Around this time last year we put together a comparison of various video sites to determine which ones had the best overall quality and user experience. Since then, high-definition-capable digital cameras and camcorders have taken off, and several major video hosts have rolled out official support for wide-screen, super high-quality Flash video in response. So we think the time has come to take another look at what these sites are offering now and crown a new leader in the realm of HD video.
The six sites we're putting head to head are: YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, DailyMotion, SmugMug and Blip.tv.
What's being tested
Quality. For our tests, we looked at detail on two levels--both still and in motion. For the still, we used a shot of our corner Italian restaurant. From our test footage you should be able to read everything on the front awning.
For the motion element, there were plenty of cars and pedestrians outside our offices that would have made good test subjects. In this case, we went with a bicycle since it falls somewhere in between the two.
In last year's tests, we were able to do a neat mouseover trick to show you each site's original quality from the same part of a clip. We've done that again this time, but since the videos are too wide for this page, we're only doing it with a portion of the clip. While the player size on each service was different, we viewed each video at the maximum full-screen resolution (1280 pixels wide), in order to preserve the original quality.
Value. Some of these services aren't free. So what we wanted to find out is: for those that cost money, is the charge worth it?
What's NOT being tested
Unlike the last time we did this, we're not taking upload times into account, since everyone's connection is a little different. Likewise, we're not quantifying processing times, since the clip you're uploading at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday night will probably get processed faster than the same clip at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. We have, however, noted the respective size limits at each site, which can be incredibly important. HD video files are big, even if you're talking about a relatively short clip.
All the services we used processed our videos within about 10 minutes. The one exception was Vimeo, which took nearly three hours from the time it finished uploading to show up live on the site. This could have just been a bad time to upload, and keep in mind that paying users of Vimeo's Plus service get their videos sent to the front of the queue.
About the test footage
Click to play the sample video
To get a decent test shot, we went with a consumer-friendly, pocket-sized capture device. In this case it's the recently released Flip Mino HD (CNET review). It captures really good-looking video in 1280x720 resolution at 30 frames per second. It doesn't shoot in 1900x1080, also known as "full HD," but we're assuming that most folks are going to be using devices that shoot 720p anyway.
The footage is just a hair over three minutes long, which is about the standard for Web video, and has not been changed from its original camera formatting. It encompasses fast motion (the cars whizzing by), fine detail (local restaurant signage), and plenty of ambient sound.
You can find each version of the video at each site: Blip, DailyMotion, Facebook, SmugMug, Vimeo and YouTube.
The results
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Late Thursday night YouTube quietly added the option to watch videos in high definition (HD) without the need for any URL hacks. On any uploaded videos that are wider than 720 pixels, users will see a new option to "watch in HD" where the "watch in high quality" option usually appears.
In addition to the quality change in the player, YouTube has updated the embed options to let users chose one of four different sizes--all the way up to 640x505 pixels. There is still no option to embed the video in HD (officially), but you can accomplish this using the method we posted a few weeks back. Also worth noting is that there's not yet an option to automatically have the HD version play, something which you could tweak in your account settings with the introduction of higher quality clips.
As TechCrunch notes, YouTube has made no mention of the HD upgrade on its blog. Expect to see something in the next few hours. In the meantime, here's a quick still comparison of what a clip looks like in normal quality compared to HD:
The difference between normal quality (left) and HD (right) is like night and day. You'll see the new HD option on videos that were uploaded in their original quality. Click to see this in its native size.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Here's the source clip if you want to check it out for yourself.
Several readers have e-mailed me and asked for instructions on how to take their HD YouTube videos and embed them elsewhere. As I mentioned before, this isn't an officially sanctioned feature, and as such, the embed code you get on these video pages will still yield the lower-quality, non-widescreen clip.
Needless to say, this is completely unacceptable.
The good news is that you only need to make a few changes to the stock embed code get the job done. Here's what to do:
Step 1: Copy this code and paste it to wherever you intend to embed the video:
Step 2: Grab the direct link to your video. In case you've never done this before, it can be found to the right of the video player on YouTube or from your browser's address bar.
