Adrift in the magical sea of video websites.

When it comes to the various video formats you can choose from to post your personal videos on the web, to the layperson there seems only one logical solution: YouTube.com

YouTube uses a lossy, flash-based, and choppy, unpredictable compression method. What this means: your video will look pretty bad. Some examples of this can be seen as:

hi-hiss in the audio track. Sometimes it sounds garbled sometimes it sounds "empty". YouTube does not process sound over 96 kb. YouTube videos play in mono rather than stereo.I ain't no play-ah hate-ah: virtually every video website has something cool to offer that's unique. there are also plenty of websites and forums that give pretty cool information on how to optimize your video before you upload it so it looks really good. at least, as good as it can.

The video looks quite a bit worse than your typical VHS tape. Its resolution is limited to with 320 x 240 display. Because of the inherent full processing flaws in the FLV compression, there are numerous audio sync issues and choppy motion in most YouTube videos.

Don't get me wrong, YouTube videos allow for the widest and most reliable distribution of videos on the Internet. Because of YouTube's functionality and popular use, anybody and their mother can watch a YouTube video as long as they have the Macromedia flash player plug-in. Macromedia's flash-based technology has been around since 1998 and the flash browser plug-in is practically standard issue to look at most any dynamic webpage.

If I may go back to the cons once again, I do have to mention that there is a lengthy encoding process that takes place after you've edited your video and upload it to YouTube. Especially if you want to use a proprietary FLV encoder instead of depending on YouTube's built in FLV encoder which is to say leaves much to be desired. Also, YouTube limits the size of your video file to 100 MB. So let's say you filmed an hour documentary about your own buttocks; you'd have to compress your documentary to such an extent that by the time you made it down to 100 MB, the video quality would be horrendous. And that's being very generous. Not to mention, a recent pet peeve of mine: stupid stupid comments on videos from stupid stupid people and/or spam. it seems like the video text comments section is a sounding board for every militant loony to state his or her opinion. The majority of which are childish, ignorant, hateful, and negative.

I'm also a hypocrite. I have several channels of YouTube videos. and I make tons of comments to other peoples videos that include the word "fart"or "poo" at least 98% of the time.

There are other websites that utilize the same FLV type compression to stream content and although some have slightly better video quality for various reasons, the results are pretty much the same.

I ain't no play-ah hate-ah: virtually every video website has something cool to offer that's unique. there are also plenty of websites and forums that give pretty cool information on how to optimize your video before you upload it so it looks really good. at least, as good as it can.

Revver.com is an excellent alternative to YouTube. You are still limited to 100 MB of the image quality is excellent especially if you optimize your video before you upload it there.

Revver.com doesn't have the kind of community that YouTube does, but they do have their own incentives. they have a pay for play program. You can actually earn money every time someone watches your video. Additionally, revver has loads of customizable widgets and a large selection of embedded code options for all videos. There is a con, however. They're pretty dorky and anal about the content you Post. Even the lightest profanity or drug reference gives your video a 17 plus rating. This means that no one under the age of 18 will be will be able to see the video. But then again, everyone under the age of 18 easily negotiates that obstacle. Also, if you make a parody or a spoof of some kind and use music that's not yours or popular music, they will refuse the upload and send you an annoying e-mail that will piss you off even more than the fact that they wouldn't take your video. They just have a goody two shoes way about them that makes me think they might be run by evangelical Christians. My "Gay Saw" trailer was rejected because of its brief use of "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. I just picture two human reviewers (that's right, a human being watches every single video before it's published on Revver) with a herd mentality very much like the Motion Picture Rating Association and, it makes me sick to my stomach. Ah, the digitizing philosophies of Buena Vista television. Anyone that hates ABC knows what I'm talking about.

While the aforementioned is a front runner and quality and adaptability there is still one final and best option to consider with distributing videos on the web.

Divx
Divx has been around for a long time. they used to be owned by George Lucas before the DVD revolution. The goal, at the time, was to universalize the Divx codec. If things had gone well, right now we'd be using Divx DVDs and Divx DVD players. suffice to say, it's a ridiculously long story. The bottom line is this: Divx has a site called stage6. It's amazing. Simply going there and browsing through some of the videos will blow your mind. The quality is by far the best video streaming quality anyone has seen anywhere. Its compression method is similar to that of the compression used to put movies on DVDs. Watch any well prepared and balanced Divx movie on stage six and you'll see that the quality is not only reminiscent of but wonderfully close to DVD quality. Even in full screen mode, I've had friends come over when I was watching Divx and they always think I'm watching a DVD. When I tell them it's not and that it is a streaming video source on the Internet. They are amazed.

But still, I'm amazed at how slowly it's catching on.

I do have to stop here and mention that there are some drawbacks when dealing with DivX. Almost nobody is aware of DivX. So nobody has the software downloaded on the computer or utilized as a plug-in in their browsers. Whenever I send someone a DivX link, or posted a DivX video on my own websites, I've had to include explicit instructions on how to get the plug-in. Even then, people seem to be wary of the DivX software.

I can assure you, and pretty much rest my hand on any Bible, that there is no danger in downloading the DivX plug-in software. There are very few known bugs in the software. And, DivX is very conscientious about program bugs, compatibility issues, and updates related to its functionality. they are a trustworthy source for virus free software.

The DivX codec is also developing on almost a daily basis. New updates for the codec run on your machine so you can watch DivX movies and improvements on the General codec itself are frequent.

Here's another pro:
As long as you encoded your video file with the DivX encoder known as Dr. DivX, there is no limit on how large a video file is when I uploaded to stage six. So, although it will impact people who use a slower connection i.e. dial-up, you can boost your DivX quality settings on your video to maximum and have it be hours long.

Recently I thought about digitizing my entire family's video collection (which is massive) and making myself a DivX channel on stage six that will consist entirely of Pond Family Videos. I'll have them at the highest resolution and they'll be able to share them with whomever I want.

Additionally, you can easily download any DivX movie you want on stage six. You can burn them onto a DVD and watch them in a DVD player and the quality is still pretty amazing.

So, tell your friends and anybody who might care: go download the DivX software from DivX.com. It's free. It includes a video encoder, a really cool video player (it can sort and organize all the videos you have on your computer to a very concise and smooth playing play list), and software that you can use on your desktop to upload your DivX videos without having to go to the stage six website. The player has an option to queue-up various videos-as many as you'd like-- so, go to China while they upload en masse.

So, I'm going to build a new page on my site known as: The All Hail to the Almighty DivX Page. It will be awesome, it will be totally fresh, and it will be delicious.

To raise awareness about the mega-awesomeness of DivX with this $75 bumper sticker: