Well, maybe it's your choice of audio. Although the Endless Handbag Loop is a great track, it's a bit loud and quite sudden. Perhaps if you were to change the audio to something a bit more soothing, then people won't be frightened off. And give it a while before any animations play, let them explore the front page first, give them, say, 30 seconds or so?

I have mixed reactions about the bytesize player. It's great the first time, but gets old after awhile. I thing turning the default to off is a good idea, but if someone new comes to the site, they might not even reconize it since there is no sound to alert them that it's there.

I like the bytesize but it does get a bit boring,about new people who come here im not sure,maybe you should start it with a cartoon instead of the song

It scares the hell out of you, really.

I've set it off, and the result was that I haven't seen Stamper's bytesizes until yesterday.

Maybe, making the loop (which i'm starting to hate by the way) fade in slowly would be a solution.

I LOVE the bytesizes, I always love to see new ones, but it does tend to scare you when you first enter the page. I liked the ideas of silenter songs to play, or fading them in when you start. Maybe you choose to mute the music in the background, but not the videos themselves? I doubt it forces people to just leave, but it is annoying. But whatever you choose, just don't get any stupid ideas of taking off bytesize. It's honestly made me love newgrounds so much more that I can just watch stupidly awesome shorts right when I enter or when I don't feel like looking around.

It's great to check out the bytesize clips now and then, but I always have it off since I just wanna quietly check the frontpage.
I actually rewind through the clips whilst it's paused so I can just watch them without the music.

You should consider switching the tune btw, Endless handbag loop only goes so far. (Btw, what happened to the other clips I sent you?)

Come on, everyone enjoys the mini-cartoons on ByteSize. They're great. It's just the "Endless Handbag" loop that makes them hit the stop button. They, like me, don't really want to hear it all the time. Can't you have a button to just turn the music off? Or even better, the option to switch between tracks, like a sort of Audio Portal bytesize? I noticed that you didn't include any such option and I really wish you did, because I'd like to continue watching the little cartoons without having to listen to that grating 5-second loop over and over again. It's shitty and irritating. Please fix this.

You gotta have an option of turn the music off while you're watching them!

I love the music, but sometimes & can't hear the great mini-flash things

i wouldnt mind it if it cycled silent by default.. i find that while im scanning through the front page itd be cool to have my attention called on by some sillly clip playing and as a result then turning on the sound to hear what its all about.

I think that theres not enough of em right now and i dont want to hear the same ones so i leave it off most times.. itd be nice just let it play silently like a banner ad and if i dig it i can go and interact with it.

I think it should be on but whay did you think of our BYTESIZE COLLAB?? look at my profile to see it

Bytesize is awesome, why I'm going to lie... But I would say it's actually something that gets boring, I mean, It was really fun and I have been watching it for hours when the redesing was something new, but the thurth is that now I have it right now off, but that dosn't means I turn it on sometimes to see if there's something new. Bytesize would be something that calls the attention to new Newgrounds users than never visited the site yet. In fact, Bytesize needs more clips and more background music (let's say it weekly, featured from the audio portal). Can people still create clips? Glad to help.

I don't know, the first time I get anything like this on the front page of any site, I would look for a way to turn it off, I doubt the advage user is so stupid that they can't find a way. Maybe a simple intergrated popup for people who haven't visited before asking if they want the Bytesize player on or off?

the Bytesize scares you at first when you first enter this place, I even wanted to leave when I found this place but it made stay because this was the only place with sound (I don't really like the internet that much)
but you shouldn't take it off, some of my friends liked that and they visit your visit your page sometimes and they are not members and don't know that much english

I do find that it is somewhat annoying when I come here and that handbag loop suddenly comes blasting though my headset.

I usually clear my browser information after using the internet. This conflicts with the ByteSize, since it usually scares the shit out me.

It's just that the sound is "right on", and sometimes I forget that the ByteSize is there.

I wouldn't suggest removing it though. It's a nifty little addition to Newgrounds, and has talented work in it.

Well, it's a problem. I agree there. The clips are all funny. One of them even played my music - which suprised me like hell at first.

Anyways, I think the bytesize player is something that makes NG unique but it's still a problem to get it appreciated to the crowd. Sure, you watch the cartoons for the first time, have a good laugh BUT then - the cartoons aren't something new when you watch them the second time.

Maybe it would be a better idea if you could just set the player on MUTE not OFF in general. That way, it would still be there for the audience, they could tune in whenever they like. Though the most important part is that the player has to vary. Get more short clips from different authors.

Other than that, the bytesize player is damn nice feature! :)

We had an AP contest for front page songs, but we ended up with a bunch of submissions with big filesizes... I want to keep the front page music to under 500k... Still, I finally updated it with a 1.5 meg song... The AP needs to make it easier to find loops and specific file sizes. :)

I think I'm gonna just default it to OFF for everyone, so it will never autoplay anymore.

