Staff Blog / Introducing Couch Mode... get comfy!

That is, until we change it forever, again, no takesies-backsies, times infinity, plus one ;)

Kevin, please take as constructive criticism. Vimeo is for non commercial use and your site rightly does not power business’ video. But just facilitating this couch function on Vimeo Staff Channels, (Staff Picks and HD) is commercial. It promotes the business of your channels, but not the channels of the artists whose video posts have made Vimeo such a successful online business. Therefore, would it have not been helping and respecting the Vimeo Community more, if you had selected Vimeo Community run channels and not those created by Vimeo Staff? It might even be considered elitist and great that all your staff can watch what they select and moderate at home on their TV’s. But if some of the big Vimeo Community sites like The Good Stuff, World HD and hundreds of others were first to be considered, it would be genuine community drive and not a commercial business move, which this seems like.

You got a point, Lianna.

But I'm sure Vimeo knows that its added-value lies as much in its awesome content (i.e. the videos themselves) created by its users as in its awesome user-created channels and groups that actually bring order in that, otherwise chaotically heterogeneous (concerning genre), video-mass. A categorization function that is fundamental in orienting users towards the sub-communities they are more interested in (e.g. videoart, animation, CGI, fiction and so on), allowing them to find like-minded people to exchange views with and get feedback from. Which is eventually the reason why we love Vimeo and what makes it stand out in the crowd.

I'm sure Vimeo recognizes that user-created channels and groups are the heart of its lively community and of its offer, so I'm confidently looking forward to seeing this awesome new function work for all user-created channels and groups!

Don't forget about categories, they are super chill- vimeo.com/​categories

ya es hora!

Hi Ian,
In Chrome, go to View > Enter Full Screen

Nothing in Safari?

Was about to ask the same question :)

And in Safari? =)
Love the idea of couch mode.. the name is perfect btw :D

To my knowledge, Safari doesn't have native support for full-screen, but there are a few plug-ins out there which I haven't tried. YMMV!

Hi NM,
At the moment, the only channels supported are Staff Picks and HD. We will be rolling out more sections in the future and will keep this request in mind!

NM has put alot effort into both the Good Stuff Group and channel and that would be great Kevin! We have alot of interest in our worldhd channel aswell :)

Looking forward to seeing it for Channels.
Especially 'Video Painting'

We'll look into it. I know nothing about the PS3's capabilities to be honest.

Thanks for the answer !

Hope Vimeo can show up on PS3 in HD. As of now the flash version in the ps3 browser is too old to play anything.

Netflix just went full 1080p 5.1 surround streaming on PS3. Look into it for us Vimeo!

Thanks.

BBC iPlayer on PS3 too in the UK.

Unfortunately, there are no ways build apps for the Apple TV right now.

What about releasing the HD channel and Staff Picks as podcasts we can subscribe to in iTunes. That would be freaking awesome all the vimeo files that I download and reincode in iTunes for my appleTV look awesome on my 40" LCD with surround sound amp turned up.

Please? A podcast to subscribe to?

Yeah we're planning more sharing options. Of course if you hook up your Twitter/FB up to Vimeo: vimeo.com/​settings/​extend, it will auto-share your likes from Couch Mode.

Probably not, Roku is limited in it's UI options (not that that's a bad thing).

dag, yo~

Someday...

Right now there's no way to build apps for the Apple TV that I know of. Hopefully that'll change!

What about creating an HD and Staff Picks iTunes podcast to subscribe to?

Hey Mark,

Yeah, we want that as well! We are going to continue to evolve Couch Mode and that is definitely on the list of things to include.

We'll post some more updates as new features are added.

Thanks,
Ryan

Thanks, Ryan! Appreciate the feedback.

Hi Eugenia,
Thank you for your constructive criticism. To address a few of your points:

1. We are working on search.

2. This was developed on Macs and tested on a Google TV unit that is hooked up to one of our TVs. We tried to maintain a padding of 5-10%, so if you have any screenshots/photos of anything that is clipping, that will be helpful to us.

3. Could you explain this dot-by-dot mode you are experiencing? We realize that there are a lot of devices that are going to have to support this, so the more information you can provide to us about your setup, the better!

4, 5, and 6. I agree with you 100%. These are bugs that we are already looking into.

Thank you for the reply Kevin.

2. I currently have the BD hooked to the Pioneer, which only "misses" half the buttons in its default overscan mode, but my Vizio TV in my office has a lot more overscan, so it almost misses the whole of these buttons. I think you need to bring the whole UI about 50px more inwards (on a 1080p display that is).

3. "Native" or "dot-by-dot" is a feature of the more expensive TVs where you can tell the TV to behave like a PC monitor, so there is no overscan at all. Without this mode, TVs resize the picture, and you lose a bit of crispiness. Legacy is what drives TV manufacturers to still create flat panel TVs with overscan.

So, my TV is one of these that has this PC mode, where there is no overscan, so you get the best quality possible, without any resizing/softness. But in order for the TV to "stay put" at that mode, the resolution must not change in the video feeding device (in this case, GoogleTV). The problem is, with your web app, every time a new video starts to load up, the resolution changes for half a second or so, for some reason. The TV detects that, and forces itself out of the native PC mode. The CURIOUS thing about this is that all the videos I tested the problem with were all 720p, so there should not have been a change in the resolution while a new video was loading! But there is! Either Vimeo's code, or GoogleTV's code, or the fact that these are 720p videos and my GoogleTV is set to 1080p. I don't know who does the wrong thing here, all I know is that while a new video starts to load, there's a small resolution disruption, and this kicks my TV out of its native mode, adding overscan again.

Thank you again for the reply. I'm glad to see that the rest of the problems will get fixed.

