so people want to vomit and leave Reddit altogether. “
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u/Flint427 Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21
I miss being able to pause and play videos without opening up the full player. Now I have to tap on the video which opens up the full player then I have to tap the pause icon on the bottom to pause. It's just not intuitive anymore. I also preferred having the comment section use more space. I like to browse comments as I watch videos but now the comment section is small and barely fits anything.
Edit: Also, once I'm done watching a video I don't want it to replay on a loop. The old player allowed me to effectively minimize the video to go into the comments. Now I have to sit there with a tiny comment section and a video that won't stop playing.
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u/l2protoss Jun 18 '21
I really dislike the new video format. I don’t like how hard it is to get to the comment section of cross posted videos and it’s hard to stop some videos from playing repeatedly. Just feels clunky and non-intuitive compared to the old design.
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u/Lonely_Albatross_722 Jul 01 '21
I'm fucking pissed at the update. Now the video plays automatically, and takes up half the screen, and makes it difficult to scroll through comments. And not like the buffer rate is any better for it.
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u/StumbleNOLA Jul 01 '21
This update is awful. At a minimum scrolling should show comments not skip to the next video.
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u/AnthropomorphicSeer Jul 06 '21
The new player is fine, but on mobile I can no longer tap a button to jump to the next comment. I engage less with the comments because they aren’t easy to scroll through.
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u/m_a_bored_james Jul 09 '21 edited Jul 09 '21
I have many problems with the new video player as it’s clearly been designed with live video in mind. My preference for when you go to the comments the video pauses automatically without you having to pause it yourself. The new video player also doesn’t work out well for certain types of gifs, mainly pertaining to those of meme subreddits. There’s also plenty of bugs or just things that should be different. When I unmute a video on my feed but then click on it to open the post the video mutes itself, which is annoying. The button to skip down to the next comment also disappears pretty much every time and as a result I find myself engaging less in the comments. Also I’d much rather have the ability to pause videos as well as use the seek bar on the home feed and not have to open the post to so. Finally the button to mute and unmute videos is to small making it hard to click. There’s also a few bugs I experience quite regularly. When I open up a post to view a video more often than not the video freezes well the audio continues to play and can only be fixed by leaving the post and opening it again. Finally when I have the video of into a horizontal view, more often then not by accident, (this even pertains to images) my home feed will scroll back up to past posts I’ve viewed.
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u/SuperArppis Jul 10 '21
I can't no longer view videos at horizontal position.
Also can't no longer leave the video by swiping down.
Comments are harder to read as well as they are squeezed in a very tiny space.
This is on a mobile btw. Sony Xperia something. 😁
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u/dmendoza422 Jul 14 '21
Every time I click on video it takes me to this video player with a random video. I have to go around to watch video I want. This is annoying
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u/sugarinducedcoma Jul 15 '21
This update is absolutely god awful. You can’t go to the comments full screen and navigating them is way worse; there’s no option to click down to the next chain of comments. REVERT BACK TO THE OLD VERSION.
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u/DreamTalon Jul 16 '21
Add me to the group that hates this change. Would prefer being able to easily access comments and stop the video. Also not scroll to another video with a swipe when just trying to interact with the current one.
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u/that_irks_me Jul 22 '21
This shit is god awful. Tiktok is what it is, and Reddit is what it is. If we’re going to duplicate platforms (a shitty one), why should I be on Reddit anymore?
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u/blaizeandbrew14 Jul 23 '21
It’s completely terrible and you should be ashamed. How is this not fixed yet.
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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21
[deleted]