Stage 6 to Shut Down Today

February 28, 2008 1:44 AM

Stage 6, recently linked in a popular FPP, has announced it will shut down today. Rumors about why include their battle against UMG to a "ridiculous battle of egos."
posted by Avenger50 (13 comments total)

Feck. I was counting on linking to a movie on Stage 6 as the linchpin of an upcoming FPP. Thanks a lot, ridiculous ego battles.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:23 AM on February 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Wow. That's unfortunate. I can't even think of another website with all the benefits it had -- free uploading, no size limit, high quality videos...

Is there another website or am I just forced to sign the petition and hope?
posted by flatluigi at 4:03 AM on February 28, 2008

It was right around the time I linked to them the other week that the site apparently got hacked. Reading the "egos" article, I wonder if it was some disgruntled ex who did it.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:19 AM on February 28, 2008

The "egos battle" article fails to mention that Stage6 contributed only a small fraction of the toolbar revenue (~3-4 million on top of the 8 million DivX was getting BEFORE Stage6 existed) and quite a bit of costs (1-2 million per month). The 27 million bid (which includes friends and family) seems a little suspect to say the least. It could very well be that streaming HD video is simply too costly (not to mention allowing hotlinking to it). It could also very well be that Stage6 users cannot get over that fact.
posted by magullo at 4:39 AM on February 28, 2008

Lame! I've spent hours on Stage 6 watching one random documentary after the other. The compression quality was nearly always excellent.
posted by grimcity at 4:48 AM on February 28, 2008

I'd just started uploading my own HD videos to Stage6. I know DivX is not an "open" format, but it looked damned good. Now I'm not sure what to do with those DivX files, or if I should continue encoding with it without a simple way to showcase or distribute them.

Fortunately, the Internet Archive accepts DivX as one of the many, many video formats you can upload for a given title. It's just not as easy to enjoy them.
posted by pzarquon at 7:45 AM on February 28, 2008

That petition is funny: "We, the people, demand free leeching!"

I don't get it, why didn't they start to charge for the HD versions or sell the site, instead? I don't think the deep linking problems are impossible to solve.. I really hope they find a way to move at least some of the content to archive.org - Please do not burn down the library of Alexandria for decent quality video content! (j/k, there will be others.. but they won't be as nice *sob*)
posted by dnial at 9:57 AM on February 28, 2008

Seriously, there were a bunch of cult classics on there I hadn't gotten around to use for music sampling purposes.
posted by Mach3avelli at 10:17 AM on February 28, 2008

I only started using DivX recently when RiffTrax started offering downloads for rent or purchase in that format. Once I installed the software, the Stage 6 ad came on. After about an 15 minutes of browsing the site, I thought "This won't last long." I hate being right.

But, I do like the DivX format. I love being able to download a movie from RiffTrax and burn a DVD to watch it. Yes, there are some hoops to jump through at first, but it's legal instant gratification.
posted by The Deej at 3:04 PM on February 28, 2008

Shit, that was a short.
posted by alicesshoe at 8:16 PM on February 28, 2008

I clearly have the wrong friends. And family.
posted by Naberius at 12:21 AM on February 29, 2008

Like The Deej my first thought when i found the site was "this must cost a fortune, they're gonna die soon" and there ya go. Dead.
posted by dabitch at 12:51 AM on February 29, 2008

Sure am glad I went all larval stage and downloaded everything that was even remotely appealing as I stumbled across it.
posted by Mitheral at 11:47 AM on March 1, 2008