I'm afraid what it needs to be done for the native mode to stick, is for Vimeo to "ask" googleTV what's its set TV resolution (in my case 1080p), and then feed googletv resized 1080p videos, even if these videos are 720p or smaller in reality. If googleTV displays these videos upscaled to 1080p, then the resolution shouldn't change, and the TV's native mode would stay put. Upscaling video is possible with Flash, but not sure if it's also technically possible with HTML5 though.

Alternatively, GoogleTV should do the upscaling to the set resolution automatically. But so far this doesn't seem to be its feature.

To Eugenia - forgive my british, but U know advance and can not find staff. I read lot on iPhone, Android, Google TV and many apps include big TV that now say they go back to Flash and wrong to stop 3 party Flash, now back with even HTML5 devices, because can default disable videos. Do you no Eugenia?

Janita, sorry, but your British makes no English sense. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Btw, Kevin, thank you for fixing the text size. It's now readable.

Eugenia, I am a multi-national professor and think an astute technician such as yourself should have a higher tolerance of someone learning English, (like Ms Serdain or Janita).

All bloggers here have tolerated your 'pages' about Sony BD’s, UI’s for TV Screens, dots, native mode TV’s, timeline TV’s, 1080p TV’s, but not normal young people or family TV worldwide.

I think the original article that Janita “tried” to reference was sourced from Singapore, (only last week) and researched by Sony Japan and Korea and quoting Apple and many other engineers planning future video delivery. It was originally in Mandarin, but when I finish translating I will happily send you the 20 web page attachments. (Private Industry Link). Basically, it says, with considerable accuracy and authority that “Apple’s previous ‘draconian’ measure to not use Flash in iPhones, iPads and future Apple TV’s is now changing to reincorporate upgrades of Flash”. It also paints a far simpler and realistic view of future TV that will have far more handhelds easily plugged in or programmed to the fullest HD standard and incorporating Flash based or Clone Flash based technology all the way. Simply, because Flash, (or cloned Flash) will continue to revolutionise streaming video and spawn the total online games in, quote, unquote, “couch mode”, being played from multiple TV plug-ins. It also advises that America is no longer the technology majority and will not lead internet TV video and games 2010-2018 and that the world’s “creators of video” are more interested in how to make, rather than how to watch. So rather than talking to someone in lowest common denominators because they cannot speak English as well as you do in America, maybe you could provide tutorial of how creators can make videos in “couch mode”, rather than just watch them. Overall, in the “creative” and “filmmaking” online and mobile world majority, I do not think anyone has the TV’s you talk of, but invest far more in devices and software that helps creating more than watching. You Tube is standard TV Entertainment Channel on everything being discussed here and thousands of the amazing Vimeo Videos are on You Tube and shared TV homes worldwide. Even Apple are now saying Safari will not implement the most innovative multiple web TV viewing. Engineers who live CSS3 and HTML5 say a mix of Flash will enable them to push the boundaries of how all future video and games are made (and watched).

Lastly, Janita, if you can understand the basics of what I am saying or want to cut and paste this to Google Translate, (not Google TV), I am happy to send you some incredible Android tutorials on learning English, (not programming languages). The future is more about making entertainment, rather than just watching it. Bye for now.

I'm not American either, but I certainly try to write in a way that's readable. What Janita was writing was simply not comprehensible. It's not about being intolerant, it's about truthfully not being able to make sense of what she was writing.

As for that "article" you mentioned, what is "cloned Flash" anyway?

Ouch mode!

Hey Haakon,

Yeah, right now Couch Mode is not optimized for the iPad or iPhone. The real goal of Couch Mode, in its current state, is for playing this through your TV or large computer display.

With that said, we are exploring ways on making this viewing mode available via touch interfaces, but for now the keyboard and mouse will have to do.

Thanks,
Ryan

Not in the near future until we support WebM (the video format Firefox requires). Andrew goes into a little more detail here: vimeo.com/​forums/​topic:25295#comment_3961321

couch mode!

1. Use Chrome, it has fullscreen (F11).

2. It's designed to work on a TV, so you should use your device's volume

3. How old is the MacBook?

ow thanks, I just downloaded chrome for fullscreen mode :)

I don't have a tv, it would be cool if you could watch it on for example an imac 27" and play some spotify tracks on the same imac.. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be really pleased to be able to do this.

My macbook pro's is a 2.16 Ghz Core Duo. My imac plays Vimeo HD without any problems however, although I haven't tested couch mode on it yet.

Keep up the good work!

No comment...

Please understand that the primary context of this feature is watching videos 4m+ away on a screen of limited resolution. Because of this, we have to be extremely selective of what features go in to avoid cluttering the UI.

You can always access these videos by liking them, going to your likes list on the main site and commenting on them from there.

Yes I realise that.

But I was pointing on the hassle of having to 'like' or 'watch later' a video > then going to vimeo again > clicking your likes/watchlater and then opening the video twice.
Just a "take me to video" in the Info pane that would open in a new Tab would be nice.

But I understand if you want to keep people in the whole UI and never leave it, EVER :P

Sorry if I misunderstood. A link to the video which opens a new tab is a strong possibility!

In fact Inofaith, it has been done. The next time you go into Couch Mode, you should notice the the clip title is now a link to the clip page on Vimeo, which opens in a new window.

Ahhh perfect guys, you're the best! :)

I was trying to click on the video title in the info page before.

Hey Marc,

Consider it done, at least for Couch Mode anyways.

Thanks,
Ryan

thanks Ryan it looks great!!

One other little nit-picky thing I noticed is that the vertex of those "watch later" clock hands could use a little cleaning up (again, especially glaring when you hit the button and the huge icon flashes)...

Couchmode works as a web app, so you can run it without a Google TV. It's really up to you whether or not you need one :)