Review: Five Top Personal Video Sites

With the launch of YouTube in early 2005, video services on the Internet changed dramatically. Online videos have become a new social networking medium, offering humor, current events, and creative endeavors.

While the initial success of YouTube may have been linked to viral videos and copyrighted materials, most of these services are now primarily focused on enticing the artists themselves to bring their works to the world. The draw of these sites is pretty clear: Budding directors and video bloggers get free instant exposure. Viewers get an abundance of free, fresh content in a broadband-friendly format.

In this roundup, I looked at the most popular video sites: AOL Uncut Video, Blip.tv, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and YouTube. All of the services use Macromedia Flash for formatting and displaying video content. Flash is perfect for this role, as it is cross-platform and eliminates any complications with video file types or having to install specific players or codecs. In most cases, some image and sound quality is sacrificed for the sake of quick load times, but most of the videos remain clear and easy to watch.

There is a downside, however. All but two of these services allow for online viewing only, so taking your favorite clips with you on your next trip might not be possible.

So which should you use? Well, since all of these services are free, you can actually use all of them if you want. But it's usually a good idea to identify yourself with a single video service if you want your videos to become popular. What follows are my impressions of what each video service brings to the table.

AOL UnCut Video
On the surface, AOL's UnCut Video, currently in beta, appeared to be a clone of the other video services. It wasn't until I started digging that the differences became clear. What I found was the easiest and most robust upload capability of all the services, as well as some room to grow in the future.

Uploading your own video requires logging in as an AOL (or AIM) subscriber. I was impressed with the tools that the site offers for uploading videos. UnCut Video uses a software package from VideoEgg to handle the uploading process (which requires a small application to be installed on your machine). Like the other video sites, VideoEgg allows upload of MPEG, QuickTime, WMA, and AVI file formats. However, the AOL service also supports 3GPP files, a common video format used by the cameras built into phones.

The VideoEgg tool also allows AOL's service to go right to the video source. A digital camcorder or Web cam can be used to feed prerecorded or live video directly to the AOL site. As part of the upload process, you have the opportunity to trim portions from the beginning and end of the clip before the conversion process begins.

The only limitation is on the length of the video, currently set at seven minutes, rather than on the file size. For the average user, seven minutes is plenty, but aspiring filmmakers might have to look elsewhere to host anything larger.

Once uploaded to the UnCut Video server, your video is converted into a Flash format and made publicly accessible immediately. There is currently no way to limit access to your content once it has been pushed to the site, other than by deleting it. Viewers can post comments, rate the videos, and add their own keyword tags to your uploads.

AOL also makes it painless to post your favorite videos to a blog, a Web site, or as an e-mail link to your friends. One thing I didn't care for, however, was the "UnCut Video" watermark that was placed in the corner of the video when I posted it to my Web site, which I guess is the tradeoff for not viewing it directly from AOL's site.

Although it is a relative newcomer, AOL's Uncut Video has far and away the slickest interface to get content online

Blip.tv

The new kid on the block, blip.tv, is setting its sights exclusively at the video blogger. Everything about the site is designed to allow you to post your thoughts, both in text and in video journal posts.

When you create a user account on blip, that user name becomes your third-level domain name. For example, user Bob can use http://bob.blip.tv as his blog home page. In turn, the links to the posts and individual files are also much shorter and easier to manage than those offered by competitors.

The sheer number of ways to transfer a video to blip.tv is amazing. Along with uploading a video directly within the Web browser, there are specific applications for Windows and Mac to assist in batch transfers. If you are using the Movie Maker application included with Windows XP to edit your clip, blip.tv has an add-in for it that adds a "Send to the Web" option. Apple users also have the capability of recording right from their Web browser, using the iSight camera built into newer Macs.

For those who want to video blog from anywhere, blip.tv also offers "movlogging." Short for mobile video logging, movlogging allows you to record and post video clips from any video-capable cell phone. After grabbing the video, you simply send it to a unique e-mail address, which is a combination of your username and password, and blip.tv will automatically post it to your site.

The options don't stop when the video gets transferred up to your video blog. If you've registered your Web site and the account name of your blog, blip.tv can automatically cross-post your video to your main page. I was able to post to my own site and send the video to my Flickr account just by uploading the file to blip. In fact, blip makes video podcasting nearly automatic -- it supports over half a dozen RSS and news feeds, including iTunes podcasts.

Like most of the video services, blip.tv converts video to Flash format, but unlike the others, it maintains a copy of the original file. So, while the default is to use the Flash player embedded in the Web site, the originals can still be used, based on the application. iTunes podcasts, for example, will not work with Flash, so the original content would be needed.

Blip.tv is not for everyone. To share a quick video clip, you would likely be better served with one of the other services. But for the Web blogger who wants to take it to the next level, video blogging doesn't get much better.

Google Video
Google's beta video service is delivered in typical Google fashion: Start with the best pieces of what's already out there, then stir in a dash of new ideas.

