The Music Bed/Songfreedom questions

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks Roger. I was concerned based on Peter's post, but he didn't discuss following protocol either. I am much relieved. I will move ahead with Youtube.

Tell me Roger, what does it take to have a customized Youtube page or a channel? A subscription, extra fees? It's probably much different than Vimeo, where I am currently at.

[Paul R Johnson]

Youtube's ID system isn't perfect, but it has to be lived with. It even identified one of our own musical compositions as having a conflict - which it clearly didn't, yet ignored one I was concerned about because of similarities with another work.

[Roger Van Duyn]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Thanks Roger. I was concerned based on Peter's post, but he didn't discuss following protocol either. I am much relieved. I will move ahead with Youtube.

Tell me Roger, what does it take to have a customized Youtube page or a channel? A subscription, extra fees? It's probably much different than Vimeo, where I am currently at.

Jeff, it's free to have a YouTube channel, but setting it all up can be tricky with the Google accounts. I was lucky and had set up a YouTube account before I had a GMail account. I named the channel to match the name of my website. Whenever Google wanted me to change log ins to my personal G Mail, I did not, but kept the original ID for my company. It's tricky to keep the name of a separate channel.

Plus, to customize the look, you just follow the guidelines making your background image, which now looks like a header image to me, in Photoshop or image editor of your choice. Here's the help page:
https://support.google.com/youtube/a...en&topic=16630

Now, somehow my YouTube Channel I can log in two ways either as me, Roger, or as True View. But Roger doesn't have the administrative tools, while True View does. Honestly, it took me a lot of trial and error to get my channel set up the way it is. But it didn't cost me a cent.

The channel is really handy for working with my corporate clients. I upload proxies with time code track as Unlisted for them to review. Final versions get uploaded to the client's You Tube channel. I have many more hidden unlisted videos than the visible ones.

It's also very easy to embed videos to my company website. I can do EVERYTHING I was doing on my old pay Vimeo account for free on YouTube. Plus, Vimeo made it hard (practically impossible) to customize the look, and YouTube started being much more flexible. Once YouTube was able to offer the high quality HD, my choice was pretty much made, and I switched over to YouTube. I still have a free Vimeo account, but haven't uploaded anything to it in ages.

Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not a YouTube fanboy. I hate dealing with big bureaucracies, and Google/YT is huge. But when you get a service that works well for free, it would take a compelling reason to use something different.

[Byron Jones]

Roger, I agree that free is nice. Since YouTube stepped up their quality, they are a lot more appealing. However, both YouTube and Vimeo has positives. I have used both. YouTube's cost, or lack of, is great. They also now give you a set of choices for the thumbnail, which helps. Vimeo, however lets you pick any frame for the thumbnail, or upload a photograph (which is even better). Vimeo will also embed in your website without using their logo or controls to give you a customized feel, while YouTube will always look like YouTube (not necessarily a bad thing). Finally, Vimeo lets you set what happens after the video finishes. You can have it show your logo, other videos you created, etc. Vimeo has some great strengths, but then again, YouTube is free... That is a pretty heavy strength. Setting it up can take a little time, but it can look nice plus it has that familiar feel since so many people have used YouTube.

Jeff, I didn't mean to offend by including a one sentence opinion of iOS devices. I did think it was good for you to know Vimeo does work on those devices. It is even more important than you realize. I'm not sure where you read the stats from, but you are a lot more likely to have a customer, or potential customer, viewing your videos from an iOS device then you guessed. You should take a look at stats closer to home. I have uploaded some charts showing a much different story in the US. These stats are with a year old iPhone. With the new models coming out, iOS device usage will increase dramatically. You should take them into consideration considering they have sold over half a billon devices and over 300 million have been updated to the current OS (meaning they are still in use).

[Byron Jones]

This one shows smartphone Internet usage.

[Jeff Harper]

Byron, the numbers reported by business publications and technology analysts here are much different, but regardless, Vimeo still does not work well for Android. Vimeo forums are full of people with issues, and when I play vimeo videos I do not like the way they look on my phone, or they way they behave. The play/pause button is almost invisible, the video is cut off at times, things are not right. With embedded videos, the potential problems for mobile viewing are worse.

Vimeo does not create issues with copyright quite as zealously as Youtube, and that's great, but it will do me no good if the videos are not playable to potential customers.

From a business perspective, there is no contest, Youtube is it. Many, many businesses run by people much smarter than me, all use Youtube, and for good reason.

