08 March 2009

Video hosting services?

Google Video is going to cease hosting new videos, so I need a new service to compress and host videos for my classes. Unfortunately Wikipedia's comparison charts of video services doesn't list all the things I want to know about. Here's what I'm looking for; the first few are required characteristics, "preferred" are additional characteristics I really want, and "optional" are bonuses.


  1. Unlimited file size (or at least 500MB), unlimited time (or at least 90 min)

  2. Cross-platform compatible

  3. No additional software required for viewing (things like Java, Flash are ok since most computers have them already)

  4. Compresses videos as well as sharing them, so they're faster for students to download on slow internet connections

  5. No bandwidth cap, or 1.5GB/week / 8GB/month minimum.

  6. Free to me and viewers

  7. No account required for viewing (preferred)

  8. I can choose not to display my name/account with videos I post (so I can use the same account for personal use) (preferred)

  9. I can choose to not allow students to find other videos that I posted (ditto the purpose) (preferred)

  10. I can choose to unlist videos I post, so no one but my students with a direct link are likely to find them (for intellectual property reasons) (preferred)

  11. Download of video available (preferred)

  12. Organization of videos into "folders" so I can post a link to the folder and the student can access all videos for that class in one place, and not the videos for other classes (optional)

  13. Tool to upload multiple videos simultaneously (optional)

  14. Upload tool allows me to resume paused or interrupted uploads (optional)



Anything else I should be looking for? Who do you like that has these? Google Video had 1-9. YouTube already fails at #1. I started looking at Vimeo and RapidShare, but don't know much about them. Edit: RapidShare seems a bit sketchy, Vimeo has weekly bandwidth limits below what I need.

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