Family-Friendly Video-Sharing Platforms
I am by no means a videographer, but I enjoy capturing family moments in video as well as still photos. Today’s computers come with video-editing applications (iMovie for the Mac and Movie Maker for Windows) that are a breeze to use so there’s no excuse not to capture the moment. The toughest choice is finding the best video-sharing platform to post your masterpiece.
When you say online video, YouTube is the first thing that comes to mind. If you want to get noticed, this is the place. There are no limits to the number of videos you can post and the maximum file size for each upload is a generous 1GB. You can customize a “channel” page with the look and content you want and the embedding options are very flexible. It’s even possible to watch YouTube videos on your television using devices such as AppleTV. And, you can customize your profile page to serve as a showcase for the videos you post. One good example of a customized page is the Army’s Soldiers Media Center.
While you can customize your profile page, the same isn’t true for a video page. When a video page is displayed, you have no control of the other items that also appear on that page. While things have improved since Google bought YouTube, it’s still not unusual to find other videos included on the page that can be . . . unwelcome.
There are also times when you don’t want the world viewing a video – either it’s unfinished or it’s something just for family and friends. YouTube does have a private option for videos which limits viewing to 25 people. This can be done by creating a limited access URL for your video or by choosing which YouTube members can have access.
Facebook offers a quick and easy way to share videos with your Facebook friends and family. Video uploads are limited to 1024MB and 20 minutes and are only visible on Facebook. There’s no embedding capability to display them on your web/blog site. If everybody is on Facebook then this is a great solution. If they aren’t, you can still post your videos elsewhere but link to them in Facebook so your friends can see them there.
Another option is Vimeo. I uploaded the same video file to both YouTube and Vimeo and the results were significantly different. The Vimeo version was much better quality. You can compare both here.
Vimeo does have basic and plus accounts. The basic account is free and limits uploads to a generous 500MB a week with 1 high-def video a week and no more than 10 videos a day. You are also limited to 1 channel, 1 group and 3 albums. More on that later. The plus account, which costs $60/year, ups your limits to 5GB a week with no limit on the number of high-def videos you can upload and gives you priority on the conversion process. And, you can set up unlimited channels, groups and albums.
Vimeo’s privacy options are impressive. You have the option to make a video visible only to you, to all your Vimeo contacts, to specified Vimeo users or only those who have the password. When you embed a password-protected video on another site, the password is still required to view it. Thanks to these options, Vimeo can be a useful off-site archive for raw footage. And, if you’re working with others, you can make clips of your choice available to selected contacts for downloading.
Now, about those channels, groups and albums. I have set up separate channels for my personal videos and the tutorials I’ve made for Family Matters. This allows me to have a page that just presents Family Matters stuff – customized with its own look and feel – and a separate one for sharing family events.
Groups in Vimeo are very similar to those in Flickr. They offer a place for people with similar interests to share videos and discuss them. Basic members can join all the existing groups they want, but are limited to only creating one themselves. In addition to topics, this feature is a great way share footage from an event (wedding, reunion, whatever) where several people are taking video.
Then there are albums. An album is a collection of videos that can be displayed together or forwarded to others as a playlist. You choose which videos to include and which order they will appear. Now, combine that album with one of the Vimeo widgets and you can put this collection just about anywhere.
Last but not least is MotionBox. It’s video quality is similar to Vimeo, but there are more “distribution” options than any of the other platforms discussed here. In addition to embedding the video at web/blog sites, you can post it to Facebook and email/IM links to your family. MotionBox also generates a very nice e-card for your video which you can use to announce your masterpiece and they have just recently been added as a channel on the Roku box so you can watch your videos on your television.
The free account is quite limited with 750MB maximum storage and a 300MB limit per upload. The $40/year premium account removes the storage and the per video upload limits. High-def videos can be uploaded only with a premium account. There are also monthly limits on the number of embedded plays (500 per video/5000 per account).
Privacy options are limited to either open to all, visible only to you and your contacts or open to you and the people you have invited to view the video. There are no groups or channels and you do cannot customize your video page.
These are not the only video-sharing platforms out there, but they are a good sample of what’s available for family-friendly viewing. If you use a platform that fits into this category, please tell us about it in the comments section. With the holiday season in full-swing, we’ll need a good place to share all those great memories.
