Comments on: Which HD video Web service is the best?

These days, lots of sites allow people to upload HD video, but which ones are worth spending all that upload time? We take a look at six services to find out which is best.

[dascha1]

I don't think you got it wrong. I just believe the history of HD is driving where folks reading this are going. That is to say, WHO came up with the HD standard? Not the US, right? So, add to your list about a million... no make that a billion other little known web pioneers and that should be suffice.

Good report, thanks.

[ctdennis85]

I would agree that Youtube had an incredibly sharp picture, but the problem is the player makes the video choppy and causes it to stutter a lot. I'm running a gateway T series laptop with 4 gb's of ram and an intel core 2 duo processor at 2ghz, and for some reason the different websites (youtube especially) had better overall playback.

Facebook's video was quick and ran smoothly as far as motion, but the video quality wasn't that great in full screen. I found that Smug Mug was actually the best one in terms of how good the video looked, and how well the video actually played back. It was silky smooth on my machine, and it's something to consider for people uploading video's. Definitely find out which website has a video player that seems to work well for a broad base of users. You don't want to spend the time shooting beautiful HD video to find out nobody can actually play it without the video skipping and stuttering every 2 seconds.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

That's an interesting metric we didn't test. I was doing these tests from two different computers with hardware from within the last three years and didn't run into any of the problems you've described. Maybe next time we'll pull out some older machines and keep an eye on CPU + RAM usage.

[basraw]

Vimeo has had some small problems. A lot of people don't like the 24 fps and would prefer 30 fps. the frame loss is too much from the conversion.

they turned on 30 fps a while ago for a test. Videos smoothed out nicely. but then all you people with slow machines had problems.

Stage6.net was probably the best though!!! I just wish they were still around.

[TedAvery]

YouTube has great quality, but I always have to wait ages for videos to buffer, so I never enjoy the HD experience there. It also depends what kind of videos you are uploading. I find a 10 minute limit on YouTube pretty restricting.

As long as you do all your own editing, I think Vimeo and blip are much better choices personally as a video host and for their optimized players.

[aj37viggen]

"Video on SmugMug was some of the best of the bunch. It was crystal clear, loaded fast, and had one of the slickest players. Its one pitfall may be that you cannot embed it off of SmugMug's site..."

You can't? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what Josh meant, but I've embedded lots of SmugMug-hosted videos. There's a "Share" button that triggers a drop-down menu from which you can choose "Get a link"; that takes you to a page with ready-to-paste embed code.

Of course it doesn't work if the content's owner has turned off the "Easy Sharing" option, and I admit that I don't know if it works with HD video as I presently don't have any way to generate HD content.

[davezatz]

Still shots seems kind of irrelevant when talking video. But another good measure might be to test different source HD formats and see how these sites do reencoding them. Upload limits are an important consideration. But possibly most important, to me anyway, when choosing a video site is trying to figure out who's still going to be around in a year or 5 years. Cloud storage and sharing is great, as long as the company doesn't shut their doors and take our content with them. Or pull some silly crap like Yahoo killing their original photo sharing site. Lastly, YouTube has become a pawn - takedown notices come in, your video is removed (or the audio track, or ads are embedded), and [e-mail] won't provide the contact details of the claimant so you can determine what exactly infringes.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

That's a fantastic idea actually. Would be a good one for next time. We used .MP4 since it's what most HD-capable digital cameras (both the D90 + 5DMarkII & point and shoots) are spitting out. AVCHD would be a whole different beast, but important to test. I know Motionbox can handle that.

[basraw]

I believe also internet connection can alter video quality on Vimeo. Congested network = reduced quality.

[KarelBata]

Very nice and informative page here, but

1) A still from a video can be misleading. Virb (which you don't include) would have looked good here, but they only wncode at 12fps! Likewise it gives no indication of any buffering time needed etc..

2) There's no indication of how well any of these sites embed videos elswhere. This can lead to major issues.

3) You've left out ExposureRoom! It really does have the best technical quality available from all the free services.

4) I've put together a web page VIDEO EMBEDDING HOSTS COMPARISON TESTS at http://kareltests.co.uk which shows how well the best of the sites embed videos elswhere. This is currently hosted on a Virb page, but I'll be moving it soon to a page on an independant server, as well as adding a lot of advice for users who want to embed their videos on a page they design - particularly those who want to put a showreel on-line.

http://kareltests.co.uk

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Hey Karel,

Thanks for the good comment. All the services we looked at do at least 20 fps, and in many cases do 25 and above. We probably should have included that on the chart. As for embeds, we're assuming most people are going to see these videos in their place of origin. Good ideas nonetheless--will use them for next time.

