This is a question that I’m sure many of us have asked at one time or another. It’s a question that I wrestled with recently, since I’ve begun recording video instead of just audio. Since audio files are relatively small compared to their video counterparts, hosting them isn’t nearly as difficult a challenge, and can often be done in-house. If you host videos in-house, you’ll need large servers at your disposal, however, hosting videos is probably best left to some third party service who specializes in hosting videos.
Let’s take a look at a bit of how I made my decision.
The two services that most people are familiar with for this kind of job are probably YouTube and Vimeo. They are both great services in their own rights, and could both equally get the job done, but I think the question here is which is better suited for this particular situation of message or sermon videos.
In my opinion, the winner is Vimeo, and more specifically, if you can afford it, Vimeo Plus. While YouTube is fine for some videos, I’d rather not have my message videos show up alongside the latest double rainbow remix or cute cats. That’s why I went with Vimeo, which many professionals use to share their latest motion graphics or other videos. This was the main deciding factor for me, and so far, I haven’t regretted this choice at all. With Vimeo Plus, you get a little more control over what the player looks like, as well as plenty of upload allowance for the one or two videos I usually upload per week. Embedding your videos into your existing website is a piece of cake, so that you can point people there instead of your Vimeo page.
So, do you agree? Is there some other factor that should be considered?
[Image via [ piXo ]]
stevo says
couldn’t agree more. i have implemented vimeo on pretty much all the church/non-profit sites i’ve worked on.
Phillip Gibb says
we use Vimeo, at the mo it’s a pain to upload only one HD video a week. Guess I must just fork out the cash and pay for it myself.
Vimeo for me just feels more professional and artistic while YouTube feels more mass produced. I have a You tube account and I have to say that I get more hits there for popular videos – getting 1000 more in YouTube than Vimeo for one video I share on both.
At the moment I keep all my family stuff on YouTube and my more creative stuff on vimeo
PJ Mullen says
I actually use Blip.tv to host the videos I create for our church because I can push the feed directly to iTunes for a video podcast to create another distribution point. Plus I can customize the player and embedded it right on the home page of the church’s site.
Chase Livingston says
I’ve heard of Blip.tv, but never used it. I might check it out!
PJ Mullen says
It’s great if you’re looking for a free host to do a video podcast. Plus you can customize the player a little bit. You can check out our stream at http://stmarkscharlotte.blip.tv if you’re interested.
Eric Dye says
Drop us a link with an example. I would like to see how Blip.tv plays embedded.
PJ Mullen says
Here you go:
http://www.saintmarkscharlotte.org/
It’s a WordPress site using the Genesis framework and the embed code is in a widget on the home page.
Eric Dye says
Thanks!
Josh Brickey says
I agree that I would use Vimeo for hosting the videos that I’m wanting to feature. However, I would say that you should put everything up on YouTube as well. It will put your message out there in front of more people, as well as give you a boost in SEO in the big picture.
Chase Livingston says
Haven’t really thought of it that way, great point!
James Cooper says
I do both as well. Youtube is the 2nd biggest search engine (after google) so it’s worth being on there! But if I need to embed anything I use the vimeo player!
David Tonen says
The SEO is the real reason to use YouTube. True it is not as “pretty” as Vimeo, but you get the SEO juice within YouTube itself and Google actually gives a website that you embed a YouTube video in better SEO as Google then considers your website to be a content creator (assuming you tag the video correctly within YouTube). Whether we like it or not, Google owns YouTube so if we are going to want their favor we should use YouTube as well as Vimeo if we are looking to be good marketers.
Carl Thomas says
Vimeo looks cooler…and that’s about it’s only benefit. I forked out more for the plus account because my youtube account had not gotten the bump to bigger file sizes yet. I could not believe how many times the upload would fail. Also, the lack of deep linking was really frustrating. And not for nothing but I want messages about Jesus showing up near double rainbow montages.
We have one channel for service videos and another with a playlist for full worship sets and the rest of our video stuff.
If I were a professional designer I would almost certainly go with Vimeo. I think a portfolio looks best there.
But for a church or ministry I found YouTube superior.
Chase Livingston says
I definitely see your point of view, and at some point in the future I may begin sharing to both Vimeo and YouTube. Right now though, Vimeo fits the bill for what I’m doing with it. Thanks for the comment!
April says
I use Vimeo Plus for our videos as well and really like it over YouTube.
Josh Bartolomucci says
We send all of our clients to Vimeo. (most of which are churches and non-profits) Have had great success with this recent launch: http://www.churchontheweb.net
After much experimenting I found that using Google Chrome to upload large HD videos to Vimeo worked best. No errors. We used to use the desktop uploader until they recently discontinued it.
Chase Livingston says
I had no idea the desktop uploader had been discontinued, I’m still using that…
Josh Bartolomucci says
Yea, we had been using it quite a bit, but were having trouble with larger files. Posted in the forums about the issues we were running into. One of the staff informed me of discontinuation. I guess they never really officially announced it.
Chase Livingston says
Very interesting, I haven’t had any issues with it yet, so I hope I don’t run into any!
Josh Bartolomucci says
Hopefully you won’t. Vimeo has been such an amazing tool for the Kingdom of God!
Josh Bartolomucci says
Oops! Didn’t mean to make that a direct reply.
Marcus Williamson says
Vimeo ftw
devan says
Couldn’t agree more!
Gangai Victor says
I prefer youtube for 2 reasons – SEO juice and embedding without the youtube logo for free (http://goo.gl/N0Fzm).
Chad Gleaves says
I used Vimeo (Loved it for what it did) for a year or so but I was spending 4-8 hours editing and uploading plus it would take and hour to upload (slower connection) all for maybe 5 views a week.
Then I found Ustream (I know this vimeo vs Youtube) but now I stream live (added benefit) AND record so when I push STOP – Done. Embed code shows up and I’m ready to embed immediately in my website. they have a free account (with ads) and a pro account for $99 per month (No ads). For the amount of views we get, I will never go back.
We still use Youtube for our Facebook (1min) video post for ease of use, SEO and because it is so popular. Besides, I can post directly out of Final Cut Pro X to my youtube account – Very Easy!
Phil says
If you choose YouTube, simply embed them on your website and make sure you add ‘&rel=0’ to the code. That way you get the SEO from YouTube, without having to show related videos. In the end the content is the most important, who you host it with is not so important.
Great post by the way!