Warpstream.net, Protoweb’s retro video hosting site, has officially launched! Warpstream brings you modern and classic videos available to watch in multiple different players, including RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and YouTube’s flash players. Enjoy exploring videos from our partner content creators, who have graciously given us permission to feature their videos. The site features over 70,000 videos from the first few years of YouTube, with an emphasis on 2005 – 2006. There are several YouTube players to choose from which have had most major functionality restored. Subtitles are also available on select videos in the 2008 player.
The classic videos on WarpStream have been selected from an academic dataset compiled in early 2007. This dataset serves as the base for the site, providing the majority of metadata. Videos were downloaded from both modern YouTube and Wayback Machine. All metadata including view counts, comments, tags, ratings, rankings, categories and recommended videos have been faithfully restored, giving you an accurate replica of early YouTube culture in its first couple years.
Modern videos have also been provided by our generous partners! New videos from partners get automatically added to WarpStream when they are uploaded to YouTube. We feature our partners on the front page, in search results, and on the channels page. Be sure to check them out!
We sincerely thank our partners for letting us use their content on our platform:
- The 8-Bit Guy
- Computer Clan
- CuriousMarc
- f4mi
- JarHead
- LGR
- Michael MJD
- RetroTech Chris
- Stubbertville
- TecAdam
- THEBaratusII
- WinClient5270
This site has been tested on a variety of different hardware and software configurations, from a 90MHz pentium PC to consoles like the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3. See below for specific notes on platform support. Downloads for players are available on warpstream.net. Be sure to visit our settings page to set your preferences for the site!
Modern Windows OSes
Tested working with our customized version of RetroZilla 2.2 which has Flash plug-in preinstalled.
Windows XP
Tested working with all players. 600MHz – 1GHz or higher CPU recommended. RealPlayer 6+, Windows Media Player 6.4+ or Flash player 7+ required. RealPlayer 8, Windows Media Player 9 or Flash player 9 recommended.
Mac OS X
Flash player support only. 600MHz – 1GHz cpu recommended. Flash player 7 or higher required. Flash player 9 recommended. Tested in Safari and Internet Explorer 5.1 on OS X 10.4.
Windows 9X
RealPlayer or Windows Media Player recommended. 90MHz or higher pentium class CPU with PCI graphics card is required. Internet Explorer 4.01 / Netscape 4.05 or higher with RealPlayer 6 / Windows Media Player 6.4 or higher is required. Flash player 7 is also available for Win9X, however it is not recommended unless you have a 500 MHz cpu or higher.
Mac OS 9 (tested on iMac G3)
RealPlayer and Windows Media Player are not supported. General flash player performance works best on higher end iMacs (500-600MHz). However, low end iMacs (200MHz) work well with the Basic flash player. Internet Explorer 5.1+ and flash player 7 required.
Nintendo Wii
Flash player support only. No further installation or configuration required.
PlayStation 3
Flash player support only. No further installation or configuration required.
Credits
- Davathan – site developer
- Oliver – site developer
- Stubbertville – testing and support
- OverseerCave – tester
- luis – tester
- JarHead – tester
- amirrattrap – tester
