Comments on: YouTube sucks: 4 sites that do video better

How does YouTube stack up against the competition? Webware compares Viddler, Vimeo, Facebook, and Veoh to Google's video-sharing site.

[royauty]

Take a better look at the screen capture quality evaluation! Viddler introduces far fewer noisy artifacts into the image, and uploads videos in one-third the time of Veoh. Of course, I'll still use YouTube because that's where all the content is right now.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

It's kind of a toss-up in my opinion. I think despite some noise in certain places Veoh kept several minute details intact (like cabinet handles and shadows). You're totally spot on about the upload time though, the difference if huge, and if you're in a hurry Viddler is the go-to uploader.

[JonTitor]

Stage6 > all

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Hah, you may be right Jon. I will have to give it a look.

Maybe we'll do a part 2. If anyone else has suggestions for other services to try, leave them here.

[dragonnav]

Yeah, stage 6 is the best. HD CONTENT RULES!

[Revrant]

I was going to say this myself, Stage6 has amazing quality and it's pretty easy to use, unfortunately their search function is pretty off the wall and unreliable.

[/P1\]

yea... stage6 is dead

[ghost__boy]

Stage6 is unfortunately closing soon, so DivX can "focus their efforts" more on their codec.

[hughmanity]

rayauty is right, ...check out the pixelation in the ceiling tiles with Veoh.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Pixelation is one thing, but you can't even see the ceiling lines past the lamp in Viddler's version, so it's kind of moot. I think the two are very much a toss up.

[famulla]

A picture's worth a thousand words
I will go on from here. Here we have varied version of pictures. We had the in 40s and 50s in black and white but we also had love then.
With the diverse pixels and DHV and all the gimmicks we have more resolution and less friends. Here you have the youth poring milk. I would look at the milk as the daily souse of the vitamin. Need I listen to the smokes also? No. I have nothing against the pictures given to me in any form if I cannot hear I pack up. After all, picture cerate impressions and sound the love. It is pointless in giving these pixels to those have no choice but to stick to the low resolutions they and there millions who are in this category. For those who have, will view this and redefine this in the TV.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

[entee]

Screen quality appears to be the best with Viddler and Vimeo, and actually the second-worst for Veoh, better only than youtube.

Nice comparison, though.

Editing mistake?
Vimeo (1 hr 19 min.) Vimeo was by far the longest to upload...
Veoh (1 hr 21 min.) Veoh was the slowest of the bunch...

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Yikes, too much coffee I suppose. Fixed.

[abdoismx]

Stage6 is better than all these websites. And its becoming more popular everyday for it's outstanding resolution. Check it out

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Will do, I like what I see already. Like I said to JonTitor above, I'd love to do a part 2 with another handful of services.

[pugsley0134]

Facebook might be a cool social network, but for videos it really sucks, most songs are atleast 3 min and on facebook the max time for any video is only 2 minutes, now that sucks!!!!

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Actually it's 15 minutes. Here's what it says on the site (http://vupload.facebook.com/video/?upload):

* The video is under 300 MB and under 15 minutes.
* The video was made by you or your friends.
* You or one of your friends appears in the video.

Facebook's most stringent aspect is the people requirement, but I've personally uploaded, and seen others that have uploaded videos taken from elsewhere.

[blusteel21]

yeah Stage6.com is by far better then all the others because it has the highest quality and their library is slowly growing even more. youtube and the others have a ton of videos like you guys said but that is fine by me if we keep quality on stage6 then i am fine for watching crappy quality montages and small clips on youtube. so youtube no need to fuss but you might want to separate the better qualities.

[jwaldrip]

Its way too bad that stage6 is all divx and not flash. Makes it really a pain to download that plugin.

[abdoismx]

Downloading the divx plugin is completely worth it ... have u seen the dimmer. When you are watching a divx on stage6, the screen dims after sometime of inactivity so that the video area becomes the center of our attention .. i love that feature... Plus, i think stage6 also allows .avi videos.

[ragingpugh]

"Vimeo's uploader was a cinch to use, although like others you need to fill in several forms to get to the point of being able to upload your video file."

This is wrong, unless this statement is including signing up for Vimeo (which you also have to do for Viddler, too). Vimeo allows you to start uploading before you fill out any forms.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

You're right. Fixed.

[kentpaul_65102]

i agree w. the ppl who said stage6... , it has really good video quality and its only downside is downloading the divx plugin

[Starfires]

Veoh looks just terrible, Viddler and Vimeo look pretty good. The interface on Viddler is a joy to use, I was really excited when it came out and they even featured some of my slide-shows on the front page. After a few weeks, though, my pieces kind of drifted out of sight there and I couldn't find other users I really related to.

Blurry Youtube is less than ideal for such things, but at least it has so many viewers that it is easier to get some appreciation there that I get daily comments on my videos. With Google in charge, I can see a Hi-def version coming pretty soon and with it much better quality. They already improved the features no end, without really spoiling the community feel of the place, to my mind. Others may feel betrayed, certainly, their obsession with copyright on slide-show soundtracks is a real shame, but you can't really blame them for that.

Conclusion- I'd go elsewhere, but the party is still at Youtube.

[lloyd877]

Stage6.com really good for a video site

[redrasys]

With the emergence of specific vertical market oriented sites like YouPorn, ClipMeet, Zipvo etc - i think the industry trend is changing to more specific video segments.

[Conker10]

I tried Viddler and it has habit of putting advertising on the video you are watching and takes up portion of the screen that I find annoying and distracting. People might complain about YouTube but at least it doesn't it doesn't allow advertisements in its product. I might try the other sites at at later date, but when the highest rated site is below that which it imitates, then I will stick with the original.

[Dashizzle9]

While the other mentioned sites might have better quality and whatnot. YouTube still has the most content and is the most popular right now.

[sassyjade]

Does anyone know if any of these sites (or others)

1) allows videos to be password protected for only a certain audience to view
OR
2) has a group function like youtube but allows videos for the group to be made private?

[Revrant]

Very good comparison, I'll keep using youtube of course, simply because of the massive amount of content, but it's good to know of a couple others that I wasn't aware of.

[Revrant]

Oh, I totally forgot, though it sort of doesn't qualify because it's got a purpose whereas these sites are free reign on all non-adult content, hulu has excellent quality.

[fedtho]

I don't know where things are about copyright with video sharing sites... But isn't the poor quality of YouTube kind of a possible guarantee people will be able to continue posting there valuable musical clips of songs you don't find anywhere anymore, or just want to listen to once because it popped in your head? For that kind of use, I don't mind poor image quality (and it seems to me sound is gradually getting better). On high-def sites, clips of famous artists are more likely to rise copyright issues, potentially leading to legal fights ending up in simply closing them down...
Just a thought.