I am a Vimeo plus member. It's a great place for the niche market it serves, but until they get it together for mobile, they are part of the problem rather than part of the solution for me.

[Roger Van Duyn]

Originally Posted by Byron Jones

Roger, I agree that free is nice. Since YouTube stepped up their quality, they are a lot more appealing. However, both YouTube and Vimeo has positives. I have used both. YouTube's cost, or lack of, is great. They also now give you a set of choices for the thumbnail, which helps. Vimeo, however lets you pick any frame for the thumbnail, or upload a photograph (which is even better). .

YouTube recently upgraded my channel to where I can upload a photo for the thumbnail. Check and see if a little box saying "custom thumbnail" appears while you are uploading. I noticed this yesterday, and used this feature for a beach wedding video.

Agreed. Free is nice. If both were priced equally, it would be hard for me to decide which service to pick. Both are comparable in quality and the "hassle factor." But I'd still probably go with YouTube just because of the number of potential views, not just Android views.

[Daniel Latimer]

One thing I really like about vimeo pro (yes it cost money) is that you can put your logo in the bottom right corner of anything that is embedded. It's a great branded tool.

As an example, my trailer below has my logo in the bottom corner. If you click that logo it will go to my webpage.

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel & Rachel Cronin Wedding Trailer on Vimeo

[Peter Rush]

I use Vimeo and You Tube - Vimeo is great for presenting a professional look but You Tube is better for reaching a wider audience and is better for SEO - one drawback of you tube is you have no control over what is displayed alongside your video - not so nice to have a beautifully shot wedding highlight playing alongside a thumbnail of someone lighting their farts! - Joking aside you will also find recommended highlights from competitors which is not good.

However I've now stated using PremiumBeat for music - all instrumental (some really nice pieces though) but no more 'matched content' issues so can be played on smartphones/tablets etc.

Pete

[Jeff Harper]

Peter, I agree, Vimeo just looks nicer. I will check out PremiumBeat, thanks for the suggestion.

[Jeff Harper]

Daniel, my Galaxy S3 will not view your video. This is because it's embedded. There is a message instead that says Chrome for Android does not support this plug in. This is the issue I have with Vimeo.

I agree that the personalization of the Vimeo player is nice, it looks awesome when done nicely as you have done.

[Daniel Latimer]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Daniel, my Galaxy S3 will not view your video. This is because it's embedded. There is a message instead that says Chrome for Android does not support this plug in. This is the issue I have with Vimeo.

I agree that the personalization of the Vimeo player is nice, it looks awesome when done nicely as you have done.

It's definitely an issue. I think the way around it is to provide a link as well. If you click on the link you should be able to play it from the vimeo website. That's what happens on my Nexus 4 at least. It's not as elegant for sure, it will be great when that is fixed.

[Jeff Harper]

What's unfortunate about this, Daniel, is that the issue has been with them for so long. Your link idea is a fine idea, of course, but for my new web site that won't do.

$50 a year is not much money, I'd gladly pay $100 if I could use the service.

[Roger Van Duyn]

Originally Posted by Daniel Latimer

One thing I really like about vimeo pro (yes it cost money) is that you can put your logo in the bottom right corner of anything that is embedded. It's a great branded tool.

As an example, my trailer below has my logo in the bottom corner. If you click that logo it will go to my webpage.

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel & Rachel Cronin Wedding Trailer on Vimeo

You can embed your logo in your video before you upload your video anywhere, Vimeo, YouTube, DropBox. Sometimes I've done it semi-transparent as a watermark. Plus, if you embed the logo before you upload to one site, it's already embedded before you upload to the second, and the third...

However, being able to click on the logo as a link to your site is very handy. That's a really nice feature.

[Megan Coates]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

I've found with Music Bed that, even though you have paid for the licence - You Tube recognizes it as 'matched 3rd party content' and will allow it, but the link won't work on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

Not had a problem with vimeo though.

Pete

I've been using vimeo pro for awhile, but this year have decided to start uploading to Youtube as well (for SEO purposes, and increasing my Google presence... there are a lot of benefits, but that's not for this thread.)

I've purchased all my music licenses on themusicbed.com so far.

And for every video I post with a purchased license I get a "Matched 3rd party content" notice.

I've just done a test with my youtube videos - 'Acknowledging the 3rd party content' doesn't affect the ability for the video to play on my phone. And there doesn't appear to be any ads on my phone. (There's just text ads that pop up on the computer)

Has anyone tried disputing a "Matched 3rd party content" notice? - I'd be really interested to know!