vimeo

Vimeo's 'Video School' now in session

Video-sharing site Vimeo has rolled the cameras on its Vimeo Video School, a freely accessible section of the site devoted to moviemaking tutorials for beginners and more-advanced videographers alike.

Launched earlier this week, the Video School expands on and organizes user-generated how-to and tips-and-tricks videos.

It features a Video 101 section, made up of Vimeo-produced clips about the fundamentals; a DSLR Basics section, also Vimeo-produced and devoted to shooting video with digital single lens reflex cameras; and a Featured Lessons section, in which Vimeo staffers offer up lessons on a variety of topics, from composition essentials to storyboarding basics to … Read more

Vimeo gets 'couch mode' for Google TV, HTPCs

Watching Web videos on your couch is nothing new, but with Google TV's rollout now in full swing, having a big-screen-friendly version of your video site is very much in vogue.

The latest site on that growing list is Vimeo, which has just released something it's calling "couch mode." Users who point their browser toward Vimeo.com/couchmode get a full-screen video player, with big buttons and straightforward navigation to various video playlists. The idea is that you can hit the site from your Google TV, home theater PC, or even laptop and veg out to … Read more

Vimeo gets Flash-HTML5 hybrid player

Video host Vimeo put out a new version of its player on Tuesday that can detect the hardware of the end user and spit out either an Adobe Flash or HTML5 video player, as well as a proper video stream based on connection.

The feature was designed for compatibility on mobile devices--something Vimeo began working on late last year, though mainly for its paying pro members and for a handful of its featured content channels.

The new player works just the same as the old one, and the embed code itself is the same for both player technologies. The change … Read more

Vimeo nixes HD embed play limits, side business

Vimeo, one of the first providers of high-definition video on the Web, has done away with a limitation that had its users paying to place an HD version of their video on external sites.

The business centered on charging its members for a certain number of HD plays on external Web sites, which ran anywhere from $9.95 for 1,000 plays, all the way to $199.95 for 100,000 plays.

In cases where a user ran out of plays, Vimeo would still let viewers watch the video in HD, though they'd have to come back to the … Read more

Vimeo gets Creative Commons, global settings

Video host Vimeo on Tuesday is rolling out a new feature that will users apply Creative Commons (CC) licenses to their uploaded videos.

In short, when a user applies one of the six standard licenses, which range from "attribution" to "attribution with noncommercial and no derivatives," it gives those who intend to use the video elsewhere a specific set of rules for what they can do with it--all without having to first contact the creator for explicit permission.

Creative Commons licensing has been available for some time on a growing number of video- and photo-sharing sites, … Read more

Vimeo rolls out 'stats' feature for paying users

Since being acquired by Google, YouTube's had a target on its head. This has been true both from a legal perspective, as well as from competitors that have done as much as possible to put out more features, or simply do things better. Web video host Vimeo's latest feature--called stats, which rolls out to paying Vimeo Plus members Tuesday afternoon--is a mix of both.

Stats has been in the works since 2008, though the project got sidelined for more pressing matters like better categorization, a mobile interface, 1080p video, and an HTML5 video player. Though not as sexy as most of those things, stats is probably the most important feature in helping Vimeo's video creators know more about how well their content has been received, as well as who's watching it.

Stats gives users a visual and numerical breakdown of:

Referrers (where videos are being watched from--including the individual sub-domain pages) What country viewers are from A breakdown of user likes and comments How many times a video has been downloaded How many times a video has been played versus how many times the player was simply loaded. How many of users actually finished the video (both on the site and in embeds).

The tracking that goes into making these numbers available works even for non-paying Vimeo users. The feature simply turns on once you become a Plus member. It can also go as far back as to when you joined the site, which for me was in June 2007. Although in a phone call with CNET a few weeks ago, a Vimeo representative said the tracking has only been going for the past year.

Beyond these metrics, many of which can be found on other video hosts, Vimeo's secret sauce is that it can further break out each metric by the quality of the video. So if you want to get an idea of how many viewers watched a standard definition, versus a high-definition copy of your video, you can do that. It can also spit those numbers out on a spreadsheet-friendly .CSV file. 

The stats feature should be going live to Vimeo Plus users in the next few hours. Below, and after the break are some shots of what users will get. … Read more

Independent video at its finest

Vimeo is a video hosting and sharing site. Users can upload high-definition video that plays in a gorgeous wide-screen player with minimalist controls. One thing that sets it apart from other services is that it was one of the first sites to offer HD video. It also gives video creators the option to let registered Vimeo users download the original file to their hard drive for offline viewing.

Vimeo is also a social network, with a friends and subscription service, along with a way to both rate and share videos. This information goes into a new feed that you can … Read more

Why HTML5 matters to Mac users

Recent announcements from popular video hosting Web sites YouTube and Vimeo that they will now be offering HTML5 compatible video streaming have tremendously positive affects for Mac users. YouTube kicked off the announcement on Wednesday with Vimeo following suit shortly thereafter. If video on HTML5 gains traction, we could see the end (or at least a lot less) of Flash online.… Read more

Vimeo pushing out HTML5 video player

It's HTML5 week in video land, and the latest entrant is Vimeo. Less than a day after competitor YouTube announced that it would begin rolling out an HTML5 video player to videos on its site, Vimeo is doing the same.

Beginning Thursday, the site will be offering its users the option to play videos without the need for Adobe Flash--a plug-in that was previously required to watch videos on its online player. The new option to switch to the HTML5 player will appear as a link below each video. The site will then remember a user's preference from … Read more