Yeah default off is definitely a good idea, I could see how the audio could annoy some people.

that happened once. you should really think of getting that button.!!!!!!SMICO RULES!!!!!!!!

You should leave it on as a default but the damn Handbag loop is too loud when I first enter the site if you'd lower it I'd leave the bytesize on all the time. Besides that it's a great component to the front page.

I'd say having it playing automatically would be a turn-off to the general public. When I've been at other people's houses showing them NG and I'm looking for something on the front page not realising the sound is up a bit and the Bytesize starts going off its like "aaah what do I do!" and...yeah...I say "default to off."

-Dim

I leave it turned off, personally. It's not that I don't like the clips. It's just not what I'd go to the front page to do, so it ends up more invasive to me than accommodating.

I have had to quickly exit the browser a few times when I've been on a public computer and the handbag loop suddenly blares out loud, much to the annoyance of whoever is nearby. I think you should have the cartoons play by default, but without the loop, just have the normal dialogue. I have bytesize switched off, unless I hear that there's been new ones added. As someone else said (might have been Luis?), if you feel you have to have music it should be something quiter and less sudden.

So you got around to changing the audio?

It's alright a little more soothing but I supose I'd tire out of the handbag loop eventualy.

Quote Luis. Default the sound on mute but the animations on. And the button for unmute/mute of course.

A MUTE BUTTON TO SILENCE THE MUSIC IS THE BEST CHOICE :)

just put it silent by default, when people scroll down the page and see the animations they'll get their atention and will surely want to turn the bytesize music on :) please dont leave it ALL off sice it would take all the charm of the new frontpage away :C

I have an idea :D. Why not have a mute button instead of a stop button, that again, remembers your settings. BUT, here's where the cunning trickery comes in. Play the animations 24/7 when your on the front page, but start with the sounds OFF, so that the persone visiting the site can turn it on if they find it interesting.

I personally like the bytesizes, they give a great feel to the site that no other flash site does, it makes it feel all homely :). Plus it's a great way to add some quality shorts to newgrounds, without giving them their own submission. For instance, Stampers 'Chinese' short was absolute class, perfect voice acting and crisp art, but it was too short to be a flash on its own.

If you want to update something, i think it would be good if the authors of the bytesizes could see some stats on their work, so they could see how many views it was getting, and for how long people stayed on it. They could then use this and improove their pieces.

Anyway, that's my two cents ;).

For now, I'm just defaulting it to off... So people will have to hit play from now on and it won't save the settings. I just have this bad feeling it freaks too many people out... It's a shame. I might tinker with it later.

I hope people don't mind A-Bot, though. :)

Hi Tom! *Waves*

Well I like the little animations. They do show some part of what is here on NG. The little things in between the cartoons remind me the contests and stuff here, looking forward to Madness day now, and would forget about it if I didn't see that part. The links to the persons user page gets them more acknowledgment for there work. The music info is good also, say looking for a new song for a flash movie, or a new style of music you like. It can get a little loud some times, but then you wonder what it is and look for it. Id suggest putting it on top of the news, if people get linked here they will see what goes on here before the news they might not get unless there already a member, and from the top of the page, we could still see new news. Stopping it would be good for slower computers, but instead of a '...' below the angry face, maybe a message showing you can turn it back on. Having it stay on your preference when you leave is still good, dont want to be loading NG and have it lag other programs while its loading the Bytesize. Also, maybe a quality button in the top corner, people might not know its a flash and have no control over the control of it, which we do now.

Bye Tom! *Waves*

i found the audio to be a turnoff the first time i looked at the redesign frontpage, i'm not a fan of auto spawning sound, but i feel that no one would start the bytesize if the sound was set to off. i do like how it remembers that it's turned off, though :P i think that the audio is a bit overwhelming the first time, but i don't think it would be enough to drive users away. it's not like it's complicated to figure out how to turn it off or anything. Before i would have said "yes, make it start out off" but after putting more thought into it, i've flip flopped. I'll go send the frontpage to some users who aren't that familiar with newgrounds (at least since the redesign), and ask them what their first response was.

With it defaulted to off, people wouldn't even know it's there. Perhaps something showing up on entry to the site that could help them stop the music if they want and are new...

I'd rather the people got to see the work of the artists, because without it defaulted to on, I wouldn't have, despite me reading the news.

Well Tom,i don't think that it causes people to leave,but is an annoyance that doesn't really serve much purpose.It's like a theme song; an advertisement for something you're already watching.As long as it has the stop option i don't think it will turn too many people away(practically everything on NG turns SOME people away!) but you may want to make it automatically stop rather than autostart so that it doesn't annoy people but still gives them the option of having it.

