When searching for a web video hosting service, there are many sites to choose from. How do you decide which web site is the best place to host your video?
First, you should consider the technical features offered by various web video hosting sites. The following criteria should help you narrow down your choices and find some web video hosting services that fits your needs.
After you find some web video hosting sites with the technical features you need, it's time to consider the other benefits and features offered by various web video hosting services.
File Size Limits
Web video hosting sites have varying limits in the size of the video files they allow you to upload. Generally you’ll have to compress your video before uploading so it meets the file size requirements of the video hosting site. If you have to compress it too much, your video may not look very good by the time it’s playing on the web.
Some sites have no file size limits. It's nice to have the ability to upload your master video file, but this can take a loooong time.
Storage Space
Is there a limit to how many videos you can upload to your account, or how much storage space you can use?
Some web video hosting sites will allow you to upload an unlimited number of videos, while others will only give you a certain amount of storage space. If your storage space is limited, you'll have to delete old videos before uploading new ones, create a new account for your new videos, or, sometimes, pay for additional storage space.
Uploading Formats
What video formats does the site accept?
Most web video hosting sites accept multiple video formats, such as Quicktime, Windows Media, MPEG etc. You can even find sites that allow you to upload directly from your camcorder or cell phone. If this is important to you, make sure that the web video hosting service you choose to use offers these features.
Viewing Formats
What format do the videos on the site play in?
Flash is the standard for most web video hosting sites, because it is installed on most computers and plays quickly and easily. However, some sites offer other video formats, in case you want to share your video on a site that doesn't use Flash, such as iTunes.
Compression Quality
Web video hosting sites will recompress your video before publishing it. Some sites do this better than others.
It's impossible to know exactly what your recompressed video will look like, but you can get an idea of how well the compresser works by looking at other videos on the site. Are the fuzzy and pixilated, or clear and bright?
Video Downloads
Because of copyright issues, many web video hosting sites do not allow users to download copies of the videos on the site. There are some sites though, such as Google Video, that allow users to save copies of videos to their desktop or portable video player.
Editing Capabilities
Many web video hosting sites now offer editing features. JumpCut offers extensive online nonlinear editing, and other sites give you the ability to remix your video or add titles, narration or photos.
These come in handy if you ever need to change anything in your video because you can do it right online, instead of editing it on your desktop and repeating the entire upload process.
Other Features
Besides the technical features, there are many other things to consider before choosing a web video hosting service. Factors such as site demographics, search capabilities and privacy should also influence your choice of a web video hosting site.
These issues are explored in Part 2 of this article.
