HD - Performance Penalty

[Bobby]

Just FYI...

I uploaded my grandkids basketball HD video to Vimeo and was not pleased with the results. There were no noticeable artifacts or blockiness, but definitely jerky motion. I put an entry out on the forum there, and really didn't get a lot of answers. General comments that sports look jerky, and also that Vimeo is using only a 25 fps rate instead of 30. The file plays fine on my PC.

The bottom line for now is that I don't see any benefit at all in uploading HD to Vimeo until they can improve it. But one interesting point is that Vimeo now has a fairly expensive Plus package, at $60/year and one of the major benefits is the ability to freely upload HD videos - the free membership limits you to 1 HD per week. But if the quality is no good, who is going to pay $60? I read a number of complaints on their forum about this.

There have also been a number of negative comments on the overall performance of Vimeo's website. It is definitely getting much slower to load pages - looks like they have expanded past their server's capabilities.

[George Tyndall]

Just FYI...

I uploaded my grandkids basketball HD video to Vimeo and was not pleased with the results.

Bobby,

Here is a link to a site that ran a useful comparison of the various uploading sites for HD: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10150445-2.html

[Bobby]

Thanks George. I read that review, and do believe that Vimeo is a good choice (assuming it works correctly). But they have had some severe performance problems lately and that may affect not only the web access itself, but also their upload and conversion process. I have to sometimes re-upload a video to get it to come out right and I shouldn't have to do that.

That said, they do seem to be a bit better the past few days. I was able to upload both an SD and HD version of the basketball video, and they both now seem to play fairly well. But to my untrained eye the frame rate of the HD version seems to be lower. Of course, both were created here at 30.

I don't mind paying $60/year for a good service that I can count on, but they haven't achieved that status for me yet.

[Ron]

How large is the video, Bob.

[Bobby]

How large is the video, Bob.

Thanks for the help Ron. Both the SD and HD versions (differing only in resolution) are about 125MB - unfortunately too big for a gallery here. I also don't use Muvipix to store my videos as my family is very uptight about access - Vimeo let's me control access to only my contacts - i.e. only my family.

[Ron]

And the format?

BTW, you can have private albums in the Gallery (password protected).

We're thinking about increasing the upload file size for Premiere Subscribers. We just have to see what the demand is for it first.

[Bobby]

Thanks Ron. It would certainly help if we changed the max. size - right now I do not see a requirement for more than 10 minutes of video, and at the settings I am using now (i.e. at a quality level I am satisfied with) that would be certainly less than 200MB.

Password protection would probably meet the family's requirements.

My only other question would be about the viewer itself. Obviously Vimeo, YouTube, etc. use their own viewer (and internal file format) and they are quite a bit more slick than the default Q viewer. I like the ability to switch between HD and SD and also the full screen mode. Neither in the Q viewer, I believe. Startup times seem slower with the Q viewer also.