Stage6
Encyclopedia
Stage6 was a video sharing
website
owned and operated by DivX, Inc.
, where users could upload, share, and view video clips. Stage6 was different from other video services in that it streamed high quality video clips that were user-encoded with DivX
and Xvid
video codec
s.
The website never went beyond beta status, and was shut down by DivX Inc. on February 29, 2008 because of apparent inability to support Stage6 financially, or other officially unspecified reasons.
In June 2008, CNET hailed Stage6 as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.
and in public beta, Stage6 was similar to other video sharing sites like YouTube
in allowing streaming video
to be uploaded freely by anyone willing to register.
At approximately 16:00 GMT on February 9, 2008, Stage6 was hacked. People that visited the front page of the website were redirected to multiple shock site
s. Several thousand user accounts, that were used to upload videos between December 7, 2007 and February 10, 2008, are thought to have been compromised by the attack Approximately two and a half hours later a site maintenance notice was put up by the Stage6 team.
Service to the site was restored at approximately 11:30 GMT on February 10, 2008. The upload and publishing functions were disabled after the attack, and restored on February 14, 2008. The motive for the attack and extent of damage remain unclear to this day.
On July 24, 2007 DivX, Inc. announced that it would be seeking to separate Stage6 as a company from the rest of DivX, Inc. Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Jordan Greenhall would be switching from his current role as CEO to manage the separating Stage6, which, if successful, was expected to be completed later in 2007.
By January 2008, Stage6 had a total of 10.7 million views.
welcome page designed specifically for the purpose of receiving the Stage6 community.
On March 11, 2008, DivX Inc. disclosed "significant costs" and "potential copyright litigation" as the primary considerations leading to the shutdown of Stage6.
On February 25, 2008, LiveUniverse Inc. offered to acquire Stage6 prior to the site being shut down by DivX. The offer consisted of 3 million USD
lump sum
, 5 million USD in online advertising credits for DivX to use on the their sites and a 10% equity stake in the new entity. If, after three years, DivX should decide to cash out its stake, LiveUniverse would pay a minimum of 3 million USD for it. The net payment would total to 11 million USD. However, after LiveUniverse made its first offer, DivX Board refused to engage in any direct dialogue for over five days, during which it shut down Stage6.
According to the web-news blog
TechCrunch
, the prime reason for the shutdown was not the Stage6-generated bandwidth
costs (approx. 1 million USD per month), but an internal conflict on the DivX, Inc.
board. The site states that DivX, Inc. would have been close to breaking even
solely with the income from the Yahoo Toolbar (approx. 8 million USD per year), distributed with DivX Web Player, and gain extra profits from other deals with their investors. The reason for the decline of the deal is described by TechCrunch as a "Serious Drama, And Lots of Stupidity".
The users who went through the free registration had access to additional features. These included:
Stage6 also featured its own search engine profiling the videos by the user-generated tags
and their popularity. Because the search engine used the tags, rather than the title, as a primary search criteria, it was often difficult to find a video based on its name.
Significant differences between Stage6 and other sites included better quality video through use of higher resolutions up to 1080p
, few upload limitations, the option to download media directly through the website or the DivX Web Player, however this feature has been removed in the update, without the need to install browser extensions, and the use of DivX
video codec
instead of Flash Video. Unlike most video sharing websites, Stage6 required the installation of the DivX Web Player to view videos. The DivX Content Uploader is also bundled with the DivX Web Player, enabling users to upload Stage6 compliant videos via web browser.
or Xvid
encoded files up to 1080p60. Stage6 rejected encoded videos not mixed with MP2
or MP3
audio. Upload file size limit for an individual video was 2 Gigabyte
s. The download speeds from Stage6 ranged up to and above 16 MBit/s.
The video playback was based on the DivX codec and required the user to download and install a web browser plug-in in order to view video. Since the DivX Web Player was designed specifically for viewing videos, streamed on extremely high quality, high resolution videos were made possible under comparatively low CPU usage.
Downloaded videos could also be played-back with third-party media players such as Windows Media Player
, if a MPEG-4 decoder is installed on the computer, or with media players such as VLC Media Player
or MPlayer
with appropriate web plugins. Certain downloaded videos could also be played on a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 with current firmware by renaming the extension '.divx' from the downloaded file to '.avi'.
ed to Stage6 by third parties offering television or film downloads.
In December 2006, Universal Music Group
(UMG) sent a cease and desist
letter to DivX, Inc., notifying them that several of their videos had appeared on Stage6. DivX removed the videos in question but were reapproached several months later by UMG who proposed a licensing agreement and suggested DivX pay $30 million for "past infringements". Anticipating legal action, DivX filed a preemptive lawsuit against UMG on September 6, 2007, asking for a declaratory ruling to affirm Stage6's legality under DMCA safe harbor
provisions. Six weeks later UMG filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against DivX, arguing that their trial was the appropriate venue for DivX's question to be answered. On February 5, 2008, UMG's request was upheld.
Video sharing
Video hosting services refers to websites or software where users can distribute their video clips. Other sites such as file hosting services image hosting services and social network services might support video sharing as an enhancement to their primary mission, but in general, they are not...
website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
owned and operated by DivX, Inc.
DivX, Inc.
DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003...
, where users could upload, share, and view video clips. Stage6 was different from other video services in that it streamed high quality video clips that were user-encoded with DivX
DivX
DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
and Xvid
XviD
Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...
video codec
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
s.
The website never went beyond beta status, and was shut down by DivX Inc. on February 29, 2008 because of apparent inability to support Stage6 financially, or other officially unspecified reasons.
In June 2008, CNET hailed Stage6 as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.
History
First launched in 2006 by DivX, Inc.DivX, Inc.
DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003...
and in public beta, Stage6 was similar to other video sharing sites like YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
in allowing streaming video
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
to be uploaded freely by anyone willing to register.
At approximately 16:00 GMT on February 9, 2008, Stage6 was hacked. People that visited the front page of the website were redirected to multiple shock site
Shock site
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive, disgusting and/or disturbing to its viewers, containing materials of high shock value which is also considered distasteful and crude, and is generally of a pornographic, scatological, extremely violent, insulting, painful, profane, or...
s. Several thousand user accounts, that were used to upload videos between December 7, 2007 and February 10, 2008, are thought to have been compromised by the attack Approximately two and a half hours later a site maintenance notice was put up by the Stage6 team.
Service to the site was restored at approximately 11:30 GMT on February 10, 2008. The upload and publishing functions were disabled after the attack, and restored on February 14, 2008. The motive for the attack and extent of damage remain unclear to this day.
On July 24, 2007 DivX, Inc. announced that it would be seeking to separate Stage6 as a company from the rest of DivX, Inc. Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Jordan Greenhall would be switching from his current role as CEO to manage the separating Stage6, which, if successful, was expected to be completed later in 2007.
By January 2008, Stage6 had a total of 10.7 million views.
Shutdown
On February 25, 2008, DivX announced that they would shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008, stating that they were unable to continue to provide the attention and resources required for its continued operation. A day later than stated, Stage6 ceased to operate, directing users to a VeohVeoh
Veoh is an Internet television company based in San Diego, California. It allows users to find and watch major studio content, independent productions and user-generated material. The company is a subsidiary of Israeli start-up Qlipso....
welcome page designed specifically for the purpose of receiving the Stage6 community.
On March 11, 2008, DivX Inc. disclosed "significant costs" and "potential copyright litigation" as the primary considerations leading to the shutdown of Stage6.
On February 25, 2008, LiveUniverse Inc. offered to acquire Stage6 prior to the site being shut down by DivX. The offer consisted of 3 million USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
lump sum
Lump sum
A lump sum is a single payment of money, as opposed to a series of payments made over time .The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development distinguishes between "price analysis" and "cost analysis" by whether the decision maker compares lump sum amounts, or subjects contract prices...
, 5 million USD in online advertising credits for DivX to use on the their sites and a 10% equity stake in the new entity. If, after three years, DivX should decide to cash out its stake, LiveUniverse would pay a minimum of 3 million USD for it. The net payment would total to 11 million USD. However, after LiveUniverse made its first offer, DivX Board refused to engage in any direct dialogue for over five days, during which it shut down Stage6.
According to the web-news blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
, the prime reason for the shutdown was not the Stage6-generated bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
costs (approx. 1 million USD per month), but an internal conflict on the DivX, Inc.
DivX, Inc.
DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003...
board. The site states that DivX, Inc. would have been close to breaking even
Break-even
Break-even is a point where any difference between plus or minus or equivalent changes side.-In economics:A technique for which identifying the point where the total revenue is just sufficient to cover the total cost...
solely with the income from the Yahoo Toolbar (approx. 8 million USD per year), distributed with DivX Web Player, and gain extra profits from other deals with their investors. The reason for the decline of the deal is described by TechCrunch as a "Serious Drama, And Lots of Stupidity".