[basraw]

vimeo can embed in hd. you have a lot of control over your objects.

I even figured out how to embed in Orkut. Was pretty easy.

[Waam]

Sorry, the only true HD experience you can truly have is on Blu-ray. huh? thats what streaming is supposed to kill.

[Don_MacAskill]

Hi there,

I'm the co-founder, CEO and Chief Geek at SmugMug. Thanks so much for including us in this review, and especially for giving us the runner-up nod. :)

Just a small correction: You can easily embed our videos, in a variety of sizes, with our slick player, just about anywhere you'd like. See: http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/11/30/first-1080p-video-from-canons-new-5d-mkii-amazing/

It's simple to do - just click the "Share" button when you're viewing a video on the site.

Thanks again!

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Hey Don,

I had trouble finding it earlier, but I see it now. I've made the correction--thanks much.

[cavemandude]

Info taken from my Facebook video upload page today:

Please upload a file only if:

The video is under 100 MB and under 2 minutes.
The video was made by you or your friends.
You or one of your friends appears in the video.

So where did you get that Facebook allows 20 minute videos with a 1GB limit?

[basraw]

I agree.

[TedAvery]

This is actually something to do with your account and it's verified status, at least in my experience. My sister has Facebook and is told that she needs to confirm a mobile number before she can upload larger videos, she currently sees the same limits as you. I had a Facebook account early on and am confirmed with my school e-mail address, and my limit shows 1024 MB and under 20 minutes.

[08Rabbit]

The Youtube time limit goes away if you choose your account type as director..which is free.

[clbyrdny]

I heard setting the account type was done away with and that was only for the first people who signed up when youtube first began. I looked on my account and I do not see where to do that. Can you tell me where I can find the settings for that? Thank you. Charlie

[PersistentSoul]

This is only for people who have old accounts with YouTUBE. According to YouTUBE's help documentation, new users are always limited to 10 minutes (despite switching your account type to "director."
see http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=71673

[basraw]

Hi. I don't think Vimeo Plus is 20 gigs. It just changed from 2 gigs to 5 gigs a week upload.. (Just changed a couple weeks ago). Not sure where 20 gig came from?

Vimeo embeds about any where. Works great on Myspace and Orkut and Facebook.

You can even have great control on which sites can embed your videos (so they don't get played through other places trying to make a $ from advertising). Can limit who can download the original source and even password protect your videos.

[dalasv]

He did the math "per month," so it is correct.

[basraw]

thanks. my bad! didn't catch that!

[dalasv]

For those who are interested: At Vimeo, we are currently experimenting with switching to h.264 from our current vp6 Flash videos. This should improve image quality and playback smoothness. We will re-claim this title next year ;)

dalas verdugo
Community Director - Vimeo.com

[basraw]

SWEET!

[pretenderkc]

Dalas -- any chance we can test the h.264 too?
i'm currently have the PLUS account only to find out the HD stuff is way too choppy.
i searched your forums and seems like people are having the same problems.
interestingly, some of the HD video on Vimeo has smooth playback and excellent clarity.
i followed the instruction as in your forum to export and encode for HD but doesn't seem to help in term of smoothness playback.

btw, the same video clip hosted on my own server playback smoothly.

[dalasv]

Currently HD maxes out at 25fps, which could cause choppiness if your vid is 30fps. Hopefully the h.264 will resolve this issue, but we do not have a "beta" program. We'll launch it as soon as it's ready.

[sisunen]

Hi All,

why not to try HDshare.tv and the offline Upload service Media2Net? Just have a look at last Press Release: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/090127/aqtu061.html?.v=74

bye

[RideMan]

So when do sharing sites finally break free of FLASH? Flash is a lousy format for video files, especially H.264 video running on MacOS. I'd much prefer to use QuickTme. which plays H.264 more efficiently than Flash (at least on MacOS). Even better, the files ought to be presented to the browser as MP4 files so that the end user can choose whichever player happens to work best on his hardware and Internet connection.

[BigGuns149]

I agree. Even on some Windows machines Flash takes up a lot more CPU cycles than it should. A lot of modern operating systems include media players that will support H.264. I think that the only caveat is that a lot of users want embedded playback in the browser. Furthermore, some content providers like the content protection that Flash provides, albeit there are some tools that will foil many of the copy protection schemes in flash files. Considering that most newer video sites are using H.264 embedded into a Flash container I wonder why some people don't simply bypass the container file that causes more overhead for users.

