YouTube has been spotted testing server-side ads, which could pose a problem to ad blockers.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    if they did, the only way it would work is if they live encode every video on request, which as we know from twitch, is incredibly cost prohibitive. So i doubt it. This could mostly be assuaged through caching, but i’m not sure how long the economics hold up on that compared to just not doing any live encoding at all.

    • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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      3 months ago

      No, that’s not necessary. The only thing they need to do is to find an I-Frame (which there are plenty of), make a cut at that frame, show the ad instead, and then resume to the original video after the ad is done. No extra encoding is involved. It’s just like concatenating video files together.

      I’ve done similar stuff like this. It’s not too difficult, at least not in H264. Not sure about YouTube’s own format, but I guess it’s quite similar.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        that’s what im saying. Maybe not in this thread, idk, i’ve had a few of these now, but they’re almost certainly just injecting the AD somewhere through the middle of the video.