doublevr
This is a terrible precedent you guys are setting.
I echo the above sentiment. THE reason I took a lifetime at SLR is I just loved the step up in quality compared to the other websites. You guys were, and still are, at the top of this game. Taking that away from us (or charging it now seperately) just doesn't feel fair. I know, I took a chance buying lifetime and I know it doesn't come with any rights, but damn, it doesn't feel good at all. This feels like a bait n switch.
Like mentioned above, is this is caused by rendering in AV1, then just skip AV1. Just leave it like it was please.
Honestly @doublevr this IS a bait n switch. You advertise product A, people buy it and then you offer them inferior product B instead. Please reconsider!! It's WAY better to just offer any new product, not being sold yet, as an extra upgrade, so for an additional fee. Like, offer the original bitrate file but also offer the AV1 file but for an additional fee. Then it makes sense and then you won't slap your exisiting customer base in the face.
You guys are also looking into 6DOF files, right? Well again, that's something you could offer at an additional fee, since it's not being sold yet and nobody paid for getting that already.
So please don't take things away from us, what we already paid for. But offer new additional product for an extra charge IF you feel you have to. That's fair. The other way around is just not fair.
harigeharry the quality is only getting better. Like much better. It comes at a cost for these who want it
harigeharry I'd wish there would be an option for everything, but then we would end up with having too many options to the point it's a burden.
The product baseline is there. As the product matures we are looking to restructure things to keep it right.
Well the thing is that you're now lowering the baseline. Previously the original bitrates were included in the plan, now they are not anymore.
I fully understand that if costs are going up, you will need to increase revenue one way or another. But again, it's much more fair if you don't do that by lowering the product quality, but find other ways. Anyway just my 2 cents.
Wow. So, I can't have access to the high-quality videos that brought me to SLR in the first place by being a member? There isn't even an option to upgrade my plan. And I don't understand why you think encoding a video file will do anything other than reduce the quality and size. AV1 might be great for your bandwidth costs, but any encoding is just removing pixels from the end product.
There's zero mention on individual pages of what resolution is underneath the "Buy" option. What a disaster. I hope you reconsider. Not sure why folks would choose to subscribe if the quality is dropping to that of inferior studios as a subscriber.
If bandwidth is killing you, then implement something like you did with scripts where subscribers can only download X number of original bitrate videos per month. I have zero interest in subscribing to a site that only offers inferior quality to their subscribers, our eyes notice the difference, and we're trying to recreate reality here.
Removing original bitrate and putting it behind a paywall is a slap in the face to paying members
Let people pay extra for AV1 encodes. If they are as good as you claim then they will sell!
Next on the chopping block is gonna be download limits for the hundredth time
2Jqt8XuAkwr having hq downloads plan upgrade might be a good idea. Thx for bringing it up
Removing an existing feature and then replacing it with a different one you pay more for is not an upgrade. It's a bait and switch.
AV1 is not even a guaranteed quality upgrade. It has the potential to be a quality upgrade and the potential to be a quality downgrade. It all depends on the encoding settings used. The same could be said about any codec really. And I know Windows Media Foundation struggles with AV1 playback to begin with even with an RTX 5090.
Of all videos to do this to SLR Originals make the least sense to me. I don't see why a subscriptions to SLR would not include access to all SLR Original files.
But really anytime you subscribe to a service (especially one doing lifetimes) that offers something and then the service takes it away it's a problem.
petex67 Correct, I don't use real time encoding if I want to save space, I only mentioned GPU for crisp playback over link cable. When I mentioned creating my own ~65MBps files (imo a good middle ground spot for 8k) that were closer in quality to the 120-200Mbps files, that's on my 7950, which can luckily do that for a vid overnight instead of over half a week. Have some screenshots if people are interested, but holding off for now as I don't know if this is the best thread for it. I could revive a much older thread, or make a new one, but who knows if it really even matters.
Also, on a different note, still waiting for confirmation from any staff that this change will only happen for SLRO, or will it be site-wide?? To reiterate, from what I've seen with the image quality (which I have praised) of specifically SLRO greyscreen videos, I am the least concerned. Through the work at all stages y'all have done with both scene setup, and camera and editing settings/optimizations, you've made it so 30Mbps is pretty darn crisp, and the gap from raw quality is the smallest. But across the many other studios the range is much more broad, thus plenty of those videos are better viewed using the large download file, which often won't have as many artefacts or blocky splotches as the streaming file!
@2Jqt8XuAkwr To bounce off one idea you had, a tighter limit on original high bitrate videos, but still having them be accessible to subscribers, is also the kind of compromise I could get on board with. As in, from the 30 dl per 144 hr, maybe the yuge files count as 2-3 ticks off that counter. Anyone that runs out could always do ppv after that if they're impatient.
So now we have to pay for "original quality" downloads?
They were only reason i was subscriber, after 6 years i guess this is the end of my journey with SLR, after my yearly plan expires I'm out.
Google switched us a few times already for higher tier workspace plans. Don't hate us for innovation
We are doing things for our loyal fans. If we lose some random complainers for rising the bar it's okay
It's important for me to keep SLR the best place to go for VR porn.
classic doublevr
As you said, things change and even Google increases pricing for Workspace Plans. I have experience this myself as well but they give you advance notice for when it's happening.
This HBR download disable came out of nowhere with no notice which is the problem. That's why it feels like a bait and switch to a lot of people
We get it. Costs increases and therefore paying a Higher Tier Sub for HBR downloads is okay as well but please expedite that feature and please don't disable HBR downloads out of the blue until that is ready.
You can give advance notice to subscribers like "From X Date onwards we are disabling HBR downloads for everyone but HBR Downloads Tier Subs"
doublevr Google switched us a few times already for higher tier workspace plans. Don't hate us for innovation
What has google got to do with it?
Do you not self host your servers and storage? $100-$150k will get you 4PB of usable high availability Ceph storage with server-based redundancy that is infinitely scalable
A bit more if you buy brand new and not refurb enterprise gear
Build 3 of those throughout the world and you're good to go
Or maybe an "SLR orignals only" plan is an idea? I honestly could not care less about the rest, I barely download any of those 'amateur' video's or those old MilfVR vids for which I already have a subscription at that site anyway. If storage/traffic is that expensive, I'd rather only download HBR SLR originals. I honestly couldnt care less about all those other videos
But taking away HBR, SLR videos, THE reason I'm even a subscriber here, doesn't feel fair.
Or alternatively make a higher tier plan for HBR but DO throw something extra in there then, volumetric stuff for example. There are options that people will consider as fair. But this as it is, just taking things away that people thought they paid for, definitely is not one of them
