Video Casting – Comparing YouTube, Blip.tv, Viddler, Vimeo and now Dartfish.tv

By the time I hit “publish” on this article, it will already be out of date.

The online video casting industry changes by the minute.

It wasn’t long ago when YouTube (now owned by Google) was the only player in town.

I was an early adopter and beta tester for Blip.tv, and will continue to use their services for displaying my videos in high quality (not high def, which is another thesis topic of you want to read techno jargon)

With the emergence of HD video with AVCHD format cameras, the importance of different video players and maximal file sizes must be considered.

Viddler vs. Vimeo

Well before YouTube added HD support, Viddler and Vimeo were (and still are) the biggest winners for video casting.  Each of these companies are great in their own ways.

Basically, it all comes down to video quality, community a.k.a. social networking, and of course, price.

Of course, free is good.

Both Viddler and Vimeo support High Definition playback in 1280×720 (720p) as well as supporting embedding, sharing, video storage, and user-commenting on each video.

For an extra cost, you can also password protect videos for private or corporate viewing.

Each one has its own revenue model, either by premium monthly fees, or ads.

I’ve tried them all and depending where the moon and stars are aligned, my choice varies month to month.  They all are supreme quality.  And it sure beats having to setup your own file server and necessary Internet bandwidth.

Dartfish Software and Dartfish.tv

Dartfish is best known for its special effects to professional sport broadcasting.

Thus Dartfish is probably the most popular software program for Track and Field.  You can add the chronograph feature and get very accurate splits as long as lines and hashmarks on the track are clearly visible.  Here is a photo of Usain Bolt’s 100 meter split en route to his 19.30 200 meter victory and WR at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

And now they offer a video casting solution. 

If you are a Coach and use Dartfish, it only makes sense to use their services and upload your videos for others to use.  Please send me an email if you plan on using their services so I can check it out.

Software Tools to Create MPEG-4 (MP4) for your iPod

I’ll bet a lot of readers would love to download a video from YouTube and copy it to your iPod or personal media player device.

The trick is trying to convert it from Flash Video (*.FLV) to the MPEG-4 (*.MP4) format.

While there are dozens of online services and software tools out there that help you download videos from YouTube for offline viewing (you can do a Google search – I do not wish to endorse it), you are now able to download your own videos from YouTube.

That’s because YouTube Google now allows all video publishers to export their own video clips from YouTube in MPEG-4 (MP4) format.

If you have an account on YouTube, go to My Videos -> Uploaded Videos and look for the "Download as MP4" button next to your video clips.  Now you have a backup that can be copied to your iPod!

Videos on iPods are great for long commutes as long as you are not driving!