Vimeo "Adaptive Streaming" ??

[Noa Put]

Forgot to add another point of concern which is advertismement inside your videos on youtube, is that also something you can choose not to appear?

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hey Noa,

Advertising doesn't appear on the videos embedded on my site. I try to keep people on my site, so that's normally where I want them to watch the videos. I may take away the prominent links to the YouTube Channel itself on my site, at least on some of the pages. I want people to watch the videos on my site, with a few exceptions. The channel itself has many, many more unlisted videos than appear to a visitor. It's a place to host editing proxies (free hosting) for the clients. Also some stuff is hidden because of HIPAA regs and NDA's. My site needs updating. Too busy right now. The channel is a great work site, like the back room of the store where most of the stock is kept. Or a tool shed. The channel is very, very useful for my business. Clients watch the timecode proxies, and email me the editing changes with precise instructions. By the way, I've even tested watching the channel on our new smart tv we bought on Black Friday.

Hey Gary,

The embedded videos on my website play the size I specified in the player windows, which is 640 x 360. There is the settings button that looks like a gear. Only some of the videos were uploaded to YouTube at 1080P. There is a full screen button to play the videos full screen, and this is where I need to give you a big "Thank You!"

After reading your post, I did some checking on my site, and found that on a number of the videos I forgot to cut and paste the code: "allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" in the Wordpress settings for the embed. That's analogous to the cutting and pasting code I mentioned in an earlier post. There are a lot of options available, and I only went as far as I needed to go when I was working on the site to get the look I was wanting. When I get the time, my site badly needs updating, but I'm in a bit of a time crunch right now. Though I have cut back to mostly local clients, one of them has given me several jobs at out of town job sites for his company. So, spending more time than I would like driving back and forth to the jobs.

There have been about a dozen Wordpress updates since I last reworked the website, and thankfully none of the updates seem to have broken anything. YouTube and Wordpress play well with each other. There's a lot of flexibility in the way things can be setup. YouTube does well in my area. Don't know about Texas. Vimeo doesn't do well in my area, lots of stuttering, buffering problems. Plus, search is a big factor. Every single one of my new clients in the past 8 or 10 months found me doing a Google Search. YouTube seems to rank higher for Google (preferential treatment perhaps).

Again, don't know about Texas. I needed to go with the better choice for my situation. That's business.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Roger Van Duyn

YouTube does well in my area. Don't know about Texas. Vimeo doesn't do well in my area, lots of stuttering, buffering problems.

Which is what adaptive streaming is trying to solve, but that's what bends those who sympathize with Scott Hiddelston out of shape. They'd rather force you to stream 1080 all the time even if it's choking on your bandwidth limitations. And Vimeo is trying to fix that for people like you, which is why they now have adaptive streaming.

Plus, search is a big factor. Every single one of my new clients in the past 8 or 10 months fond me doing a Google Search. YouTube seems to rank higher for Google (preferential treatment perhaps).

I agree that Vimeo's search functionality is downright horrible. And YouTube clips do help you in Google search rankings.

[Roger Van Duyn]

I agree with you Gary. Bandwidth is a big problem for everyone. Companies with real deep pockets, like Google/YouTube, can throw lots of financial resources at the problem, and build more and more, and bigger and bigger server farms. That's a huge competitive advantage. And I read somewhere that Google has started laying their own fiber too for entire towns.

When I get the time, I'd like to update my site. One photographer who has done a good job integrating his site with his YouTube channel is theslantedlens.com

I like his GIANT THUMBNAILS that link to the YouTube videos. I can do that on my site too, when I get the time. It's not hard. And there is a command to automatically play full screen HD too. Probably one for Wordpress sites like mine too. His might even be Wordpress for all I know.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Roger Van Duyn

Advertising doesn't appear on the videos embedded on my site.

The reason why I asked was that the first video under your portfolio site does show an add around 00:15, it's marked with a yellow dot on the timeline when it appears, the rest of you video's don't have that. Is there an option to turn the ads of after you upload?

