BlipTV | Google | google video | metacafe | Online Video | Revver | Yahoo Video | YouTube
Online Video Sites: Upload Scores (and Pet Peeves)
Those of us that upload videos frequently have certainly developed a preference based on speed, convenience and “instant gratification” (ability of a site to show video soon after uploading it). Let’s review the common online video sites based on how well they facilitate uploading/posting of videos:
- YouTube: Used to be faster. The past few weeks I seem to get a delay whereby my video doesn’t show thumbnail for a while even if the video is there. Search terms don’t appear to be indexed quickly either. B-
- Metacafe: UPDATE: Now takes .mov files (as of 9/11). Also allows you to tag and add descriptions while the upload occurs (the only site so intuitively designed). Still has minor bugs but went from F to B- in the past week.
- Revver: Often slow, but improving. Terms are searchable as soon as it’s live, but upload-to-live time can take hours or even most of a day. C-
- Google: Used to be the worst- required multiple phases with horrendous delays. Now it’s almost instant. A- (from an F just weeks ago)
- Yahoo: Seems pretty good. Don’t think I’ve encountered problems, even if there is sometimes a minor delay. B+
- Eefoof: Tried a dozen of my videos over the weekend- quite easy. Would be an A but for the annoying requirement that the file name not have spaces. B-
- BlipTV and iFilm: I can’t remember. Anyone?
Note to video sites. We have some UPLOAD PET PEEVES.
- Let us identify the video on our hard drive (assign name/location) before we clasify it. It’s logical, and YouTube goes backwards. If I upload several videos I like to do them by date so I don’t miss one or upload twice, and that requires starting with file search so I can check the “saved on” date of the file.
- If you’re not going to make it live immediately, tell us where it stands. Otherwise we’ll upload it again and get error messages… I did that three times on YouTube this weekend.
- Don’t force a naming convention that’s “off the beaten track.” I won’t mention any names. Eefoof.
- For goodness sakes settle on a tag convention. Commas or spaces, people? We don’t care, but you’re making us think too hard by having different rules. And if you give us a limit please don’t make it fewer than 10-12 words.
- If we need to clasify it by genre, give us more choices (some sites only offer 6-8 options). And allow us to give it multiple genres. This will be very important as people want to refine searches.
- Would someone PLEASE develop a software that automates submissions to multiple sites?
Let’s not forget load times. Revver has nicer quality (thanks to Quicktime) but takes longer to load. It does load faster once it’s cached, but still not as fast as YouTube or Google. Google I’ve noticed is faster (but is slowing down) compared to YouTube.
But I think both (uploads and viewing) are dependant on size. I’ve been trying to upload two files to Google and have had to wait and wait and wait to only have it error out. Finally today I’ve uploaded both.
Great point… when you’re uploading to 5 sites at the same time, it is a drag when one gets stuck. That was happening constantly on Google for a while.
In retrospect it’s weird that I’m critizing sites that are covering bandwidth costs for free… but presumably they’ll eventually make advertising revenue to cover these costs and profit. Presumably.
I like Bliptv’s drag and drop desktop uploader and iFilm’s webloader is all on one page and organized pretty well. But Bliptv gets me A LOT more views than iFilm.
Amen on the pet peeves of the other sites. I hate to admit it since Revver has been so good to me monetarily and I’m TRYING to be a cheerleader there, but Revver houses my biggest pet peeve: the ongoing, unsolved invisible videos problem. Can’t get views or income if (some of) my videos are invisible to the general public.
Nice blog man!!!! i say hello from israel but i dont have my blog is in spanish but have nice vblog! video blog!!!
are you welcome to my blog!!! and enjoy old the movies from google video!! keep in touch`
Mis blogeros aqui un video desde haifa les dejo un pequeño film del resumen de la expocision de obras en arena fue muy espectacular la exposicion duro una semana pero lo tuvieron que alargar porque durante la guerra del libano no se podia ir a verlo asi que pude ir y ver con mis propios ojos
you can upload video with direct link in
http://www.upfordown.com
Man, what a well set-up website!
hey, forkoutvideo.com helps upload to multiple sites at once for free… its a work in progress but its better than paying loads of dollars to these other services.