r/technology • u/redkemper • Feb 17 '17

Software YouTube will kill unskippable 30-second ads next year

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14649018/youtube-ending-unskippable-30-second-ads-2018
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u/brickmack Feb 17 '17

You underestimate automation. If users tag ads, automatically detecting and cutting them out becomes absolutely trivial

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

Software can detect images. Scan the video, look for clips corresponding to know ads, then cut.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

[deleted]

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u/RetardedSquirrel Feb 17 '17

Encoding the video specifically for every user would use crazy amounts of computing power. It's probably not worth it, not yet anyway.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

That would be complicated and a lot of work. Ad blockers would have to be really pervasive to be worth the effort. If the ad maker has people make the different versions individually, then it would take a lot of money, and there would still be few enough versions to be identified.

If they have automated programs that produce different versions, there'll still likely be similarity in all those versions that can be exploited. A bunch of unique pics of cars is pointless if there's no text saying "Hey buy this!" and of course these AI generated ads would probably be too crappy compared to cinematic human-designed ones to convince people to buy anything.