Top Video Sharing Sites Reviewed 146
prostoalex writes "Digital Video Guru is running a comparison of 10 digital video sharing sites - EyeSpot Beta, Google Video Beta, Grouper Beta, Jumpcut Beta, OurMedia, Revver Beta, VideoEgg, Vimeo, vSocial and YouTube. Currently, based on traffic, YouTube is the leader of the pack (more heavily visited MSN Video does not support user-uploaded videos), but Digital Video Guru blog awards Vimeo for fastest uploads, JumpCut for editing, and YouTube for community features."
DMCA anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DMCA anyone? (Score:1)
And thank you for playing! (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to have some definition of the word "use" that is different from everyone elses, or maybe just how the clauses work together. Sending a threatening letter alluding to violations is using the DMCA. If that is enough to result in the site being shut down because the site owner can't afford a legal battle with the MPAA, then that is using the DMCA to shut down a site.
Also, I support the notion that it is funny (though not exaggerated sufficiently to work well) and will post my
Good pick. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
If there's a volume control I'm missing on YouTube, please, tell me where it is... (mute isn't good enough)
Re:Good pick. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good pick. (Score:1)
What OS are you having problems with? OSX, Linux, and Windows XP all work for me.
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
Gaaaaaaahhhh.
1. I HATE Flash, and don't have it install. I'm not interested in a load of bloated software, with a history of open security holes for months before they get fixed.
2. Installing Flash is exceptionally difficult on any platform other than Win/Mac-PPC/Linux-x86. On the BSDs, you have to load-up on hundreds of MBs of Linux libraries to run the Linux
Re:Licensed to perform publicly but not to distrib (Score:2)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
Re:Good pick. (Score:2)
How many choices do I have for software that can view/play shockwave files?
Missing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Missing (Score:1)
Re:Missing (Score:2)
Thank you Captain Oblivious (Score:1)
No Browser Plug-in (Score:1)
"Preview" ability (Score:2)
mlDonkey [sf.net] has one [sf.net]. I'm not sure about Azureus.
Also, most of the P2P clients save their temp files in a flat format which could be opened in a player (although I'm not sure how Windows and it's weird file locking mechanics would accept it), so a plug-in that presents temp-files with human usable names (i-e name of torrent, instead of hash)
Re:Missing (Score:2, Funny)
Google video is not available in many countries (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it legal (due to censorship policies)? Than why do the other sites not have this?
This is a major detractor of Google Video's usability in my opinion.
Re:Google video is not available in many countries (Score:1)
Re:Google video is not available in many countries (Score:1)
Re:Google video is not available in many countries (Score:1)
Comparison of 40 video sites. Google is weak (Score:1)
For more see the brand new comparison of 40 online video sharing communities:
http://www.mustseeblog.com/?p=68 [mustseeblog.com]
Re:Google video is not available in many countries (Score:2)
YouTube just works.
My disappointment came almost immediately (Score:3, Interesting)
At first I thought it was my version of flash. But even after getting the latest, those videos are still too dark. To make matters worse, there does not seem to be an effort to sort this issue out. We need some common video controls on some these videos for sure.
On Kubuntu' Konqueror browser, the controls that at least appear on Windows2k with Firefox 1.5 do not appear at all!
check calibration+gamma settings (Score:4, Informative)
If you're using Windows, you probably don't have the correct color profile selected for your display, or you're using the wrong gamma setting. Or you're using Linux, and don't have the gamma set properly (X does not default to a reasonable gamma- it defaults to 2.4 or something, when Windows is 2.2.) Note that you can't use "2.2" as a parameter- you have to give it something like "1.2" or similar. Google "linux gamma" etc.
Macs also sometimes default to goofy profiles, so check under "Color" in the Displays control panel.
I've never had a problem with video brightness on google video, but I am using a calibrated display on an OSX macbook (and Dell monitor- yes, both are calibrated.)
But they forgot one (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong, I also have a youtube account. But blip.tv is quickly becoming my favorite.
Torrent (Score:5, Interesting)
Browser integration (Score:2)
Not that I know of, and damn stright there should be.
I think most places consider it too impractical. When torrent support is baked into Mozilla, then we might see some trial attempts.
When this happens then I really think we'll see online video heat up.
Re:Torrent (Score:2)
Re:Torrent (Score:2)
There's even an open source PHP script available which includes a built-in Tracker & Server.
Re:Torrent (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it would still create huge spikes in bandwidth shortly after videos are posted, since you're now asking the site to seed as well as track torrents.
