Over the weekend YouTube quietly began testing a new uploading tool for users to publish their videos. The tool now allows users to begin plugging in information fields about the video while the upload is happening, much like Viddler, Vimeo, and others have offered for years. The company is testing the new player with a small number of its users, although you can access it with a special link.
The new uploader lets you edit data while the video is uploading. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: CNET Networks)The company has also increased the size limit of uploaded video files from 100MB to 1GB. This should open things up dramatically for people who are shooting in high-quality VGA video mode on their digital cameras, something that can turn a one-minute video capture into files that would have exceeded the previous limits.
The updated uploader also now lets users upload multiple video files at once. You can either do this when selecting the file, or while any previous videos are in the process of being uploaded. The tool allows for up to 10 videos a time, which means you can start up additional clips as soon as older ones have made it through. Doing so does not interrupt whatever file is currently uploading, which is a nice touch.
Two things that have not changed with the uploading process are the video time limits and long processing times, both of which are the same. Videos are capped at 10 minutes, and you still have to wait longer than your video's length for the system to process your video for viewing. As for the processing, there's nothing you can do, however, if you want to get longer-form videos on the service you can try your luck at becoming a YouTube partner which lifts the cap.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
On Monday, video host Vimeo announced it would no longer allow video game-related content to be uploaded to its site. According to the post on the company blog, this includes "game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs. player battles, raids, fraps, or any other video gaming videos that simply depict individuals playing a video game."
The post goes on to mention that the reason for the new ban is twofold: one, for the sake of the company's servers which have slowed to a crawl having to transcode all of this content, as well as what community director Blake Whitman calls a lack of "creative expression" from people simply holding down the record button for content that statistically has ended up being larger, and longer, than the majority of that found on the rest of the site.
The good news is that not all video game-related videos will be getting the axe. For example, machinima, which uses video games as a platform to create scripted stories, will not be deleted. Also, any game-related clips that have been uploaded to the service and that are scheduled for removal will be hosted until September 1, giving creators over a month to get it off and hosted elsewhere.
There are several sites that specialize in video game clips. One of the more popular ones out there, and my personal favorite, is WeGame, which has far more generous upload limits and video transfer from YouTube. For many, I think the reason to flock to Vimeo was simply the quality, as the site is one of the few to offer high-definition video hosting and playback, as well as download links to grab the original files.
Much like Google Video's software uploader, YouTube now has a multifile uploader of its own. While you can still upload up to 100 MB files through YouTube's Web interface, having installed the small piece of Windows software (Mac version coming soon), YouTubers are now able upload several video files at once, at up to 1GB a pop, which is 10x the size of the standard uploader. Interestingly enough, you still have to go through a Web interface, even with the software installed on your machine. The processing is still (thankfully) done on YouTube's servers, which the company says can take up to a half hour to crunch the larger or more complex video files.
Like the single file uploader, the multivideo iteration lets you change tags and edit the options of each video, although there are no batch functions, which is slightly disappointing. Also disappointing is that despite the bump in size limitations, Google is still capping videos to 10 minutes, although if you're making original content, you can probably finagle a director account, or other specialty classification pretty easily, which doesn't have such restrictions.
[via Read/WriteWeb]
Upload multiple video files at a time with YouTube's new multifile video uploader.
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