Who's watching your online movies?

[fraught]

The other day, i had an email from YouTube asking if i wanted one of my films to participate in their YouTube Partnership Programme. The upload in question is my film called 'Hi Honey' that i made back in 1993. This made me click the Insights button on the film and see why it was being invited.

It turns out that the film has over 17,000 hits, and delving deeper, i found out where the majority of these hits were coming from. It appears that the film seems to be getting alot of traffic from sites that are dedicated to the subject of Trans-Gender. Not sure what to make of that info? Without becoming a member of some of these sites, i won't really know why they are linking to my film.

It does throw up the point... who is watching your movies? And are you happy about it? Not that i am unhappy about Trans-Gender websites linking to my movie, but more about the fact that i can't see the reason why or any comments they are making. What if their was a site that was linking to my film and i wasn't happy about... other than remove my film, what else could i do about it?

Food for thought.

[Michael Slowe]

Good point to raise. Personally I have never been interested or bothered to put my films on to the web but I was recently persuaded to do so. I still don't see the point. Firstly the limit of 10 (or 11?) minutes max means that I can't put some of my best stuff there and, as you say, who looks? Also, after taking huge trouble with visuals and audio, the whole effort is viewed on a tiny screen with most likely tinny sound from a laptop's speakers. Fun yes, with snippets on You Tube but not the place to watch anything very ambitious. Fraught, I don't think you need worry about what connections are made, although it could be tricky if international terrorists made a connection!

[fraught]

Ahhh... if you get yourself a 'Director' account with YouTube... you can upload files of almost any length. I have uploaded films up to nearly an hour in length with no problem (other than a reduction in picture quality).

With HD quality films being uploaded, and with the aid of my Home Surround Sound System plugged into my PC... online films are great to view at home.

[Dave Watterson]

I think you will find that only those who signed up as "directors" a couple of years ago can put longer films on YouTube. Those who sign up for that status now get rather less wonderful options:

"Director accounts have the special distinction of being able to use advanced options for branding videos and the user's channel with custom text and graphics."

But for longer work there are other web hosts - albeit without the same special status in regard to music copyright issues. See an excellent article at http://www.theiac.org.uk/resources/web- ... intro.html
-Dave

[Dave Watterson]

Right at the end of June 2010, YouTube has raised their time limit to 15 minutes. The 2Gb file size limit remains, however.

The average length of entries in the IAC competition is between 11 and 12 minutes, so this is very good news for people who were just outside the old 10-minute limit.

Dave

[Roy1]

I have read with great interest the comments that have been voiced on this thread and they all are correct. I find that the average viewer of YouTube has only got a concentration time of at the most 5 mins. In my own experience I find that if I split up my video efforts into three or four minute segments each segment is viewed by thousands. If I put the segments together to make a ten minute video, this is viewed only in the hundreds. Also I find the videos I consider not to be my best are the ones most viewed. Strange but true. I really can't understand YouTube. It's supposed to be your own work, but the site is overwhemingly full of recorded TV shows. Also you won't get many constructive comments about your video.
The best comment I got was from a pro in Spain who congratulated me on "making Holiday Videos look and sound interesting". Most comments are what the viewer thinks of the location, not the content of the video. One of my videos showed a particular interesting church and all the comment was that his brother saw an Angel hovering over the church. I comfort myself with the fact that at least people see my work in large numbers. A fact denied me when I belonged to a Video Club.

[col lamb]

In addition to posting on youtube you may want to look at posting on the vimeo web site.

This is the best one I have found that have works more in keeping with our activity. You may not get the hundreds as you do on youtube but with the correct application of tags and subscriptions (free) to the many different groups then a more knowledgable audience should result. There are also some stunning videos on the site plus a lot of "how to" vids.

[Roy1]

[quote="col lamb"]In addition to posting on youtube you may want to look at posting on the vimeo web site.

Actually I subscribed to Vimeo in it's early days and found the quality of it's images was excellent, much better than YouTube. Unfortunately nobody could find my videos on Vimeo and so viewers were very few. Perhaps I was doing something wrong and I gave up on it. Since then YouTube has improved it's quality immensely especially the HD presentation. With regard to YouTube. There are a lot of IAC members who have videos on youtube but if you don't know the name they use you can't find them. It's a pity The IAC website can't publish a register of member's user names so that other members can view the video's quite quickly.

[fraught]

I agree Roy... and if anyone want's to view my work on YouTube, my channel is;

http://youtube.com/fraught

[Laurie Calvert]

Well we all have our own personal experiences of YouTube (and similar) channels. For me it has been great, and I recommend it. Lots of people get to see my work (well over a million views in three years). Computers these days can view it very well with great sound, and actually much better than some event viewings I have had with the sound too low or high, the start missed etc.

But also I have made a lot of friends, mainly in the world of robots and rocketry. We swap advice, and also inspire each other. People try different things, post the video result, and that starts another thread.

Also my sons use it to communicate with their friends across the world that have a similar interest. I can't think of any other way they could all connect up, so it is great for that.

Comments can be sent for approval first, which is a good way to filter out and block users you don't want - pity there isn't a similar function for real life. I've had lots of really good comments on most videos. Hundreds of comments over the years. I average about five per day which is easy to manage.

So it is what you make of it I think.