Normally each user posting a torrent is responsible for seeding it. By centralizing that you are losing all the benefits. Only if a torrent becomes very popular and users keep their share ratios fair do you get any benefit. Most of the time, especially for all but the top popular torrents, there
question for a sat night on /. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:question for a sat night on /. (Score:1)
Re:question for a sat night on /. (Score:1)
Re:question for a sat night on /. (Score:3, Funny)
The "youtube" of Pr0n would be your penis, sir. Try googling first, and if you still don't see it just start browsing around sites near your inner thighs.
Re:question for a sat night on /. (Score:2)
YouTube will eventually die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually their cash flow will stop and they'll start pilling on the ads. Adwords, pop-ups, those annoying flash "timer" ads where you have to sit at a screen for 30 seconds, and ads before you play each video. Sure, they'll probably add a "premium" section to the site where you pay $9.99 a month and get to view the site ad free, but how many people are going to pay for that?
I remember when Atom Films and iFilm where big. Once the ads start poppin', the people start droppin'. And as the Pringles commercial goes, "Once you pop, you just can't stop." That's pretty much the motto for all these "free" content/service sites. It's great while it's ad free and everything loads fast, but once that ends...the party is over.
Google Video at least has some staying power. At least with Google I can save some videos in
Reminds me of that bit from Citizen Kane (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:2)
KeepVid [keepvid.com] will let you save the video from most of the popular video sharing sites, including YouTube.
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:1)
You can embed YouTube videos (Score:1)
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:4, Informative)
They do. It's just not online. All those weekly clip shows on E and VH1 pay YouTube for content.
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:2)
That's not a revenue model.. (Score:2)
Rubbish.
YouTube are operating at a huge loss, and they're relying on the "Web 2.0" hype to keep going. The fact that we can compare 10 fancy web 2.0 video editing sites, none of which have a genuine revenue model, and most of which have secured millions in funding from venture capital firms really shows what a problem we're heading towards.
I wrote a little semi-related p [adamrhodes.co.uk]
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:2)
Right on. It would be really nice if they offered better quality downloadable versions of the videos in addition to the quick streaming Flash/Shockwave/whatever crap. That's one reason i frequent archive.org [archive.org]'s video collection moreso than anywhere else. If you first want to quickly see if something is any good you can download/stream heavily compressed realmedia or mp
Re:YouTube will eventually die. (Score:2)
There's Movement Though (Score:2)
What about downloading (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, if you are using youtube and you come across a video you like, it's not possible to save it. That makes it almost worthless.
Re:What about downloading (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about downloading (Score:2)
Re:What about downloading (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about downloading (Score:1)
YouTube videos can be downloaded can by changing the URL from http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=[video_id] to http://www.youtube.com/get_video?l=165&video_id=[v ideo_id] (no spaces); this gives you a video in FLV format. You can change this into another format with, say, ffmpeg.
Recompression (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen dozens of recompressed videos on sites like iFilm and YouTube that are easily available in high quality on the original websites, it's like iFilm and YouTube are scraping the web looking for content to populate their sites. And of course they don't provide a link to the original site, so you have no way to know there's a better quality version available. This is dragging video down to the lowest common denominator. I run a video blog website, and I use non-downloadable streaming video precisely because I don't want some other site scraping my content and recompressing it to make it look like crap.
Re:Recompression (Score:1, Insightful)
The only reason to stream stuff is (illusion of) control, don't pretend otherwise.
Re:Recompression (Score:2)
Re:Recompression (Score:2)
Re:Recompression (Score:2)
Re:Recompression (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Recompression (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh... hypocrisy at its finest. "It's okay to do it to others, but not to me - because my content is special"
Re:Recompression (Score:2)
Re:Recompression (Score:3, Insightful)
To quote you, "Oh bullshit". I'd love to see you ask for, and get, one of the major labels videos in HD format, for you to "distribute", for free. But your work? Oh no, that's "special". The music video isn't a work of art, it's an ad. But your work is all deep and meaningful and requires explanation.
Utter crap. I used to work at a boutique software firm. They all had dialup modems provided by work, and by mutual agreement, people discon
Re:Recompression (Score:1)
I have videotapes older than you.
Re:Recompression (Score:1)
Note: being called on what you write is not being trolled.
Re:Recompression (Score:1)
Good oportunity to post the video (Score:1, Interesting)
I wonder how long will it pass until this video is on all this video sharing services :-).
Multiply! (Score:2)
Ups n downs of youtube (Score:3, Interesting)
Lots of fun copyrighted content. full episodes of the state, aeon flux, etc
Nice & searchable
subscriptions to keywords. I just wish it would default sort by most recently added
LOTS of obscure 80s content
LOTS of obscure 80s music videos
Nice user interaction tools
Groups!
