I’ve been using YouTube to host a lot of my online videos, but I’m always disappointed with the video quality it renders when compared with my original. I’m also a little frustrated with their 10-minute time limitation. Apparently I’m not alone because PCWorld tested The 10 Best Places to Share Video Online and YouTube ranked far down the list at #7! According to their test results, Blip.tv and Divx’s Stage6 rank #1 and #2 for video quality and features. The article is worth checking out if your youth group produces videos to share online.

PCWorld also uploaded the same high-quality video to each site they tested and placed a side-by-side video comparison of the top 10 on their site.

In my opinion, Stage6’s video quality is absolutely beautiful and far outweighs Blip.tv due to using it’s own Divx browser plugin to show video instead of using Flash, as every other video site uses. However, therein lies Stage6’s drawback, too. Everyone already has the Flash plugin installed, whereas almost no one has the Divx browser plugin. The Divx plugin automatically pops up to install just like the Flash plugin would, although users with increased browser security settings might not see it. But since Stage6 is the only video site that supports HD content, the little browser plugin is totally worth the high quality videos.

Unfortunately, YouTube still has the majority of Internet video traffic, so I’ll still be posting my videos there for students, but I’ll also put them at Stage6 just for the raw beautiful quality it produces. Here’s the Shrek 3 trailer from Stage6 to see what I mean:

It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft’s Silverlight, their upcoming rival to Adobe Flash, will shift all of this in the future.

[tags]Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Divx, Stage6, Blip.tv, YouTube, Internet video[/tags]

Posted on September 21, 2007