Top Video Sharing Sites Reviewed

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."

Comments

DMCA anyone?

[kimvette]

MPAA to sue 10 recently-reviewed sites citing DMCA violations in 3, 2, 1. . .

Good pick.

[O'Laochdha]

The thing I like about YouTube is that they have their videos as standard shockwave files...I can't get most other sites to run on my browser/OS.

Re:Good pick.

[stunt_penguin]

It's up to the developers to decide to put a volume slider in. Flash has had that abilitiy since version 1.0.

Missing

[d2_m_viant]

ThePirateBay is noticeably absent from that list.

Re:Missing

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a noticably anal person, aren't you?

Google video is not available in many countries

[Samir Gupta]

Most of Europe and China, if you try to access Google Video, you are told it's not available in your country yet. Why they have this restriction by unilaterally banning ALL videos from users of said countries is beyond me.

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.

My disappointment came almost immediately

[bogaboga]

When Google announced Google Video, I naturally checked it out. I was impressed with a wide array of titles. But what dissappinted me most was the inability to adjust the brightness/contrast of the videos. Some titles are just too dark!

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!

Re:Lame

[casuist99]

I agree - it would be much nicer to not have to install any video playing software in order to watch videos online... why *can't* they play in my text-based browser, afterall?

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

[niteice]

Would you prefer 1 Flash plugin or 4 seperate video plugins?

Re:Lame

[Zaplocked]

Much better than making you choose between wmv/quicktime/realplayer imo - I'm able to view these in our linux lab when I'm taking a break from whatever cs stuff I might be working on.

Torrent

[From A Far Away Land]

I haven't RTFA, but is there a place that lets you post a video, and it automatically offers a Torrent of the video for download? It seems like a good way for a popular video to get around quickly without causing any one server a huge bandwidth bill.

Re:Lame

[Deagol]

Seeing as how I run FreeBSD amd64, I'd bitch if they didn't have a format that wasn't supported by 64-bit clean open source codecs. I don't run 32-bit or linux binary compatability, which rules out quite a bit for me. No Sun Java (which is stupid -- they support PPC, UltraSparc, and Win64), no OpenOffice, no Flash (which I refused to install when I ran 32-bit anyway), and no win32 codecs for mplayer. :) At least I can play the AVI's from Google's video site.

Buy why so many sites don't default to mpeg or mpeg2 is totally beyond me. Standards, people -- standards! Open formats, like Theora, would be even better.

question for a sat night on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

which site is the youtube of Pr0n?

Re:question for a sat night on /.

[Odin's Raven]

which site is the youtube of Pr0n?

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.

YouTube will eventually die.

[ImaNihilist]

YouTube is great because it's ad free, and everything loads fast. That's why people like it. Too bad that YouTube doesn't have a revenue model yet. The only reason they stay afloat is because some company keeps GIVING them millions of dollars. Some estimates would suggest that YouTube costs $750,000+ per month. A company can only operate at a loss for so long.

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 .mp4 format. Personally, I hate any site that doesn't let me save the video to my HDD. Since YouTube doesn't sell ads, I'm not sure I understand the "point" of making you go to their site everytime you want to view a video. They might as well just let you download it, and save themselves the bandwidth cost.

Re:YouTube will eventually die.

[prockcore]

Too bad that YouTube doesn't have a revenue model yet.

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.

[kzinti]

People like me who make their own videos hate YouTube because it recompresses the videos into FLV format at an extremely low bit rate. It also renders stereo audio tracks down to mono, probably also at a reduced bit rate. All this transcoding is why a video from YouTube loads so fast, but it also means that the video looks and sounds significantly worse than the original. Read more about it here: YouTube and the Flash video format.

check calibration+gamma settings

[SuperBanana]

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.

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.)

What about downloading

[mal0rd]

This review isn't worth your time. It didn't even mention that http://video.google.com/ allows you to download the videos in standard formats and youtude only allows you to play the videos with a flash player.

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

[roye]

Keepvid.com might help you there. It gives you the link for easy saving. You might need that viewer for the Flashvideo files depending on your setup.

Re:What about downloading

[Travelsonic]

http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php - Video Downloader, allows you to download videos from Google, My Space, Yahoo, Youtube, and many many more places. I used it to download many videos from Youtube already without much of a problem/

And thank you for playing!

[hackwrench]

Rereading everything:
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 variation in another subthread.

What I had before:
Yeah, it'd be nice if every act of perjury got prosecuted, but they aren't and to the best of my knowledge the MPAA and RIAA are well aware of that fact and use it to their advantage.

Recompression

[sakusha]

The one thing that annoys me terribly about these video sites is that they recompress video files available on other websites and present them in a low-bandwith Flash format. Sure Flash is crossplatform Mac/Win and runs almost everywhere, but it has the worst quality of any video codec. And recompressing video introduces significant artifacting.
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

[sakusha]

Yeah sure, the sites don't scrape videos, people do it for them. Same difference. I know at least one videographer who created some original videos, posted them on his own site, they reappeared on iFilm a few weeks later. He put his website's address in the videos, but someone cut off the beginning and ending, deliberately removing the URL. It's getting so you'll have to put up a huge watermark across your video if you want to get any credit for it. This isn't such a big deal when you're posting some pirated music videos to YouTube, but for those of us who create new original video content, it is a bit galling to see our work reposted and stripped of any credit to the authors.

Re:Recompression

[Animaether]

This isn't such a big deal when you're posting some pirated music videos to YouTube, but for those of us who create new original video content, it is a bit galling to see our work reposted and stripped of any credit to the authors.

Ahhh... hypocrisy at its finest. "It's okay to do it to others, but not to me - because my content is special"

Re:Recompression

[Achromatic1978]

Music video is produced as a promotional product for free distribution

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 disconnected their home during the day and dialed up a dozen+ simultaneous lines to a warez bbs, to leech. But talk to them about people warezing /their/ software, and they'd be all for burning down houses and lynching.

You know the difference though? They happily admitted to hypocrisy. You on the other hand are living in a world of denial where you've pretentiously determined other people's work isn't "art", yet yours is.

Reminds me of that bit from Citizen Kane

[jpardey]

Forgive me not being able to memorize the script... "Yes, it cost me a million dollars to run this newspaper this year, and I expect it to cost me a million dollars to run this newspaper the next year, and the year after that. At this rate, I am going to have to shut down this newspaper in... 63 years."

Ups n downs of youtube

[British]

Ups:

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.

file size / compressopmg

[krunk4ever]

Maybe not as big as a factor anymore, but filesize is and no compression are the 2 features I look for. Ability to edit online is fine and dandy, but I can already recompress, re-encode, and edit on my machine already. What I need is a service which will not decrease the quality after my upload to conserve bandwidth and allow a good max size, now that video quality is up to the HDTV era.

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/ ). 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/ ) which allows a maximum of 100MB and unlimited downloads. Though for anyone that's used RapidShare, you know about the wait times.

Limited Availability

[earthstar]

Looks like you guys didnt know that Google Video is not available in many parts of the world.

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.