Downs:
WAY too much anime crap on there - I swear 70% is anime footage.
Way too much 'crap' footage like teenagers lip syncing to some rap song. make it friends only
Searches for keyword stuff eventually lead to more anime crap
They are cracking down on copyrighted stuff - I got an email from "DCMA" when i posted a conan o'brien clip on there. It's now gone.
The speed of downloading videos is throttled to be less than realtime. You have to instantly hit pause when the page loads, then hit play when it's done
sometimes, even if you have ahead-buffer loaded, it stops for 5-10 seconds and resumes playing. Only happens on certain videos
No more videos allowed that are 12+ minutes.
Youtube is addicting, plain and smiple.
YouTube length policy doesn't make sense. (Score:2)
This totally does *not* make sense. I have a tutorial video that I am having to cut into pieces to upload to YouTube. The whole enchilada in LoFi Quicktime is 27MB. I'm having to give it to them in 10 Min> chunks. Guess what? Each chunk is coming out to 55MB. OK, if that's the way you want it, YouTube, go ahead and give me 220MB of space instead of 27MB.
Other than that, YouTube is Da Kine.
file size / compressopmg (Score:4, Informative)
Google Video I believe doesn't have a max file size limit, but they do recompress your video to whatever codec they use.
Youtube (not sure about file size limit), but after re-enconding into FLV, the quality is pretty depressing.
I haven't tried the others listed on the site, but I currently use PutFile ( http://www.putfile.com/ [putfile.com] ). They have a limit of 25MB for videos and no longer allows direct downoading, but they're decent and actually play back the original file. For larger files, most people probably won't want to view it in the browser anyway, so I upload to RapidShare ( http://www.rapidshare.de/ [rapidshare.de] ) which allows a maximum of 100MB and unlimited downloads. Though for anyone that's used RapidShare, you know about the wait times.
Re:file size / compressopmg (Score:1)
I'm just glad I can play all these videos at home (Score:1)
MSN Video? (Score:2)
Re:MSN Video? (Score:1)
To use this product, you need to install free software
This product requires Microsoft© Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft© Media Player 10, and Macromedia Flash 7. To download these free software applications, click the links below and follow the on-screen instructions.
Rob
Limited Availability (Score:3, Informative)
Here in India,Google Video simply gives a error Message- " Thanks for your interest,This service is unavailable for your region".
OTOH,Youtube works fine.
Re:Limited Availability (Score:1)
Re:Limited Availability (Score:1)
Re:Limited Availability (Score:1)
Yep.Would Anonymizer do the Job? Anyone tried a hack?
Funny you should mention... (Score:1)
Funny you should mention those video sites. I've been up all night playing with YouTubes API, but don't worry, the result is well worth it (check sig).
If anyone likes this script, please help yourself. I'd love to see a "best of 80's cheese" or "best old school sci fi" list if anyone else is as addicted as I am.
Oh thank you goodness, d/l complete. Time for more Ren & Stimpy...
Call me immature if you must, but IMO, this is what Sunday was made for.
phanfare.com (Score:1)
Two problems (Score:2)
Re:Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, though it's superior to AOL video or video from CNN that require you to have WMV support in your browser - and despite Flip4mac, that's still not an easy feat in OSX. I'm a huge supporter of platform-independent video, and flash player is at least a decent alternative towards that end.
Re:Lame (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy why so many sites don't default to mpeg o
Re:Lame (Score:2)
Does Java even run on 32 bit FreeBSD? Are you running the Linux version? Because Sun Java works fine on AMD64 Linux. I was running it on Debian a while back. Brings a nice speedup too. It was 300% faster running this simple puzzle solving program I made than the 32 bit JVM (and 32 bit OS) on the same machine.
Re:Lame (Score:2)
And you wonder... (Score:2)
And you wonder why you're sitting in your underwear posting on Slashdot on a Saturday night?
Re:Lame (Score:2)
Re:Lame (Score:2)
Re:Lame (Score:2)
I think it probably stems from a desire to control content, honestly, but if using shockwave which is available on other OS's is their method of content control, I can at least support the fact that it can allow me to watch videos without the need of codecs.
You're right, however. A simp
Re:Lame (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lame (Score:2)
I'd prefer 1 video plugin which will play it all, give me full control, allow me to download the videos if I chose, be open source and compatible with any OS/browser, etc.
http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:Lame (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lame (Score:1)
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/
Re:Okay.. A bit off topic... (Score:1)
Re:Dont Miss Videosift.com Either! (Score:2)
www.videosift.com
Re:Looks like crap... (Score:2)