Is the era of Vimeo ending?

[Liam]

you can post private videos on youtube and just send someone the link

[Zach Ashcraft]

They seem really keen on promoting their mobile app 'Cameo' which seems strange because I think its pretty useless for actual filmmaking. The platform and content have always been their strong points. 

[chauncy]

I just went through severAL layers of vimeo support about the new auto quality playback. I am a vimeo pro and want to be able to set the default quality myself. They basically said they will now never support that and offered a refund. I will leave them once I move stuff over to youtube.

I hate youtube because of the ads. But youtube has 15 times vimeo viewers. And I won't have to pay.

 

[JurijTurnsek]

To vimeo's credit, they made it very hard to download the video file, since it is split up into small chunks. Getting videos off Youtube is still simple, since you just need to detect the url.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Just found out something real odd!

Q. Why does the Vimeo iPhone App have buffering & not the desktop version?

[ricardo_sousa11]

I dont think its ending anytime soon, its still my favourite upload platform. I dont get why some people complaint they cant choose what resolution, I can choose, but maybe thats a regional problem.

[bzpop]

8 hours ago, JurijTurnsek said:

To vimeo's credit, they made it very hard to download the video file, since it is split up into small chunks.

in firefox right click on the page >view page info>select media>select file you want> click Save As

[cantsin]

Another question is: Do we still need video hosting sites at all? When YouTube and Vimeo started, online video was technically complex and required Flash-based players. Today, we have HTML5 and the <video>-tag supported in all relevant browsers. Serving video is just a matter of encoding mp4 (or webm) and uploading it to your server. Data quotes aren't  a real problem either; most hosters provide affordable unlimited data plans.

[AaronChicago]

39 minutes ago, cantsin said:

Another question is: Do we still need video hosting sites at all? When YouTube and Vimeo started, online video was technically complex and required Flash-based players. Today, we have HTML5 and the <video>-tag supported in all relevant browsers. Serving video is just a matter of encoding mp4 (or webm) and uploading it to your server. Data quotes aren't  a real problem either; most hosters provide affordable unlimited data plans.

Unless you can have advertisers pay for spots in your content, or either charge people to watch something, it's not as profitable. Alot of content makers are pulling in 6 digits per year. The top is making 7 to 8 figures a year.

[Bioskop.Inc]

1 hour ago, bzpop said:

in firefox right click on the page >view page info>select media>select file you want> click Save As

Didn't know that - very interesting & slightly worrying! Thanks!

Also, been thinking about whether this Vimeo revamp is a bad thing & you know, if your client is so dumb that he can't figure out he needs to change the quality then why are they paying you to create stuff in the first place?! I mean, everyone has used YouTube (unless you're living in a cave) & knows about the fact that you can change the quality settings for playback viewing. So surely, if you're watching something & it looks shit, the first thing you're going to do is click that lovely bright HD button, right?

Its 2016 after all & a client that pays for videos can't be that in the dark?

Your parents/grandparents (depending on your age) yes, but someone who hires a filmmaker to create content - it beggers belief if they can't figure it out...

[fuzzynormal]

19 minutes ago, AaronChicago said:

Unless you can have advertisers pay for spots in your content, or either charge people to watch something, it's not as profitable. Alot of content makers are pulling in 6 digits per year. The top is making 7 to 8 figures a year.

Indeed.  Add to that the consideration that video is moving into a post-technical world, I think.  Not that tech is unimportant and the foundation of video, but the fact that even the base-line of stuff will be soon be more than "good enough" and video tech in general will become a raw commodity.

In less than a decade you're going to have just about everyone in developed countries shooting 8k on their phones and easily putting it online through any number of services.

From there it becomes less of "how awesome is your video tech" and what sort of advantage do you offer that allows me to share it?  How can I grab eyeballs with my content and can I do it better with hubbub.com vs. kablooey.com?

How the files get served, how information is controlled, how can I monetize my stuff with your service, etc.

The tech side will be a low priority.

[Bioskop.Inc]

2 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Indeed.  Add to that the consideration that video is moving into a post-technical world, I think.  Not that tech is unimportant and the foundation of video, but the fact that even the base-line of stuff will be soon be more than "good enough" and video tech in general will become a raw commodity.

In less than a decade you're going to have just about everyone in developed countries shooting 8k on their phones and easily putting it online through any number of services.

From there it becomes less of "how awesome is your video tech" and what sort of advantage do you offer that allows me to share it?  How can I grab eyeballs with my content and can I do it better with hubbub.com vs. kablooey.com?

How the files get served, how information is controlled, how can I monetize my stuff with your service, etc.

The tech side will be a low priority.

So your advice, and Aaron's, is to put our stuff on YouTube & see if we can make some extra cash, which is always handy.

It doesn't matter about the quality, because everyone's watching on their phones right now & will continue to do so for the foreseable future!

Its called the Film Industry or Movie Business, not the "My video upload looks better than yours! Shit, i'm skint! Why the fuck do i waste my time making these things?!"

