Viddler vs. Youtube
Edited by Earl on Sep-16-2009
Both of these sites are very similar in function. Youtube is much more popular and more used, but Viddler does have a couple of advantages that make it worthwhile to consider using when you need a place to host your embedded videos. If you have a video you want people to watch at your website, Viddler makes it just as easy, if not easier, than Youtube.
Advantages to Viddler
1. You can pick your thumbnail.
Viddler lets you can select from any frame at any location in your video. The image above shows how easy is it to select your thumbnail image:
Go to the frame of video you want to be your thumbnail image.
Press the "+" plus sign
Choose from the menu: Set Thumbnail.
It appears that Viddler will find the nearest key frame to your selection and choose that as your thumbnail. So, the thumbnail may not be the exact frame you select, but will be close.
Viddler updates the thumbnail shown in real time, unlike Youtube. You will be able to see how your change takes effect immediately.
On the above Youtube screenshot, notice how Youtube gives you only 3 choices for your video thumbnail. Also, be prepared to wait up to 6 hours to see your change take effect on Youtube. In my video above, I didn't like any of the choices Youtube gave me. The frames they selected had little to do with the overall content of the video. But I am stuck with the thumbnail choices Youtube gave me.
Youtube allows only 3 possible thumbnail choices that THEY select. Viddler is much more flexible about what frame of video you want to be shown as your video's preview image. With Viddler, you can even upload your own image to be shown as the video thumbnail.
2. The staff are friendly and reply to your messages. I observed in their forum that the staff members are helping individuals with technical issues.
3. Viddler has no video time limit. There is a 500MB video size limit, however. With Youtube, you are usually limited to under 10 minutes. With Viddler, you are only limited by the file size. In my real-life example case, I had a video that was 13 minutes long and under 500MB. I could not post this video on Youtube. Youtube has a 10-minute limit. So I posted it to Viddler.
Youtube still is the most popular video sharing site in the US, though, so I'll still be using Youtube for those videos that match my current channel's content. But for one-of-a-kind videos, about a topic that is unrelated to my current Youtube channel, I'll consider using Viddler again to host it.
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