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Stage 6 will shut down on Feb 28th 2008

stage6.com — It seems Stage6 will be shut down on Feb 28th 2008. According to the blog post by a DivX employee, it is simply a matter of the site becoming too expensive to maintain. I'm deeply saddened by this: some channels alone have so many documentaries that they've become veritable historical archives.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 25, 2008

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  • downwiththeking, on 02/25/2008, -5/+524I think I'm going to cry.
  • ani625, on 02/25/2008, -5/+247I really hope there is some other solution to this!
  • daguito81, on 02/25/2008, -4/+228this is a sad day for the internet community
  • bjarkebech, on 02/25/2008, -4/+209NOOOO! Stage 6 was:
    - better quality than youTube
    - faster loading than YouTube
    - better content than YouTube.

    Somebody host for them!
  • n0c0ntr0l, on 02/25/2008, -0/+196NOOOO!

    No-one else had content in HD like them. It was something else, the only true competitor to youtube.
  • MihaiM, on 02/25/2008, -2/+197Stage6 was a great step forward for online video. Unfortunately no p2p distribution for the videos made the costs impossible to afford.
  • Secret7000, on 02/25/2008, -0/+139Very upsetting - it gave me and many other independent film makers a fantastic way of distributing our work in excellent resolution for free. We can only hope that something equally well-crafted and good-natured fills the sizeable chasm it will leave. Farewell, Stage6, and thankyou.
  • fuckingusername, on 02/25/2008, -1/+128this sucks back to crappy compressed flash videos crap tube here I come.....
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -4/+112Piratebay needs to step in :)
  • Archon810, on 02/25/2008, -0/+106Their player and video quality was astonishing. The speeds were lightning fast (because they used a cdn). The search sucked big time. The interface was great. RIP great site, here's to hoping that at least this will push other companies to implement h264 to establish leadership in the quality department, as that leader is now gone.
  • SurrealDream, on 02/25/2008, -0/+86Joox is just an aggregator for Stage6 links. So yes, joox will go down with it.
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -1/+79/sigh......
    Anyone know of a video streaming site that is near to Stage6's quality?
  • jordanau, on 02/25/2008, -1/+77I wonder if they are running into any copyright issues as well... I mean, you can download high quality bootlegged movies right off of their site.
  • infiniteammo, on 02/25/2008, -2/+72This is depressing. Now I have to spend 3 days downloading videos.
  • zaanpenguin, on 02/25/2008, -0/+68So do I... I'm half-hoping that some other company will keep Stage6 alive. I'd gladly watch a commercial or click on a banner if it meant continuing to be able to watch great documentaries etc. This is almost insanity; so much work and material will be lost...
  • capture, on 02/25/2008, -1/+63R.I.P Stage6 you will be missed
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -2/+61Great, and I just found out about this site today. *****... D:
  • mattus, on 02/25/2008, -1/+60"There are a lot of other details involved..."

    Harassment from media companies, perhaps?
  • CokeEatsYummy, on 02/25/2008, -3/+61Most people who create original content simply upload it to youtube because they do not need high definition video resolutions for their crappy home productions. I was mainly using stage6 to watch TV shows and movies as most of you did. So I bet it cost them a lot of money because of all the copyrighted material they had to remove daily. I can't imagine that they wanted it to turn out like this.
  • mudkiller, on 02/25/2008, -1/+55Oh No! Come on Google do the right thing and buy them too! :D
  • punkdemons, on 02/25/2008, -0/+54Feb 28th will be a sad day in internet land
  • vyralinfection, on 02/25/2008, -1/+46yeah, theres a solution, go on stage6 and start clicking ads like crazy
  • xTRUMANx, on 02/25/2008, -1/+45Why doesn't youtube or all those other video sharing sites adopt divx? It loads ridiculously fast. I think they're worried having to ask users to install the divx web player will make them lose customers.
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -2/+42yes because flash isn't proprietary lol
  • SurrealDream, on 02/25/2008, -0/+38Almost everything I watched off stage6 was either a bootleg movie, or a next-day TV show upload from America.
    The access to VERY high quality independant films and shorts was a fantastic bonus. Maybe my priorities should have been the other way round... Shame to see such a brilliant service go.
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -0/+38Seriously, maybe they should start taking accepting donations for this purpose and see if it is maintainable then.
  • MakiMaki, on 02/25/2008, -0/+37This is pretty sad because Stage 6 always had the videos with remarkable quality.... and really good shows too.

