Tech Trends

Video is hot. National attention from mainstream media has pumped up the dialogue and traffic to a number of services that utilize user generated video hosting products. Over the last few days I uploaded a video to Yahoo, Google and You Tube to compare the services.

Best Feature: UserBase, most views after uploading.

Branson Fiddle Contest JR’s Performance as seen on YouTube

Best Feature: Publisher Interface, simple interface touts producer as star

Branson Fiddle Contest JR’s Performance as seen on Yahoo

Best Feature: Extended time. The other two services only allow 100 megabyte uploads.

Branson Fiddle Contest JR Performance as seen on Google

What’s your experience?

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Additional Test notes from Scott
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As seen in FireFox v1.5.0.6 on a headless 400Mhz Mac with 768M of Ram running OS X v.10.4.7 (Headless? you ask. It’s my world traveler. The screen panel is doing a Nearly Headless Nick impression; propped up with duct tape and a stick. Ozark appropriate, don’tcha think?)

CLARITY:
In comparing I found Google’s smaller display more enjoyable. My brain did the work of filling in the details just fine. I disliked the blur caused from the Yahoo and YouTube enlargements. I wouldn’t have opted to enlarge the display without available video detail/resolution.

COLOR:
Google and YouTube retain vibrancy (or added it, as I haven’t seen the original video). Yahoo seems to be mildly washed out compared to the other two.

AUDIO:
In the first run, I couldn’t tell them apart from one viewing to the other.

SMOOTH ACTION:
Yahoo was a little jerky at times but otherwise they were all comparable.

SMOOTH DETAIL:
YouTube and Google are the winners here. The Yahoo compression has left many artifacts where YouTube and Google are, for the most part, artifact free.

Here are some screen captures:

Google Video Capture:

Yahoo Video Capture:

YouTube Video Capture:

This sums up my tests. I only ran this once, so don’t take this as comprehensive. Your experience may vary… so, please share.