[Roger Van Duyn]

I don't see a YouTube ad when I view it. Are you talking about the "ad" I embedded in the video itself for the client: "Happy 4th of July from Lakeland..." ? If so, it was my (lame) attempt to promote the event. But then again, the event did just about sell out. But not as a result of people watching that video. Not enough views. However, on my channel, I have a video from the event itself that has over 15 thousand views so far. (Oops, that's eleven thousand. Sorry. Way more views of that video than I'd ever expected).

Edit: Hey Noa, I do see it if I use FireFox!!! I guess my ad blocker on Chrome, my primary browser, blocked it. I'll take a look at the settings for that video and see if it's missing some code or something.

2nd Edit: Noa, I see what happened. YouTubes DRM manager has screwed up and mismatched my licensed, Smart Sound version of the Liberty Bell March with another music company's version of the same song. It says on the Video Manager page for my site that the copyrighted material has been monetized by the copyright holder. (The wrong copyright holder).

To get rid of the ads, I'll dispute the claim, I've done it before, and YouTube will remove the ad. It happens often with licensed versions of classical music, marching band music, etc. on YouTube. So many groups have copyrights on the same song, but a different performance or different variation...

Usually, it's just easier to leave the ad than to fill out the online form. One time years ago before YouTube had their current dispute process, I had to have SmartSound contact YouTube over Tchaikovski's Swan Lake, that I used in another video, the third one down on that same page. It's not a major issue anymore if you really do have a license for the music, but does take a little time (which can be in short supply during busy spells). Again, I've never had a major problem with this. Just click the link, insert the info about having a license, and YouTube has always taken care of it in a day or two.

3rd Edit: Noa, there is a setting to turn off ads on my YouTube Channel. It's under VIDEO MANAGER/ CHANNEL/ ADVANCED. There is a section of settings for Advertisements. The second choice is "Disable Interest Based Ads" which is a funny way of saying ads the algorithm thinks would interest people viewing your video.

Hope this helps. Sorry for the long post. There are a lot of settings for both my WordPress site and my YouTube site. Stuff just goes into my short term memory. I deal with the issues, figure out what the immediate issues, and move onto something more important that always pops up. Being a one person company, you know. :)

[Scott Hiddelston]

[QUOTE=Gary Huff;1909119]Which is what adaptive streaming is trying to solve, but that's what bends those who sympathize with Scott Hiddelston out of shape. They'd rather force you to stream 1080 all the time even if it's choking on your bandwidth limitations. And Vimeo is trying to fix that for people like you, which is why they now have adaptive streaming.

I'd argue with that. If Vimeo wants the best for their customers they would allow them to select whether their videos are viewed immediately at Vimeo's choice of resolution, or at a resolution the customer chooses with the caveat of buffering delays. That would have been easier to implement in my mind. My feeling is Vimeo is just trying to save bandwidth by duping customers and their clients. Other contributors to this discussion along with myself have clearly stated that our bandwidth is well beyond being capable of HD streaming. The chokepoint is at Vimeo, simple as that.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Scott Hiddelston

or at a resolution the customer chooses with the caveat of buffering delays.

So what you're saying is that you want Vimeo to display a message to your potential viewer: "Scott Hiddelston has set the default resolution as 1080, however your bandwidth may not support the bitrate necessary to support this resolution without buffering. Would you like to pick your own resolution?"

I don't want my end viewers seeing something that asinine.

My feeling is Vimeo is just trying to save bandwidth by duping customers and their clients. Other contributors to this discussion along with myself have clearly stated that our bandwidth is well beyond being capable of HD streaming. The chokepoint is at Vimeo, simple as that.

Of course it is, which is options outside of Vimeo are more expensive or come with strings attached (YouTube). Vimeo is doing the best they can with the prices they have set, and you want to complain and compare apples oranges. What I hear is whining over nothing, just to give yourself something to be all rabble rabble over.

It's sad.

[Andrew Smith]

We might not feel this way as much if Vimeo were a little more up-front about it.

Andrew

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Roger Van Duyn

Hope this helps. Sorry for the long post.

Didn't see your edits until now. Don't be sorry for the long post, it's because of people like you that provide this helpful information that makes this forum worthwhile visiting.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Scott Hiddelston

The chokepoint is at Vimeo, simple as that.

My defaulted playback quality is very depended on the time of day and varies between 360p and 1080p, on one of my website some older videos have not been included in the adaptive streaming and now at 8 in the morning they play at 1080p with no buffering.

A recent video on my new website however is included in the adaptive streaming plays at that same time with setting to "auto" but it looks low rez, when I then select 360p the IQ doesn't change so that means "auto" is at this time 360p, when I then select 1080p it also plays without a problem.

I only wish they would let us choose 720p as default and not force 360p upon us, especially when there is no indication whatsoever the video needs to be at 360p to play back without buffering.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

As a long-time Vimeo subscriber (Plus and then Pro), I would like to make two comments:

1. That Google search puts Vimeo at a disadvantage is precisely the anti-competitive behavior that Google has been cited for by the European Commission. YouTube is a part of Google and Vimeo is a direct competitor. There is nothing we can do about this, but blaming Vimeo is odd. Try Bing, at least it is not biased vis a vis these two competitors. I do not think Microsoft owns a video streaming site.

2. It used to be the case that you could tell Vimeo to make the default streaming 1080 rather than 720. The videos looked better (mine were uploaded as 4K), but viewers would complain they could not watch the videos because of excessive buffering. And they could not do anything about it. They and you had less options than now. What do we have now?

Vimeo provides options from 360p to 4K, including 2K, for 4K videos. The viewer can choose which one she wants to stream at. There is more choice. This is friendly to the content providers (us) and them. My viewers can stream my 4K videos at 4K if they can do it. and if they cannot, they can chose the highest resolution they can stream at, not fixed for them at 720p or 1080p.

So I tell potential viewers (your clients) to click on the lower rhs 'Vimeo' to choose how they would like to view. And they will see all those choices. I tell them the video is 4K, and that would be best, but 1080 looks great too, if they can handle it. It is only uniformed viewers - not your clients - that do not know there is a choice. Perhaps Vimeo could make that clearer to all viewers

Finally, YouTube does exactly the same thing. YouTube picks some default and I always have to override. And it buffers worse than Vimeo, apart from what looks to me like lower quality at the same resolution.

[Mark Williams]

Mark, you make a good point. However, I would still like to be able to set the minimum size as either 540 or 720 as 360 just doesn't cut it.

[Scott Hiddelston]

What I hear is whining over nothing, just to give yourself something to be all rabble rabble over.

It's sad.[/QUOTE]

Well personal attacks, even though more folks than myself have shown concern over this problem, show you really don't have a lot to reply with.
And you still don't seem to grasp that Vimeo is a video hosting service. It's clients are people like you and me. Therefore its only good business sense that they should offer what their clients want, not what Vimeo thinks is best. I also question why you feel your own clientele would have such a problem selecting their own resolution and in fact know enough about their bandwidth to choose for themselves. You feel Vimeo knows their preferences better than they do?

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Mark Rosenzweig

So I tell potential viewers (your clients) to click on the lower rhs 'Vimeo' to choose how they would like to view. And they will see all those choices.

I"m doing that now by adding a line of text on my photoprints that I use as image in the player window, it also has an arrow pointing to the HD button saying they have to click there to get a better quality. A bit silly but so far the best way to assure they are not watching my demo's at 360p and think their film will also have that same quality.

I have asked my wife when she watches youtube videos if she ever selects a higher quality playback if the film looked low rez, she didn't even know the option was there...She does however often watches full screen which makes the problem only worse.

I"m pretty sure the same applies for vimeo, if it plays back at 360p most brides will not click the HD button for a higher quality, they will however switch to full screen, that's why I find that at least 720p as selectable default would be the best starting point for good enough playback quality.

Originally Posted by Scott Hiddelston

personal attacks

The best way to respond to personal attacks is not to respond at all.