Vimeo "Adaptive Streaming" ??

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hey Noa,

For a while now, on all my family's computers, if we click full screen on on a YouTube video, it automatically switches to HD automatically. The red HD symbol pops onscreen a second or two, or three after going full screen without clicking anything other than full screen. It also happens on the videos embedded on my website. And all the ones that are 1080P show as 1080P when I click the settings button. The videos that I uploaded 720P in the past show a 720P setting.

I don't know when YouTube changed this. It used to require two steps. Settings button and full screen button, or reversed, but still both. It's a nice feature. So clients in my area should see the same thing happening when they go full screen. Don't know if it's the same world wide or not. My observations are limited to what I see in my area (and short trips to client sites out of the area). People do seem more familiar with full screen button than the settings icon.

I haven't checked if this occurs with tablets and smartphones yet. It would be nice if YouTube has set things up to play maximum supported resolution on whatever device is being used when going full screen, within the constraints of the upload resolution, of course.

I wish Google was as responsive to my business needs as a photographer as it seems to be to my needs as a videographer. The plug is being pulled on Picassa Web Albums by Google. It's been useful hosting photo albums for clients like YouTube has met the video hosting needs for my business. The photos will all still be there on Google Photos, but all the work organizing the albums and metadata will be gone in about two weeks. In the back of my mind, I wonder if the same thing could happen to YouTube channels as Picassa albums. One client of mine, I have more than 150 albums uploaded and neatly organized on the Picassa site.

However, Google says they are improving Google Photo as it replaces Picassa albums. I hope Google really is focused on client needs as they appear to be, for my business needs at least, with the YouTube channels. It's hard for me to judge. Like any business, Google is trying to optimize their business. Usually, the best approach is to serve your clients better than the competition does. Companies that are successful long term know this. So I have hope Google really will replace Picassa web albums with something better. I also have concerns... So I keep my eyes open to alternatives.

In summary, we all need to carefully make decisions what works best for our clients. That's what will work best for our businesses. I make choices differently now as a business owner than I did eight years ago as a when both video and photo were hobbies. Decisions now are cost vs. benefit. If I am to pay yet another subscription fee for my business, it needs to be worth it. QuickBooks, Adobe, Avid, etc. are all primarily subscription based now, along with required bills like insurance, taxes... There are more bills now for my business. It adds up. The budget for my business is tight. Everything needs to be justified. Glad to have a quality video hosting option for free. Don't know how long it will last... It may disappear like the free photo albums, and then I'll need to make a good decision again.

[Noa Put]

Vimeo has yet again made some changes but not in a good way, I saw this being reported by other users so it's not a isolated case.

A few times I have noticed that when I play one of my videos and when I click the HD button to select 720p or 1080p playback the player will after a few seconds revert from your selected quality back to a low resolution "auto" playback and the difference is very obvious, it's no higher then 360p for sure.

So now they don't even let you choose anymore what quality you want to be viewing. Not everyone seems to be affected by it and it's not clear to me what triggers this behavior, I"ll think I will just start by removing the full screen playback option and force people to view in a smaller screen.

[Mark Williams]

Add this to your link code when you embed ?quality=1080p

Instructions from vimeo at https://vimeo.com/help/faq/sharing-v...icular-quality

[Noa Put]

Is this new? It doesn't work in my case, playback stays at "auto"

[Mark Williams]

I doesn't show up there as 1080p. It just over-rides the adaptive streaming and plays at 1080p. Yes it is new.

[Noa Put]

I have tested and it doesn't make any difference in playbackquality, too bad, sounded too good to be true, or maybe it just doesn't work in my case only.

[Andy Wilkinson]

I read elsewhere that this "loophole" (post #48) no longer works/has been disabled. Not tried it myself yet so cannot verify this personally.