What’s your video platform of choice?
I am looking for the best video platform to publish my videos on and am currently torn between Vimeo, YouTube and BlipTV. I currently (still) have a strong preference for BlipTV and I actually wish they would automatically cross post to YouTube.
Maybe the best option would be to create an AIR application that automatically uploads to all three so I can benefit from Vimeo’s nice embedded player, YouTube’s community and BlipTV’s automatic iTunes/AMP/Miro feed generation and automatic transcoding. Who’s up for the challenge?
What is your video platform of choice and why? Leave a comment with your suggestions and thoughts.
Pros
Really nice interface, both for publishers and viewers.
Standard video quality is pretty good. HD as an option.
Easy embedding.
Cons
Flash video only, excellent for embedding on my blog but currently not an option for watching it on devices.
Community doesn’t seem that big yet.
Pros
Very large community. Everybody knows YouTube.
Recently added HD.
Mobile versions of YouTube available.
Easy embedding.
Cons
Even though mobile versions exist, there is no option for downloading videos to your iPod (as an example).
Default quality is still low.
Pros
Multiple file formats and automatic transcoding.
Automatic iTunes, AMP, Miro feeds.
Several cross publishing options.
Easy embedding.
Cons
Small community.
6 Comments
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The only thing I like about Youtube is it’s large community and reach.
Vimeo’s user experience is fantastic.
Blip has great features but lacks the reach of Youtube or the beauty of Vimeo.
We had been using Brightcove until they decided to kill their free service and take all our content offline in the process. We can’t afford Brightcove 3 so we are moving everything to Vimeo. Brightcove’s embeddable players and rich backend were it’s major selling points.
That said, I think cross-posting everything seems like the best overall solution. You reach the widest audience possible and get whatever great features you need from each service.
I wish I had time to help build an AIR to do this but you can be sure I’d be one of the first people to download and use it if someone else did.
Check out Viddler, Serge, I’ve found that they have the best quality if that’s a priority (it is for me with screencasts).
If you want to distribute across multiple video sites without too much hassle (although at a small cost) you might want to look at heyspread.com (which I think hooks up to their heywatch encoding api)
an installation of red5 server and a custum self written flash player is my choice
After working with vimeo I wouldn’t change for the world. Nice, clean and easy to use, embedding is way cooler then youtube. Indeed not as popular as youtube but I think you get more out of vimeo. I made a video wall with around 20 videos and it worked out smoothly. Even playing them simultaneously.
Serge,
You may want to have a look at TubeMogul (http://www.tubemogul.com/)
TubeMogul is a free service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed.
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Nilesh