Step 3: Tweak the embed code. The finishing touch involves making a simple change to embed's URL source code to direct it to the HD version. To do this, you simply need to copy the alphanumeric gobbledygook at the end of the link you grabbed in step 2 and paste it into the part between /v/ and the & symbol in the embed code. For simplicity's sake I've labeled this "YOURVIDEOCODEHERE" in the embed code.
That's it--you're done, and all you had to do was use copy and paste twice! The end result is this:
Wired, with the help of users on the VR-Zone forums, has uncovered a simple way to get high-quality uploaded videos to display in 1280x720--also known as 720p.
YouTube has long been expected to roll out high-definition video playback, and this appears to be the first viable way to do it. The hack in question is similar to the one that was first used to toggle on the "high quality" mode. It is done simply by adding "&fmt=22" to the end of the video URL.
I got it to work without any problems on a video I uploaded earlier this morning. What's interesting here is that it was not ready at the same time the Flash version was.
In my case, it took about 15 minutes longer for the HD version to display. YouTube could be doing the second round of processing for these higher-resolution videos at the same time it's doing H.264 conversions for playback on TiVo digital video recorders and iPhones. My original upload was H.264 to begin with, so that could have sped things up.
Getting the higher-resolution video to display properly in embedded code is not so easy--but as you can see below, it works and looks gorgeous. You have to manually go in and change the embedded-link structure--something newbies might want to steer clear of. The YouTube embed technology for HD videos is missing the option to view in full screen, but you can toggle it on from the Google service's hosted video page.
One thing to note is that some folks to whom I sent this had problems getting the clip to display on older hardware. On my Intel Core2Duo machine, my CPU usage shot up from around 10 percent to 40 percent, and it peaked at 70 percent. This also happens on other HD video sites, such as Vimeo and Dailymotion. If you're using a computer equipped with a chip less powerful than an Intel Pentium 4, you might run into problems.
HD Version:
Regular version:
Today Motionbox is taking an important step forward as a video host. It's now supporting high definition footage uploaded by its premium users, who get to partake in unlimited file size or storage limitations as part of the $30 a year service. Regular users will also notice a quality bump, as the supported resolution has been increased to DVD quality to help meet the now standard VGA quality and beyond on most point-and-shoot cameras.
HD videos can be encoded in any of the popular competing formats, including AVCHD which only recently began to meander into consumer level video editing software suites. Users are also able to edit raw, uncut HD footage in MotionBox's Web-based editing tools. This feature should make it easier and far less expensive for people who want to do simple edits to HD footage without upgrading computer hardware.
The sample clips I've seen are beautiful and load instantly. If you've spent any time on Vimeo and its high definition gallery the experience is similar. Both suffer from the technological shortcoming of not letting embedded clips be in high definition, meaning you'll have to visit the Web site if you want to see for yourself. Update: I've gotten the supersecret embed code to drop the HD player on the page. See update note the end of the post for more information, and click the "read more" link to watch it.
Motionbox is coming to the HD crowd a little late, but it is offering some interesting tandem services to entice prosumers who are looking less at broadcasting to the masses, and more to small groups of friends and family. In a few weeks, MotionBox will launch a custom DVD service that will let users drop clips onto a virtual DVD and have it printed and sent to themselves or to friends. With the right permissions, users will also be able to take your clips and burn them onto a DVD if you make that option available. CEO Chris O'Brien also tells me the flipbooks, which were introduced last November have been enjoyed by users.
If you're a heavy HD user looking to share some HD footage with others on the cheap, Dailymotion and Vimeo serve up free hosting. There are caveats for each though. Dailymotion needs you to be a MotionMaker and broadcast your stuff to everyone, while Vimeo limits your weekly file uploads to 500MB which might be pushing it for some long, raw 1080p footage.
Note: O'Brien says that users will eventually be able to embed the HD videos themselves, but we've been given a special code for this one. Also be sure to vote to see the results in the poll below. Looks like a lot of you don't have HD cameras.
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