gnurou.org Just your average bearded geek

Lately I have been trying videoblogging on my blog in Japan, namely sequences of 15-20 minutes. I required good video quality because showing the landscape/events were important to me. Due to bandwidth limitations, I cannot host the videos myself, so I had to look for a video hosting service. The video service of my dream would :

1. Provide good flash video for immediate view,
2. Allow the viewer to download the original video I submitted for maximum quality,
3. Have few or no limitations on the size or length of the video.

Well, with that in mind it is clear that Youtube, despite being the most popular platform, is totally unsuitable to me. The flash output is far from great, video size is limited to 100Mb or 10 minutes, and there is no way to download the original video.

So, since I love Google, my first try was Google Video . It does allow to download the original video file (although in a quite weird format requiring the Google Player for Windows and Mac users), and has no limitation regarding the video size and length. Moreover it allows to submit subtitles in various languages, a feature which I find great. Unfortunately, the flash video is just not on par, and moreover when submiting h.264 encoded videos I got a gap between the video and audio signal that increased as the video goes on. Simply unacceptable. That's just too sad.

Vimeo is a little cute community which, while not having the perennity of Google, is online for long enough to trust it. It probably provides the best flash video quality thanks to a nice flash 8 player. Uploads are limited to 250Mb per week, which is sufficient to me, and registered users can download the original video. Unfortunately uploading big videos is a pain in the ass as the Javascript uploader tends to stop unexpectingly. There are also a few bugs here and there. And sometimes you click on play and the video just doesn't come up. Very nice for small videos, but for longer ones things become more complicated.

Blip.tv does a different job in that it just delivers the files you uploaded. No lock, no shit. It uses a Javascript upload form, which worked just fine for me. You can upload as many versions of a video (with different formats and resolutions) as you want. It doesn't perform any alteration on your file (excepted changing the file name). Blip.tv can create a flash version of your video for you, but the chosen parameters are often poor and you'd better be advised to do it yourself! Which in the end is not a bad thing, since you can control its parameters and end up with a great quality, at the cost of spending a couple of minutes setting up the encoding process.

So in the end, for my personal usage (15-20 minutes videos which I want viewable on the web and easily downloadable), Blip.tv is the clear winner. You can make the flash version of your video yourself, which ensures the best possible quality. The original video (or any other format you may have uploaded) is accessible by direct link, without registration whatsoever. And there is no limitation at all regarding the video length or size. Finally, you can set up and personalize your own channel, which looks very nice and professional, and the site supports Creative Commons licences. No need to think more!