I feel that converting my video files myself to flv and hosting them gives me more control. Most importantly, I can retain as much quality as possible. Where YouTube is deadly in this parameter, and Vimeo is much better but not perfect, I can be perfect by converting to the best quality, regardless of file size. Also, I can control the size of the video, whether it be as small as 160 x 120 cellphone video or as large as 640 x 480. And lastly, there are no upload limits. I can upload as many movies as I want to my domain.
(Note: All of the recent vlog entries are hosted on my server, as well as my first vodcast. What is the difference between a "vlog" and a "vodcast," you ask. Good question, and I've thought about this thoroughly. In my opinion, a "vlog" is a series of related videos, and a "vodcast" is a singular, stand-alone video (similar to a podcast, although there is no such thing as a "plog," well at least not yet). I should also make note that a blog that is itself a vlog would not have vodcasts, even if certain videos were stand-alone, since all of the individual vodcasts would be a part of the larger vlog. For this blog, which is not a vlog, I will post series' of movies from time-to-time, for example, the reyonthehill does dc series, as well as singular vodcasts, such as my 1461st post. Make sense? I thought so.)
When Flickr finally rolls out its video service, if it ever does, I may utilize that service for sharing, since I already use Flickr for photos. Neither YouTube or Vimeo offer both, and the two should go hand-in-hand, right? By the way, how hard is it for Flickr to roll out a video service? It couldn't be too difficult. Yahoo! already has one. What have the Flickr people been up to? Isn't this what these people do? No, I just do photos. Haven't you already done that. Well, yes, but video requires a lot of work. Let's see, 40,000 people x 8 hours a day = release the video already.
