Viddler one ups YouTube, Google Video

Short of paying for hosting services or using P2P tools such as Pando, there aren't many ways to upload and share large video files. Viddler, which launched its public beta earlier this month, is a video hosting service with some new tools to enhance both the sharing and viewing experience. Videos can be uploaded to Viddler in batches as opposed to one at a time, a really nice feature. Unlike YouTube and Google Video, which have 100MB limits, individual video uploads are capped at 500MB. During the uploading process, you're shown two separate progress bars; one for the currently uploading video, and another for total uploading status.

Once your videos are uploaded, you can begin the tagging process. Viddler has done something very cool in letting you tag individual parts of the video using what they call timed tags. The same goes for comments, allowing you to leave comments pertinent to specific moments of a video clip. Clicking on a timed tag or comment will immediately skip to that part of the video. For video bloggers, Viddler lets you record straight off your Web cam. Embedding videos with Viddler is easy. There's several ways to get a video onto your MySpace profile page--or wherever else you normally embed videos. You can also easily e-mail them from within the site. The community potential here is huge.

The other thing I like about Viddler is its navigation. Its Explore page in particular gives you half a dozen ways to browse videos, but it's not nearly as overwhelming as YouTube can be. Videos are quick to load, and the quality is comparable to that of other Flash video providers. I would like to see one of these services offer a variable quality by connection, but it appears we're not there yet.

Viddler is a really impressive service. If anything, it improves on YouTube's browsing and uploading experience in almost every way. People feeling hindered by time and size limitations on competing services should give Viddler a chance, as their 500MB cap is very generous, and the uploader is both powerful and easy to use. The community features and commenting system are also very developed for a young Web service. Video bloggers can also enjoy cutting a step out of their production process and not having to use any actual software for their recording. Recommended.