Usage
Stage6 accepted a wide variety of video content, including TV clips and trailers, music videos, feature length television episodes and films, as well as amateur content such as video-blogging, original videos and amateur films. Unregistered users could view and download to hard-drive all videos on the site, except those containing potentially offensive content.The users who went through the free registration had access to additional features. These included:
- "18+" videos. These usually containing pornography or other sexual content, excessive blood and gore or obscenity. Note that Stage6 did not censor offensive content.
- Rating. The users had the ability to either rate the video as "good", by clicking on the "thumb up"-button, or respectively "bad", by clicking the "thumb down"-button. After a significant number of hits the site then rated the video's popularity on its search or front pages, by either displaying up to five "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" respectively. The videos with higher rating were then displayed higher in the search results.
- Comments. The users had an opportunity to add a comment, placed below the video.
- Tagging. The registered users were able to place and suggest the removal of tagsTag (metadata)In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
to each video. These were then used to power the inbuilt search engineWeb search engineA web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
.
Stage6 also featured its own search engine profiling the videos by the user-generated tags
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
and their popularity. Because the search engine used the tags, rather than the title, as a primary search criteria, it was often difficult to find a video based on its name.
Significant differences between Stage6 and other sites included better quality video through use of higher resolutions up to 1080p
1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
, few upload limitations, the option to download media directly through the website or the DivX Web Player, however this feature has been removed in the update, without the need to install browser extensions, and the use of DivX
DivX
DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
video codec
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
instead of Flash Video. Unlike most video sharing websites, Stage6 required the installation of the DivX Web Player to view videos. The DivX Content Uploader is also bundled with the DivX Web Player, enabling users to upload Stage6 compliant videos via web browser.
Technical
Stage6 accepted DivXDivX
DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
or Xvid
XviD
Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...
encoded files up to 1080p60. Stage6 rejected encoded videos not mixed with MP2
MP2
MP2 or MP-2 may refer to:* MP 2, an abbreviation for a zone during the Paleocene* MPEG-1 Audio Layer II audio compression format and .mp2 file format...
or MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
audio. Upload file size limit for an individual video was 2 Gigabyte
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
s. The download speeds from Stage6 ranged up to and above 16 MBit/s.
The video playback was based on the DivX codec and required the user to download and install a web browser plug-in in order to view video. Since the DivX Web Player was designed specifically for viewing videos, streamed on extremely high quality, high resolution videos were made possible under comparatively low CPU usage.
Downloaded videos could also be played-back with third-party media players such as Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
, if a MPEG-4 decoder is installed on the computer, or with media players such as VLC Media Player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
or MPlayer
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
with appropriate web plugins. Certain downloaded videos could also be played on a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 with current firmware by renaming the extension '.divx' from the downloaded file to '.avi'.
Copyright issues
Stage6 did not permit the upload of copyrighted content without the original author's permission, and a large volume of content was deleted for breaching these terms. Despite this a large amount of copyrighted content continued to be uploaded, with television shows, feature films and music videos routinely hotlinkHOTLink
HOTLink Receivers and transmitters are point-to-point communications building blocks that transfer data over serial links . The main purpose is to replace parallel transmissions over longer distances with serial links. Example applications include workstations, servers, mass storage, and...
ed to Stage6 by third parties offering television or film downloads.
In December 2006, Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
(UMG) sent a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letter to DivX, Inc., notifying them that several of their videos had appeared on Stage6. DivX removed the videos in question but were reapproached several months later by UMG who proposed a licensing agreement and suggested DivX pay $30 million for "past infringements". Anticipating legal action, DivX filed a preemptive lawsuit against UMG on September 6, 2007, asking for a declaratory ruling to affirm Stage6's legality under DMCA safe harbor
Safe harbor
The term safe harbor has several special usages, in an analogy with its literal meaning, that of a harbor or haven which provides safety from weather or attack.-Legal definition:...
provisions. Six weeks later UMG filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against DivX, arguing that their trial was the appropriate venue for DivX's question to be answered. On February 5, 2008, UMG's request was upheld.
External links
- Stage6 - video sharing site designed to demonstrate DivX codec, stage6.com
- DivX.com - DivX, Inc.DivX, Inc.DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003...
website, divx.com