Recently I have noticed that the video quality of recently added dramas have been pretty bad. Dramafever non-upgraded type of bad. It says 480P, but it’s more like 240P.
Hopefully not.
Example videos? I know for new (airing) shows, they do sometimes add lower quality vids to start with and replace them with HD ones afterwards. Don’t know how relevant that is to you.
…I’m not alone in thinking it’s ridiculous for Viki to add anything less than 480p right? Their video player is a fixed size, so you’d think they would only add videos that actually fit. But who knows.
Example vids:
Started noticing the huge difference in the following Dramas:
I would hate to abandon Viki as I have watched dramas exclusively here for years and only venture to Hulu if there’s a drama there that isn’t on Viki, like Horse Doctor, Heartless City and Lee Soon Shin.
And yes DramaFever is the worst site for watching dramas. Their free stuff —Horrible quality AND Commercials. At least on Hulu you get true HD with commercials.
I just checked with Secret since I Dare You to Marry is not available in my region… From what I have noticed, I don’t see any difference in quality. Seems like HD still. However, I am seeing popups about the no Ads, on the go watch, and HD and wonder if they are also going towards Dramafever route. If so, no point in continuing with going to Viki.
@borri
Looks to vary from channel to channel.
For Secret and Marry Him If You Dare, the highest resolution options I’m getting are 480p, which is probably why they don’t like HD to you, at least if you’re watching fullscreen. (Unless this is an issue on my end?)
But there are other shows that I get a 720p HD option for though, so I’m not really sure what that’s about. It may be a matter of Viki not getting HD videos from the production company, or maybe it’s part of the contract that they only get 480p vids?
As for Hulu, I was under the impression that they were partnered with DF. Or at least they were? Why do they have more availability .-. I don’t understand.
@yunnibunni
I wouldn’t want to put down Viki so soon. Viki and DF run sort of differently, so it’s not for certain what will happen.
I do recall users asking about something like a payed subscription service because they didn’t want to deal with ads. So that may have had some influence on what VIki’s doing now. But we’ll see.
Have you contacted the Help Centre about this? At the very least, they might give you a better explanation why on some channels the quality is poor.
My computer screen isn’t HD so I can’t really tell the difference. But, you are spot on about Secret. In the earlier episodes, the quality was really bad and many people asked about it. I think the reason given was that the content provider gave a low quality video first to upload and would replace it with a better quality video.
scircus,
Regarding DF and Hulu, you are right. Difference is if a show is on DF, it’s gonna be on Hulu…but new episodes gets update on Hulu about1-2 days later. I watched Heartless City first 2 episodes on DF, the video quality was pretty bad. Then by chance, I found out that it was also on Hulu and in 720P, crystal clear. Also, on Hulu, if the commercials don’t load, once you reload the page, it take you back to where you had just left. Stupid DF, you start from the beginning again and have to rewatch all those damn commercials.
Hate to say it but, if Viki goes the DF route, i’ll go exclusively to Hulu. Commercials I can deal with, poor video quality, I can’t.
Getting a license for a drama is not cheap, next that you don’t get an office for free or staff that works for free because there needs to be bread on the table. And a site this huge, I don’t want to know how much it costs to keep it running. So yes I totally understand that Viki decided on this. I mean in the end they can afford to buy a license for more content.
You have 2 options to get a VikiPass:
If you can’t afford the monthly fee the only option you have is becoming a QC. Click here
I always preferred Viki over DF because of the free HD video quality. Q.Q
Now we hafta pay? Seriously Viki? (Well at least it’s cheaper, and they sometimes offer 480p, instead of DF’s sucky 360p.
Like Dudie said above, Viki needs to get money from somewhere to run the site, pay its team, to get the shows for you to watch, especially because the site is growing in traffic and show offerings.
And to be fair, $4 a month is a small amount of money.
On video quality, since 480p isn’t HD, I’d think all shows would have at least that.
(And especially more so, because Viki’s video player is one size only, anything less than that does start to look…less pleasant.)