I'm experimenting with them, and here is how I think I can best use them, baring the fact that they change their business model.
I invariably get complaints that people don't have or want or can't get a current version of QuickTime to view my videos. So I've been looking for a solution to make my stuff more accessible while retaining QT as my main distribution format. I've tried encoding mp4s without the QuickTime wrapper but doing that loses the advantage of QuickTime has to download and play at the same time. So what to do? I had thought of maybe setting up another blog with alternative formats on it and a separate RSS feed, but that seems too complicated. So what other solutions are there? Well flash, of course. The advantage of flash video is that it's probably the most compatible format there is for Internet viewing. Of course the disadvantage is that it's not easy to create a flash video, and it's not easy to download, and it's not compatible with any portable player (at least the popular ones) and aggregators cannot easily pick it up. But it is good for displaying video on a web page that can be read by a high number of users because it has such a large install base. So here is the solution that I'm tinkering with. And this is not my final idea about this, but it's an idea I'm experimenting with. YouTube encodes everything in Flash, and they allow you to easily embed clips into your page by cutting and pasting a bit of code. So what I am doing is making the YouTube stuff as a kind of the playable thumbnails for my vlog posts and offering a high bit rate encoded QuickTime file for download and for my feed subscribers in the same post. I think it should work because I think flash video is ignored by feedburner as an enclosure if you set your feed to ignore everything but video files—this may not be the case with all servers but it seems to be the case on the one I'm using. The advantage being that I can service my feed subscribers with a good quality ipod compatible QT file and casual browsers of the site or the QuickTime disabled can get the instant gratification of Flash video. Now the only drawbacks to this that I can see is that all my thumbnails are branded with the YouTube logo. And the Quality of the encoding by YouTube. And the possibility that YouTube might change it's business model and screw the entire system up. I can deal with the logo for now, and the low bitrate encoding. It's an worthy trade off for me to provide those on slower connections access to my work. But the possibility that YouTube might start embedding ads into my work, or charging for their service are things I expect to have to deal with at some point. I may end up just creating the flash movies myself. But for now YouTube is a bit more convenient than that. So that's my answer to how I use YouTube. I don't love it but I find it useful for the time being. Bill Streeter LO-FI SAINT LOUIS www.lofistl.com --- In [email protected], Verdi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > YouTube Receives $3.5M in Funding From Sequoia Capital > http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=100442 > > Can someone explain YouTube to me? I don't get what people like > about this service. They have crappy transcoding, they brand your > videos with their logo, they try to lock you into their website, you > can't syndicate your videos via rss, and they still haven't changed > their crazy terms of use where you basically give your work away to > them. > > Can someone who uses this service explain what they like about it? > Do you not care about these points that I bring up? Why not use > another free alternative like Ourmedia or Blip? > > I don't get it. > Verdi > > > > -- > Me: http://michaelverdi.com > R&D: http://graymattergravy.com > Learn to videoblog: http://freevlog.org > Learn to videoblog in person: http://node101.org > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to the Sweet Life. http://us.click.yahoo.com/A77XvD/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/lBLqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
