Sunday
Apr032011
Vimeo or YouTube? Which do you use?
Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 7:21PM 
OK… not much of a post here. If you spend anytime looking at my blog you can see that I prefer YouTube over Vimeo but i’m SURE there are many good opinions out there and I’d like to hear them. Lemme know what you think. Which do you prefer and why?
Reader Comments (9)
I post to both, but to Vimeo first. Vimeo Plus allows replacing a video file to the same spot, so you don't lose views, likes or comments. So I post to Vimeo first, and then to YouTube after I get feedback on Vimeo. I also get lots of feedback from contacts on Vimeo...not so much on YouTube. I find myself forgetting to update YouTube with my recent videos more and more, but still want to keep it up.
YouTube has I suppose better SEO reach, but to have the ability to upload videos greater than 15 minutes in length is a lottery play. There's no rhyme or reason as to who gets the privilege. My IT company's YouTube account gets to upload longer content, but my 16x9cinema - which is about video - that account is crippled. Why?
So, for me, Vimeo is my personal fav. Also, it just looks nicer :)
I find Vimeo is more saturated with higher quality videos, not just in the render but in content and substance. I would say Vimeo browsers (as in those who simply surf Vimeo), are there to also look for higher quality content and creativity. You'll rarely find video's on Vimeo that were shot on someone's mobile phone of their pet dog doing tricks.
The Vimeo player is also highly customizable, so from an embedding point of view, the Vimeo player aesthetically is much nicer and cleaner embedded on any website/blog. I do, however like how Youtube breaks down your video into different levels of quality for the viewer. Maybe its something Vimeo will integrate later.
For me, Vimeo is the first place I go to upload my more creative videos. Having said that, uploading to both will get you more exposure and viral in the end :P
YouTube has the edge in every category. Audience/community, quality, upload-length, ease-of-use, annotations, embedding, the partner program, playlists, etc etc.
@Carl - It is perhaps likely that your IT company's profile is either a YT Partner, or grandfathered into YouTube's 2006 "Director" program - both of which allow for unlimited upload-length.
I'm certainly open to hearing what others have to say about Vimeo... but to my knowledge, there isn't such a thing as a "full-time Vimeo user"... and there's a good reason for that.
Victoria's comment about being able to replace the video and keep views and comments is very interesting... I had never heard that. One of the things that I do is to always link to my blog and if I feel I want to edit or change a video... i just upload a new one and change the "embed" link that is in the blog.
Interesting comments so far... I hope to get some more view points.
If it's important for SEO, post to BOTH. But, the one I'll embed on my blog will be Vimeo for superior quality, clean aesthetics, and no branding. Unless it's a serial show of some sort, then I post to YouTube and Blip.tv.
Communitywise, as a filmmaker, Vimeo is tops. YouTube is filled with trolls and/or immature kids. I have yet to see profanity used in any Vimeo comments, even for videos that may have a provocative discussion around them. It doesn't take too much for an f-bomb to be dropped on a YouTube video at some point.
I would have to completely disagree with Jonathan Paula's comments about YouTube having the edge in every category. IMHO, except for playlists and partner programs, every category he mentioned I would give to Vimeo.
I prefer to host my own video content using HTML5 with the JW Player as a Flash fallback. That way I know that no third party is going to plaster ads all over it like YouTube does. YouTube does have good market saturation and since Google bought them I think they are favored in search results, but I deleted my YouTube account along with videos that had over 200,000 views when they required me to create a Google account. Keeping two video hosting sites up to date is just too much work. I prefer Vimeo's interface, stats, privacy settings and audience in general but they don't seem to have the technology to support seeking ahead without downloading the whole video. As Chris mentioned above, YouTube is teeming with trolls. If you allow video comments - expect to see racist, sexist, juvenile, ignorance to fill up the space below your video.
From a technical point of view I find the quality of vimeo far better, not only video but also audio. YouTube apply some horrible audio compression (on levels and on bitrate) that can really distort your mix.
I only upload to Vimeo as for my purposes, it does everything I need and more. The only reason to use YouTube is because it's what people find from google.
5mbps vs 3mbps ... Vimeo is a place for where maintaining image quality is the higher priority, YouTube is good when you want to feel confident the your video will reach the largest audience.