Like the other services, Google's Web player runs within the browser window using Flash. Google then ups the ante by letting you take your favorite videos with you. Users can download clips and play them using the Google Video Player, available as a free download for PCs and Macs. As an iPod owner, I particularly liked the fact that I could, in two clicks, download the video I was watching, in a format perfect for my player.

Google has also made some commercial content available for purchase. This includes several current TV shows like CSI and Survivor, as well as older programs, such as MacGyver and The Twilight Zone. At $1.99 per episode, it is on par pricewise with iTunes and other services offering TV shows. Purchasing a video is simple, although I would have liked to have the option of purchasing an entire season of a show, rather than buying each one individually. The bigger concern, however, is that purchased videos can only be played while online. If you are looking to purchase and download some movies to take with you, you are out of luck.

As with YouTube, users can also upload their own videos to Google video. However, Google doesn't limit on size or length for standard users; it also offers additional support for Windows Media and Real Media files. Videos played without a problem on both the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, as well as on the Mac.

Uploading videos is also a painless process, although not quick. Unlike the immediate gratification of YouTube, Google does a verification process on the upload to ensure that it not only meets their technical requirements, but also complies with their Video Program Policies . It actually took most of a day for a video that I submitted to be verified and made live.

Uploading large or multiple files through a Web browser can sometimes be a challenge, so Google has made the process easier with the Google Video Uploader. A small application that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the Uploader lets you place a number of videos in queue to transfer in the background.

As for the social networking aspects of Google Video, the comment and rating systems in place are very basic and, frankly, have an afterthought feel to them. Based on what is there today, Google would be far better served by leaving the interaction component to others, and focus on attracting new content. Google has also said that there are plans to allow users to charge for content; this is sure to attract both attention and participants.

Google Video is clearly raising the bar for the players in this market. With some content available for sale, and the ability for anyone to sell their videos on the horizon, Google has an opportunity to be a forerunner for video services.

Yahoo Video
The Yahoo Video site seems, at first glance, to offer a pretty standard fare of services. However, when you run a couple of searches, you start to see where the difference between this and the other services lies: Yahoo's search index goes beyond its own content to seek out video clips from across the Internet. This means that a search renders a lot more options when you are looking for a particular video. Unfortunately, in a number of the searches I ran, I hit a large number of dead links.

Otherwise, Yahoo offers a standard and efficient range of features. It was easy to upload a video by simply picking the file, filling out title and tag information, then hitting Save. Each file you upload must be submitted and transferred individually -- there are no tools to batch transfer files.

Yahoo does impose a file-size limit, restricting uploads to a 100MB cap. It doesn't, however, enforce any kind of time limit, so depending on the quality and format of the video, 100MB would allow for a reasonably long video. Supported formats include MPEG, AVI, WMA, and QuickTime.

After a few minutes of conversion, my uploaded video was available to the public. Feedback for posted videos comes in the form of a simple five-star rating system and an option to write a review. Interestingly enough, Yahoo lets users post rankings and comments about videos from other services.

Yahoo Video's upload functions were the most basic of the group tested. While its wide search abilities make it great choice when looking for content, I was left wanting more options when publishing my own videos.

YouTube
The current king of the hill video service hill is without a doubt YouTube. In comparison to the other sites reviewed, YouTube has the look and feel of a more mature product, both in terms of usability as well as sheer volume of content.

YouTube accepts AVI, QuickTime, and MPEG formats, with a recommended resolution of 320X240. The files are converted into Flash format for broadcast. There are also some limitations placed on standard users: The files have to be less than ten minutes in length and no larger than 100MB. Users such as filmmakers or musicians who want to upload larger files can apply for a free upgrade to Director or Musician status, which offer additional functionality, but also bring stricter legal terms and conditions with them.

Uploading a video to YouTube is a straightforward, two-step process. First, the site asks for a title, description, and a list of search keyword tags that will be associated with the file. You then upload the file to YouTube. An option to control who can see the file is also available on this page.

I uploaded several videos onto YouTube, and while most of them posted without any problem, there was one small test video that continually failed: It would upload fine, but then I would receive a Failed message, with a rather vague "invalid file format" description. I attempted to resend the video several times, as well as searching through YouTube's Help Center, all without success. I never was able to figure out the problem.

The page on which each video resides includes a URL (so you can send your favorite video to your friends without clogging up their in-box with large file attachments) and an embedded tag that allows you to display the video as an integrated part of your own Web site or blog.

Other than the video content itself, the social networking features of YouTube are the most interesting part of the service. Not only can a video be ranked and commented on, but viewers can also upload and post their own videos in response to the original. This video response system is pretty compelling, and I found some of the dialogs almost as fascinating as the videos themselves.

With its social network features and quick delivery of videos, YouTube will likely continue to be the favorite choice of both video bloggers and fans of viral videos.