Its better to OFF the sounds as default and play the animation as default...

Don't know of anyone personally turned off by this, but nothing annoys me more whilst on the internet than automatic streaming audio. Apart from automatic streaming audio on intrusive flash adverts

I would say default to off unless someone pressed play, but Advertise it higher so people who don't bother to scrolll down the front page will still have a chance to notice it.

I'm glad that news updates still play from the window when the Bytesize player is off. I find myself checking it as a sort of callendar quite often, especially because your site news posts only show one at a time on the bottom of the front page. That was definitely a good move, and one I remember hoping for.

As for defaulting off, I agree that the sudden music assaulting first-time viewers is a bit intrusive. Honestly, I think the only reason it's no good is because the Bytesize window isn't even visible when you first view the site, so visitors will have to either actively search for the source of the sound and turn it off, or click away entirely. It's probably best not to force them to make that decision.

It's true that we should be drawing attention toward Bytesize, but having sound playing that the viewer has to hunt down and turn off isn't really the best approach. However, it's not really doing Bytesize justice to not havng it play by default - new viewers may never even be aware of it. Maybe the player should default as ON, but its audio should be checked as OFF until toggled by the viewer? That's sure to grab attention the right way.

Remember, the problem is the SOUND, not the Bytesize. It's no good to clump it all together as one big flaw, so nail the sound issue and you're solid.

When I was growing up, Newgrounds was that website we all went to in class behind the teachers back... KIDS ALL AROUND THE WORLD ARE GETTING CAUGHT OUT NOW!

Maybe it should be a click to play thing.. Also is it too late to submit cartoons to the bite size system? I wouldn't mind putting something together if I had the chance. Thought I don't know the dimensions or FPS used.

I like this idea, because yesterday i was sitting on my couch watching T.V. with my dad, and I go to the NG FP and i didn't realize the volume what to the max, and what do you know, a short inappropriate clip comes up and my dad questions what i was doing. But i think you should have a choose of different songs to choose from like you see in flash games!

I turn on the bytesize every once and a while to watch the new toons, but it's off by default for me because when ever I am on my computer, i ALWAYS have music playing . And it's annoying to be halfway through an awesome song, to then have the sounds of the bytesize suddenly start and interrupt the music.

I think Default status aside, you need to have a bigger variety of music tracks on there. Having just Endless Handbag Loop is quiet tedious if you hear it too frequently.

The new music loop is less obnoxious, and less startling... not that i had anything against the old loop, i just think this one will be a lot nicer for people wandering onto the site.

soundin' goood ;)

Maybe instead of defaulted to OFF, you can have it defaulted to MUTE?

Not sure if that is possible or not, but it's an idea.

well, i suggest to have it off, and put on above it, flashplayer! with short clips. press the on button to play, and that. because its more importan ito attrac members by its own content, ratherplaying a big sounded clip, that a user will not know how to close. (if hes new, ofcours) ok.

Tom What Happened To The Awesome Bytesize Music, With Out it Its Kinda Dull. I Think It Brings More Life To The Front Page And Also It Draws Attention To The Bytesize Player. Like When I Went On To Newgrounds When The redesign Went Out. I Heard Music And Look Around To See What Was Playing And Noticed This Neat Little Player With All The Bytesize Movies In It. Now That The Music Is Off People Might Not Notice All The Hard Work Our Fellow Newgrounders And Staff Put Into Making These Hilarious Clips. So Please Put My Thoughts Into Consideration And Put The Music Back.
Just To Let You Know I've Been A Fan Since 2nd grade :3(2000) So I Think I Would Know Whats Best for Newgrounds And it Viewers Because i Would really Hate To See Anything Bad Happen To Newgrounds. Also i Would I Like To See Some Bytesizes Flashes From You If You Can If You Can Because I know Your Busy And All with Castle Crashers But It Would Be Nice To See Some Of Your Work On The Bytesize Player

One of my friends who rarely comes to Newgrounds anymore stopped in to see the redesign, heard a bunch of screaming (from the bytesize player) and left. I have mine set to automatically be off, but I'll play it every once in a while to see new mini videos, or ones I hadn't seen in the past.

Tom theirs only one thing i hate about ng byte size is the all of sudden loud music.

It's not good to have sound playing as soon as you visit a site. People are likely going to be playing their own music. And the music that plays, and the sound effects, are really weird.

End of argument. Set it to off as default.

YEA TURN IT OFF!!
Cause I am a fan, but it pisses me offffff!!!
O wait... its off now! yay!! Thanks!!

I think you should make it so you have to click next to view the next cartoon, then you have it on but no bombardment after a couple of seconds.