What Happens To A YouTube Video Uploaded 1,000 Times

Every wonder what would happen if you uploaded a video to YouTube, downloaded it, and uploaded it again? Not much.

But if you were to repeat the process 1,000 times, you'd be left with a distorted blob of moving pixels.

That's exactly what YouTube user Canzona did to his video.

In the original clip (via Ontologist), the creator sits in front of the camera and explains, in his "normal speaking voice," how this process (of uploading and downloading a video 1,000 times) will "eliminate all human qualities" from the video. The second video, the end result, bears little resemblance to the original.

Check out the "before" and "after" below. See the in-between videos on Canzona's YouTube channel.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Comments

[Jamal Wills]

02:43 PM on 06/09/2010

Did any one else hear "We are here to serve humans?"

[boilinabag]

09:39 AM on 06/08/2010

this generation needs a job....................

[Identity Free]

09:00 AM on 06/08/2010

I get the feeling that this dude doesn't get laid to often. hahaa

[moonflowerjewelry]

08:59 AM on 06/08/2010

Better than a Xerox!

[kellybob]

08:41 AM on 06/08/2010

on similar lines the US also needs "Turn Everything ON Day", just to test our utility grid, and to see what happens.

[jthor]

08:40 AM on 06/08/2010

Huffpo didn't even mention Lucier in their "article."

[richardporter201]

08:35 AM on 06/08/2010

I predict that a similar phenomenon will occur when Sarah Palin gives her 1000th speech.

[NewYorkLiberal]

08:32 AM on 06/08/2010

Contrasting with the original, you can see the difference between analog and digital - in the digital, with the loss of fidelity, the voice degrades to static. With the analogue, the voice degrades into the harmonics of the room.

You can listen to the original Lucier recording here:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html

I find the end of the Lucier version to be kind of spiritual, don't have the same experience with the youtube version.

[MNKen]

08:20 AM on 06/08/2010

Copies of copies is new? Remember the Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity. Dumb movie and this article/video is worse

[jason9045]

06:07 AM on 06/08/2010

The audio kind of sounds like the aliens from District 9 speaking.

[sumrzz]

06:01 AM on 06/08/2010

This guy has too much time on his hands

[FeO2E]

05:41 AM on 06/08/2010

"Every wonder" ???

[PedroMC]

05:21 AM on 06/08/2010

What happens when you have too much time on your hands and no social life ?

you reupload the same video to youtube 1000 times !


pointless video , as anyone who encodes video/audio knows that everytime you encode the output video you will lose quality

This is what I call good content quality jornalism ! thumbs up huffington !

[artist-53]

09:47 AM on 06/08/2010

Maybe he was drawing attention to the fact that we assume digital records are timeless. When in fact it all begins to breakdown resulting in nothing...loss of data.

I think that there is ample concern because we now have a globe that depends on digital records. Imagine, they could all just become pixelated garble. It's an important find for archivists as well as security,medical records, banking etc...depending upon the file format.

So I think that it's a good thing that someone took the trouble to examine this. Because digitally recorded files do not last forever. That is what is important, but we all act as if they do.

[breakingpoint]

03:40 AM on 06/08/2010

interesting

now when the aliens get hold of the video they can fix it

[ghee99]

03:37 AM on 06/08/2010

pretty creepy...

i liked him better in the second video though

now "that" was one cool guy!