This seems to fall in line with this article - make stuff, make loads of stuff & get it out there as quickly as is humanly possible!

http://nofilmschool.com/2016/03/how-drinking-buddies-director-joe-swanberg-made-7-features-year

[cantsin]

Some of us need to monetize their videos online and are probably best served by YouTube, but some of us rather need a high-quality showcase for our work. 

I wonder whether a self-hosted WordPress blog, or a WordPress Premium subscription with VideoPress could be an alternative to Vimeo. 

[fuzzynormal]

18 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

So your advice, and Aaron's, is to put our stuff on YouTube & see if we can make some extra cash, which is always handy.

Actually, I'm not offering any advice.  That's just the way I see the tech going.  I could be wrong, but I really think the tech isn't going to matter as much as it has in the past.

Just as the internal combustion engine was some sort of exotic luxurious thing to own in the early years, it eventually became ubiquitous.  Many people still love to use the latest and greatest, and finding the unique limits of that technology is exciting for some people.  Most of us just accept it as a matter of course, and use it to get from A to B...and if you drive in L.A. it doesn't matter what car you're in a Maserati or a Kia, you're not getting anywhere fast.

As for "make loads of stuff & get it out there as quickly as is humanly possible!"

I'll let the millennias put up quantity over quality.  That's a pursuit better suited for youth anyway.

[Bioskop.Inc]

23 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Actually, I'm not offering any advice.  That's just the way I see the tech going.  I could be wrong, but I really think the tech isn't going to matter as much as it has in the past.

Just as the internal combustion engine was some sort of exotic luxurious thing to own in the early years, it eventually became ubiquitous.  Many people still love to use the latest and greatest, and finding the unique limits of that technology is exciting for some people.  Most of us just accept it as a matter of course, and use it to get from A to B...and if you drive in L.A. it doesn't matter what car you're in a Maserati or a Kia, you're not getting anywhere fast.

As for "make loads of stuff & get it out there as quickly as is humanly possible!"

I'll let the millennias put up quantity over quality.  That's a pursuit better suited for youth anyway.

Yeah, I know it wasn't advice, just an opinion.

I'm of the opinion that I've got better things to do than worry about how people watch my stuff & the performance/quality of their chosen viewing platform - if they're watching, that's a good thing.

In my experience, when I've put things online (privately) for a client to watch, they tend to view it on more than one platform - phone, laptop, desktop computer & TV. They want to know what it'll look like for everyone, no matter how they choose to watch the final product - in fact sound seems to be more important for some than image quality.

I was a bit taken aback by that article - if trying to hammer down a door with loads of content works for one person, it doesn't mean it'll work for all. I prefer quality over quantity anyday, it shows you want to present yourself at your best & actually care what people see - enthusiasm has its place, but not if you're shooting yourself in the foot with rubbish!

[AaronChicago]

I personally don't care about driving revenue from YouTube. I just wanna have a good quality end product. So Cantsins suggestion about posting high quality videos into Wordpress is appealing to me. But there is a whole world of people out there who really want to create as much money as possible from their content and YouTube is the king right now.

[fuzzynormal]

23 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I prefer quality over quantity anyday, it shows you want to present yourself at your best & actually care what people see - enthusiasm has its place, but not if you're shooting yourself in the foot with rubbish!

On the other hand, one can generate loads of rubbish and establish a lucrative career doing so.

[Nick Hughes]

8 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

On the other hand, one can generate loads of rubbish and establish a lucrative career doing so.

I believe there's absolutely a middle ground where one can be prolific while still producing quality content. 

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, Nick Hughes said:

I believe there's absolutely a middle ground where one can be prolific while still producing quality content. 

True.  In my head I was thinking of the Kardashian clan when I wrote about rubbish.

[Andrew Reid]

5 hours ago, cantsin said:

Another question is: Do we still need video hosting sites at all? When YouTube and Vimeo started, online video was technically complex and required Flash-based players. Today, we have HTML5 and the <video>-tag supported in all relevant browsers. Serving video is just a matter of encoding mp4 (or webm) and uploading it to your server. Data quotes aren't  a real problem either; most hosters provide affordable unlimited data plans.

The unlimited data plans aren't really unlimited, there's a fair usage policy with all hosts. The more data you tend to get, the shittier the server in terms of performance. I know if I started to host videos on this site, it'd cost me a lot of extra hosting fees. Fact. In terms of the hosting alone Vimeo is a good deal and is ad free unlike YouTube. Hosting your own videos would work on a small scale but as soon as you had a decent amount of attention, it'd cost you a bomb. Also a bunch of videos on a page somewhere has always been easy to do... but with Vimeo or YouTube you're buying into the fact that they are searchable, indexed, have a whole CMS around them, a page template and a whole interactive platform, as well as millions of people visiting the domain already and a huge community. Don't forget that.

Vimeo may have made some missteps, but overall I don't think the 'era is over', although YouTube is a massive threat and Vimeo have to strengthen their 'uniqueness'.