A continuing series of questions from an ‘Net acquaintance on whether to post on YouTube or Vimeo.
Question: Incidentally, I heard that Vimeo encoded 720p at higher bitrates than YouTube (or that it had more bandwidth to serve it, or both… can’t remember!). Do you prefer to use YouTube @ 720p for other reasons?
Answer: I test with YouTube because it’s a popular subject on my blog and gets more eyeballs than any site in the world. The quality is also quite good for the grandparents and they’re familiar with the site. I use Vimeo for many of the videos on my own site site (www.streaminglearningcenter.com) because it does well with screencams.
UGC sites can play two roles – one for marketing (getting eyeballs) and one for content distribution. If you’re posting a marketing video to get eyeballs, there’s no reason not to post the video on both sites. If you’re embedding the video in your own site, and/or using Vimeo/YouTube for content distribution – you’re right – use the one that delivers the best quality.
Response: Great, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this, Jan. Much appreciated. I’ll use Vimeo for quality and YouTube for Eyeballs.