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I have been looking at video sharing sites, and have been surprised, and shocked at the embedding quality of these sites. My kids watch YouTube, and in my opinion that is one of the worst in terms of quality. I know that YouTube, and others offer better quality options on their own sites, but this comparison is strictly for embedding quality. After all, I want good quality embedding options. Don’t you?

The camera I used was the Panasonic HDC-SD9, a very good camera for shooting in small HD.

I decided to make all the videos the same width, for a good “apples to apples” comparison, my previous post showed them in their default width.

I have ranked them from best to worst (best at the top) in my opinion, let others and me know what you think is the best video sharing site (just for embedding quality, not any social, or other site options), be sure to take the poll at the end.

==> Here is the original video that was uploaded to each site. <==

My own h264, encoded, hosted, and embedded myself. Can customize to any size.

My own flash, encoded, hosted, and embedded myself. Can customize to any size.

SmugMug easily embeds to 640 wide. This is a plus for this site, most sites will not embed this well this large, and inversely SmugMug will not embed well smaller than this, so I only use them for 640 and wider.

This is not a fair comparison, but none of the other sites listed here will embed that large with this quality. I uploaded a 640×360 video for this site. I could have uploaded the same size to all the other sites, but it would not have made a bit of difference. The high quality video options are a few of many reasons I am a SmugMug member.

I could easily make my own h264 embedding code that large or even larger (here is an example), and it would be as good or better than SmugMug, but SmugMug deserves some kudos for how easy it is for people that can’t write their own code, but want to embed with this level of quality.

The only downside to SmugMug’s embedded video is it looks bad compared to the other sites. The other sites’ poster frames are normal color, while SmugMug’s is dark….not sure why, but it looks crappy.

Vimeo does offer HD viewing directly on their site, but again this is an embedding comparison. Just thought I would let you know that Vimeo is a cool place to watch HD video.

Viddler is ok in my book, but has that annoying feature that makes you go to their site if you click the wrong place more than once. They learned that from YouTube. Viddler and YouTube are the only sites here that have this annoying feature.

Yahoo Video is actually very useful, no annoying linking back to their site by clicking the video, and pretty good quality. I would recommend this for basic use.

YouTube is only used in my opinion because of the large following they have. If they had started today, they would have failed. The quality is not even worth using when compared to what else is out there for embedding. They also make you go to their site when the video is clicked twice.

Google Video is low quality, but quick, easy, and no annoying linking back to their site.

The poll is for embedding QUALITY, not your “favorite” video site

Online Surveys & Market Research

I have decided to watermark all of my images because I have found them all over the internet used by other sites, and I personally don’t like the use of my images without my permission. I realize that this is a pretty hotly debated subject, but for now, lets just focus on the technique itself.

If you would like to watermark your images, like the example you see here, then just follow the few simple steps I have outlines below.

Setp 1: Open the image in Photoshop, choose the text tool, and begin typing the text of your choice in the color you like.

Step 2: Select the text layer, and change the opacity to an acceptable level, in this example I chose 10 percent.

Step 3: Flatten the image (choose layer>flatten image).

Step 4: Save the image in the format you need (most likely jpeg).

The image you see here is of me (left), and my best man in October of 1991, at my wedding.

I sent my box of 17 year old, professionally shot, medium format wedding negatives to ScanCafe about 7 weeks ago. Three days ago, I got a small box back from ScanCafe with all my negatives safely packed inside. In addition to the negatives, the box also contained 7 DVD’s full of high quality tiff files of each image (about 170mb each).

I immediately copied all the tiff files to a folder, then imported them into Lightroom. As I went through each image, the first thing I noticed was that the images had no scratches or dust particles visible, and the color was for the most part dead on. I did finally see one or two images with barely visible dust problems etc, but I have scanned hundreds of negatives in my life, and to scan a negative without dust and scratches is a feat in itself, let alone hundreds in a row.
After I reviewed every precious 17 year old image, and did some slight cropping, and color adjustments, I simply keyworded, dated the images, put them in order (this took most of the day saturday), and added them to my digital library. I have to admit, it is very nice having old shots along with my digital photos at the tip of my fingers.

Overall my opinion of ScanCafe is a resounding “high” recommendation. I plan to send the rest of my negatives to them over the next year or so, and I have boxes, and boxes. I do have to warn you, the time you save in scanning is well worth it, but don’t forget you still have to organize, tag, and date them, and that can steal a few weekends of your life. The payback is seeing the old negatives and slides come to life on your screen, and feeling the emotion as you relive your youth.

Note: I decided to use Lightroom instead of photoshop, because it is much better suited for high speed cropping, color correction, and organization, and I would recommend that you do the same. I would also remind you to actually change the exif data in each image to reflect the actual date they were taken, so your photo library program will put them in the correct place. I will write an article covering this topic in a few days or so.

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