I did at least a cursory review of four or five video sites. They included Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo, and even Flickr. All of them got eliminated for one reason or another:
- Youtube: Insufficient quality and too low of an upload limit. Pros: Biggest site that draws the most traffic.
- Viddler: I could not tell if they have HD content at all. Pros: Best branding of the video player, could create something that produces revenue
- Flickr: Only for very small and short videos. Pros: already do my photo hosting there.
- Vimeo: Highest price, still had a limit, paying for some of the free options you get with the service I chose. Pros: Best free account for HD hosting.
So what did choose?
Motionbox Motionbox has the best combination of features I want along with one killer feature that made it well worth paying for a premium subscription.
Motionbox Premium, for $30 a year, gives you unlimited HD uploading. There is no limit on size other than technical issues you get around 2GB that the Motionbox team is willing to work with you on. This means you can upload raw video out of an HD camera as long as you’re willing to wait, even for long videos. I’ve found that 2GB is going to be around 25-30 minutes of video.
Motionbox also has some easy-to-use video editing functions so if you’d rather not take a long movie, you can stitch together a bunch of smaller clips, or upload that long clip and then cut it up a bit, removing the dull bits, making a highlight reel. If you’re so inclined, you can also do this with videos from the rest of public, provided they’ve given you permission.
But Motionbox’s killer feature is that it pitches itself as a video archiving and storage site, not just a hosting site for viral videos. Premium members can download their original source video. That means that if you’re willing, you can upload a video to Motionbox, and delete it off your hard drive, while being fairly confident you can get the video back. Obviously this isn’t advised, but until I have a better way to store this stuff (anyone want to buy me a Drobo and some big ole hard drives?), it works for me, especially since I’m not exactly filming baby’s first steps or anything like that.
Motionbox is great for people who want to store, archive, and share their video. If you produce a lot of HD video, I might recommend both a Vimeo Plus account and a Motionbox Premium account, using Motionbox for storage and Vimeo for publishing your best content. But for now, I’m happy using Motionbox, and here’s a little clip to show the quality.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for your review. I prefer Motionbox too, wrote a post about it at http://brindefalk.org/2009/01/07/motionbox-a-neat-way-to-publish-videos/
Regards
Thomas
Hey John,
Thanks so much for your review (and you too, Thomas!).
We hope you both are enjoying Motionbox. If you ever need any help with anything, feel free to contact our support team at support @motionbox.com and let us know how things are going!
Cheers, Mona H. Motionbox Support Team
PS: Cute cat! You’ll see some cat videos on our blog as well
Hi,
Nice review. I am coming close to the same conclusion you made. Just curious why you said to use Vimeo in some instances?
“and Vimeo for publishing your best content”
Thanks, John
I think Vimeo has better features to promote and share video with a wider audience than Motionbox does.
I’ll have to give it a try. For some reason I hadn’t heard of it before… seems like Vimeo, Viddler, SmugMug, etc. have bigger name recognition.
I wonder how it compares to Facebook which is gradually improving its service. We use it, but I’m not sure the embeds are HD, although they look good. I think YouTube HD quality is excellent, but streaming I find sometimes inconsistent. Chugs the CPU too, probably because of H.264 codec.
Check out my test results here including Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, etc. with some clips too:
http://www.starksilvercreek.com/2009/04/vimeo-youtube-facebook-viddler-smugmug-review-comparison-reigns-supreme-online-hd-video-hosting.html
Thanks for your review!
Hi
What is model of your camera ?
I have a project and then ? will buy new one cam
but which one is good for motionbox?
thanks
I eventually cancelled my premium membership at Motionbox. They promise you unlimited storage, but actually they cut you of by 75GB. Would not trust them again with their deal of “virtually unlimited”, never knowing when to get that letter again saying that I have to delete videos.
I headed over to Vimeo and are so much happier, both with their 5GB true limit and with their so much better social sharing possibilities. It’s worth the extra 20$!
Hey Thomas,
can you give me some more info about this? what was your overall storage with them? how much were you putting up per week?
did you ever try and upload files bigger that 2gb? if so, were your uploads successful? this is really what i am interested in, as vimeo have a flat out restriction against anything over 2gb.
Cheers Shane
No need to be fearfully optimistic. Motionbox is a great site for video…particularly for hd video. I recently cancelled a pro smugmug service that was suppose to be all the rage. What a joke! The pro version has no ability to upload an hd file larger than 250 megabytes. I went to motionbox premium and it handled all my hd videos in a snap. It also has a fantastic embedded player. I can’t comment on their editing capability or lack thereof because I don’t have a need for it…I use power director 8 deluxe for editing before uploading. Vimeo looks good as well, but I really have no interest in social network sharing of my videos. Give motionbox a try…I think you’ll really like what they have to offer.
Been using and loving MotionBox for around 6 months to archive all of my HD Video of the kids. I wish there was a “sync” feature so I wouldn’t have to keep track of what I have uploaded and what needs to be uploaded, but I’m confident that will come in time. Need something similar to “SendToSmugMug”.
Imagine my surprise when a shiny new MotionBox channel showed up on my Roku a couple of months ago. Now, not only do I archive my HD video, but we actually watch it in HD on our TV!!!
Thanks MotionBox! Keep up the great work!