    Maybe they could monetize the service to subsidize for costs. Getting loyal members to pay a small subscription fee might be reasonable. I know I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to keep it afloat.
  • manogamez, on 02/25/2008, -0/+35Someone get me another HD source online or my head might asplode. Need.....HD.....need.....sustenance...
  • AlienMushroom, on 02/25/2008, -0/+33No more joox..... 》_《
  • Llanowar, on 02/25/2008, -3/+35Google, please come to the rescue! :(
  • dijital, on 02/25/2008, -0/+31I wonder why they can't migrate to a subscription-based model. As a multimedia developer, I love the fact that I have a place to publish my HD content without having to substantially lower the rez. I would pay - at least a reasonable amount - to have them host my HD content as long as I had the ability to embed it wherever I chose. Anybody else?
  • liuite, on 02/25/2008, -0/+31stage6's demise will just drive more people to p2p
  • Beakerz, on 02/25/2008, -1/+30Wow, thought i was going to have a heart attack when i saw this title... jesus this sucks...the quality was amazing!
  • coolian, on 02/25/2008, -0/+28End of the universe as we know it.

    Well, not really, but still.

    Where will I get to see awesome documentaries from now?!!!
  • ShrimpCrackers, on 02/25/2008, -1/+29I bet it cost them a lot of money due to bandwidth bills because the videos on Stage 6 are like 200 megs large while on YouTube they are around 20 megs.
  • pk7677, on 02/25/2008, -0/+27Real life.
  • inactive, on 02/25/2008, -2/+28They were under alot of pressure from movie companies.

    Oh well ***** them, im downloadin everything i can over the next 3 days
  • caupolixan, on 02/25/2008, -2/+28Going to miss stage6.
  • illuuu, on 02/25/2008, -2/+25No... not Stage6...
  • colonelbuckshot, on 02/25/2008, -0/+23If Stage6 dies, I hope they continue providing their DivX Web Player so another video site will emerge using it and I don't have to view FLV garbage on youtube any more
  • coldcarbon, on 02/25/2008, -0/+20Sad sad day, What are all the new tv-links.co.uk web sites going to do.like surfthechannel.com the stage6 links always work the best I am going to go cry for while.
  • HerrEisenheim, on 02/25/2008, -0/+18FLV isn't the problem. FLV is just a container, which can actually supports On2 VP6 and now (although not on the server) H.264. The problem is that you technically have to pay licensing for both of theses, and so YouTube chooses to use the older, and now open source, VP3 codec at abysmal resolutions and bit rates.

    A high quality VP6 encoded FLV looks fantastic, not nearly as CPU intensive as say H.264, and approaches the same quality at practical bit rates for streaming or progressive download.
  • lostboy, on 02/25/2008, -0/+17it's simple, you can either let your users watch lower quality versions of popular shows like heroes in flash video format and the files will be relatively small or you can encode it in divx and the bandwidth impact will be significantly higher.

    Bandwidth can be very expensive and it's not something the end user is aware of.
  • RexxxMaster, on 02/25/2008, -0/+17I'm not going to cry. i have 20$ in my pocket. i will try my hardest to get it to them. this cake is not a lie...
  • KlogereEndGrim, on 02/25/2008, -1/+18Vimeo wants you to download spyware *****...
  • DiggityDugged, on 02/25/2008, -8/+25"Hey kid . . . help computer . . . "
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9f1aiQAzJ4
  • JueYan, on 02/25/2008, -2/+18How sad... I just discovered Stage6 through this post, and it looks awesome. T_T
  • Whaines, on 02/25/2008, -0/+16It's Youtube on steroids. Fantastic resolution, doesn't look like Lego build the videos like on Youtube.
  • jus1haz2, on 02/25/2008, -0/+15WTF!!! Thats *****! Stage6 was one of the best video sites on the web.
  • spyrochaete, on 02/25/2008, -1/+16Aren't they working on their own streaming video site?
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