[2badd]

Thanks for doing the test. I'd love to see testing on video sending / video chat options like oovoo. Although oovoo bills itself as free you soon find out the you need to pay $10 a month to use the 6 person option as well as other "perks". Still at $10 a month it is a good option for some. We're going to be trying several other options as we find them.

[tomlaut]

You forgot to mention some HD services. I can also recommend www.exposureroom.com , you can also host your Photos and music there.

Then there is http://www.hdshare.tv/ .
as well as http://crackle.com/ , which is run by Sony.
last but not least there is http://www.archive.org/index.php there they dont compress your videos at all and they dont have a file size limitation and you can upload your videos via ftp.

[tomlaut]

sorry for double post could find edit button :)

also http://www.shareview.us/ and http://www.mytoons.com/ got HD , but mytoons is only for animations

[subsider34]

DailyMotion's HD video won't work on my PC. I Have a Gateway GT5435E Desktop Computer with 4GB RAM, AMD Atholon X2 4600+, nVidia GeForce 8500 512 MB DRAM. Oh, and by the way, I just reformated my hard drive so I have a clean install of Windows. What happens to me is that I get a message saying that my computer is "too slow".

[RJARRRPCGP_]

Probably because your video card driver is missing, please go to Nvidia.com and download the video card driver for GeForce 8 series, install, reboot and try again.

[cheboncruz]

I uploaded alot of videos in hd but still youtube doesn't encode them in hd.

[RJARRRPCGP_]

Same problem, too!

How can I get YouTube to stop rejecting as being "SD" ?

[naaabi]

I'm on the scout for a new service.. I would agree that blip is by far the best out of the survey but thanks to the commenters for the alternatives which I aim to check out..
I don't really know why I'm looking for another service. blip is very good. My experience so far has been with gootube , vimeo and blip with a minor flirtation with veoh. Blip is a bit bland and the gootube similarity of related videos make me feel like an alien although you can view on your own channel with none of that.
I won't go into gootube in too much depth but I did substitute music from the audio library which was subsequently removed and left soundless. It was one of my most popular videos featuring Wilson Picket's Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You. Any music that did remain had a link to itunes (I'm mindful of the no profanity terms of use)..
Next was Vimeo which I really loved. It seemed to play back HD video really well.Some of the featured HD videos were astounding but that was also part of the reason I got fed up of it in the end. I felt like a fish out of water because it was like National Geographic HD . They never stop pestering you to get Vimeo Plus which makes you feel distinctly like a second class citizen more and more. You're only allowed 1 HD video per week which gets to be really irritating. As a non paying member you see just one ad for tshirts which isn't too invasive to begin with but gradually wears you down.
I can't really think why I'm looking for an alternative to blip now. You are allowed to have multiple acounts at blip too . Vimeo does not. blip does not allow you to make any videos private which doesn't bother me too much but would be useful sometimes . It's nice to have the option of switching videos off from the public sometimes and back on when you want too.
Here is something I don't really want to tell anyone about. At Vimeo some people were asking where you could get free video software for HD and the answer was that ther isn't any except for the Vista version of Movie Maker. I have found the most amazing software here on cnet available as a free download. I 'll give you a clue. The only user comment on the software says it "was a waste of time and could not get it too work". Believe me, it isn't and it's amazing.
I've just caught a glimpse of the last comment about gootube not encoding hd . I think you'll find an option beneath the video to the laft hand side that you need to click on"watch in HD " as blue which reminds me of the other irritating thing of alot of videos not playing in stereo. You have to add "&fmt=18" to alot of gootube videos to either get them to play in stereo or high quality or maybe even HD .

[naaabi]

I finally discovered how to get your hd videos on the web without all that "you need a better pc" crap. The answer is the new divx webplayer and blip.tv where your original file is saved for people to choose. And this is the result. I'm going back to redo alot of my old videos so i can finally see them play "buttery smooth" on the net without having to download them.The bufferring is a bit longer but worth it.
Here is the result.I am really chuffed now I've discovered this.
http://blip.tv/file/2152801?filename=Naab-divxitment815.divx

[naaabi]

for "old" pcs like mine encode at 15fps around 2000kbs per sec and not more than about 5 mins and upload to Youtube. It's workinhg great. See latest effort iusemiro.