DivX shutters also-ran cat piano video site Media player and format licensing outfit DivX has announced it will close down Stage6.com, its effort at a YouTube-style user-generated video site featuring cats playing piano, dogs on skateboards and mid-Western teenagers miming to Linkin Park. The firm said it plans to cut the power on 28 February. That gradient is bad …
The article should have mentioned the conspicuous failure of DivX to become the defacto standard for web-embedded video, losing out to Flash. Stage6 failed partly because it was all DivX format.
The guys running DivX have done a pretty poor job and lost a lot of mindshare early on with dishonest dealings with the open source community which culminated in the creation of a truly open source rival, Xvid. (Check out the Wikipedia entries on DivX and Xvid.)
My moneys on forced closure due to copyright infringement! The only thing on stage6 is copyrighted materials! Youtube/google have deep pockets, I guess stage6 doesn't! Oh well bye bye stage6
" Stage 6 Being Sued by Universal Music Group"
http://www.stage6.com/forum/712/18126/
if it is due to UMG, this will be the second site they've closed due to legal action and the 4/5 they've sued (if not more)
stage6 was excellent and was the source of many a good tv show - thanks to stage 6 related index sites such as joox.net and quicksilverscreen.com
We would have put up with adverts being inserted into content every 15minutes
example would be upload a 45 min / 350mb file and stage6
splits the file into 3
adds adverts
recombines in to 1 file
Though there are lots of similar sites, they were the only one I know of that would accept files of pretty much any size and resolution. The quality of video on there was a lot more watchable on a large screen than anything youtube and it's other rivals can offer.
I'm sure that the huge bandwidth issues they suffered from had to do with people gaming the system, ie: hiding copyrighted films away on there and then linking to them via joost and redcurtainmovies etc. from which I'd hesitate to guess how many people were streaming or downloading them. More than enough to screw them into closing the site at the very least.
It's a crying shame as all the competitors offer lousy video quality or absurdly short maximum lengths for clips. I only wish that they'd found a way to make some more money out of it or shoved banner ads on from the beginning.
Now that h264 is in flash the supposed technical advantage DivX had is basicly going to evaporate.
I only ever saw links to TV shows that were posted on stage6 without the copywirght holders permission, that was driving their viewer numbers, and they didn't have a solution to fix it.
RIP stage 6!
Stage 6 is excellent. Downloadable vids, new shows from america we cant watch yet, some pretty interesting documentaries, WHY GOD WHY?
All i can say is its going to be hammered for all its worth til the bitter end.
[click]download
[click]download
[click]download
[click]download
[click]download
[click]download.......
Don't got stage6!!!!
Boo, having used alot of the 'other' video streaming sites, I have to say stage6 kicks ass.
I mean... I may even consider paying for such a service. With that said, i have found my self buying DL content in the form of videos.
If it was not for Stage6 there are many movies I would not of gone out and bough, many of the manga/anime that lives on my selfs was first watch on stage6 and similar.
-a sad man. (no not that kind of sad).
..because I and presumably many others never new it existed! Perhaps that's because I stopped using the DivX player and so never went to DivX.com or saw any advertising for Stage6?
I was sick of having multiple players to support all the various codecs.
So I now use only two, BSPLayer - because it has better controls and support for subtitle files and VLC which plays just about every codec out there. Consequently I stopped visiting the Divx site to download the player.
It sounds like those that knew about it appreciated it. Oh Well
This is really a loss.
Stage 6 was the only site I knew that actually offered quality streaming and downloads, things that would look acceptable on a ftatscreen TV.
It was also the only video site I went to regularly.
As said by another poster, I would gladly have accepted to have an advertisement inserted before each video if it would keep the site afloat.
This is really a huge loss for video on the internet!
Looking by all the comments on here, the people who are mourning the demise of stage 6 all used it to download copyrighted TV shows. Quite frankly, you bunch of freeloaders almost certainly killed the site - it is not your god-given right to be able to download this stuff without paying, and you need to understand that bandwidth isn't free. How many of the people downloading these shows would have stuck with the site if they'd started trying to recoup some of their costs from the users (even ignoring the copyright issues)? No-one? Thought not. You muppets.
I will miss stage6 it was a brilliant website for all video. I used it for tv-shows, instructional videos etc. Shame, I was hoping that we were seeing the shape of things to come but aparently not. I would have continued downloading if they had inserted ads into the videos no doubt. Look at deezer that is a great site lets you listen to all the music you want and the ads are not intrusive because they are visual and dont interrupt the audio.
@Richard
Freeloaders didn't kill the site, stage6 did it all by itself by not monetizing the site properly. Think before you speak!
And no, I did not use it to download copyrighted material, I used it to host decent quality versions of my own movies, as did a bunch of my friends. Does anyone know somewhere else that will let you upload HD movies?
http://www.stage6.com/user/Onefive_Media/video/2166799/Shralpdown! for example of what user-generated HD content can look like. Sigh.
It was the bee's knees for rock and metal videos. The amount of music videos from artists I have only heard and never seen was amazing, tons of 640x480+ resolution bootleg videos of gigs, I would never get to see. Alright, there was a little bit of copyrighted stuff, but hardly surprising given the amount of data they held.
A terrible shame it really is. Maybe it will return one day under another name.
Can I call you Dick?
I've been using Stage 6 to watch epsiodes of Stargate Atlantis. I used to be able watch it here in The Netherlands on terrestrial TV, however, that channel lost the rights when the SciFi channel launched here.
Now I'm PAYING for the SciFi channel on digital cable, but so-far all they been showing on the Dutch version of the channel is Startrek, Dark Angel, and Sliders (yeah, *Sliders* FFS!).
So, I don't see why some coke-snorting network suits should dictate WHEN I am able to watch something I'm effectively already paying for.
How about you stop being such a self righteous Dick?
All this speak about H.264 being a part of Flash is all great and wonderful, but most of the user-generated video content on YouTube and such will probably never *ever* reach the superb quality that H.264 is capable of delivering. After all, they've got away with compressing everything to merry hell for some time now, and will probably continue to do so regardless of the codec in use.
Major websites sending YouTube-quality content gives people the impression that their connection can't do much better. Stage6 and the DivX codec actually showed the contrary, and did it well.
I trust that the people who complain about the DivX codec and Stage6 are the same sort of people who are still running System 7 and watching VHS tapes from 1991.
I used Joox LOADS - it was perfect for some light relief during lunchtime at work. The DivX Web Player's one of the few ActiveX controls I actually wanted to install!
Between the free offerings, the DivX streaming video quality is unbeatable - just super smooth, crisp, with decent audio quality (YouTube's 64kbps audio just doesn't cut it any more!), and the desktop darkener was such a clever little touch.
I don't really think I'll be able to go back to YouTube :(
Right, now, who wants to secure some Round 1 VC funding for a high-quality, H264 & AAC-based, UGC-sourced video streaming site?
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