Slumdog Millionaire Montage

Despite the recent YouTube woes, I still realize it's important to have your videos on there, so here comes this one. I just finished this montage for the film "Slumdog Millionaire." I saw it recently and it's excellent. Definitely a must see!

The song is "I'm Good, I'm Gone" by Lykke Li.

DIRECT LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40j6bF8FIrk&fmt=18

YouTube Account Disabled

So the other shoe has dropped and my "buffmetube" YouTube account is closed. I knew it was going to happen soon (see my previous post), I just wish I had time to let my subscribers know where else to find me on the web.

Anyway, I will speed up my uploads to the other sites now that all the videos are gone. I very much doubt I will go back to YouTube.

More Videos Removed

Dick Clark Prods. went on a rampage the other day, removing tons of videos and disabling accounts on YouTube, all because people were uploading clips and/or montages of So You Think You Can Dance. Unfortunately 10 of my vids were removed. Here is the list:

Courtney & Gev - Just Begun
Anya & Danny - Ghostwriter
Pasha Kovalev Rocks It
Remix - Anya & Danny Contemporary
Remix - Jessi & Pasha Waltz
Remix - Jessi & Pasha Jazz
Remix - Chelsie & Mark Contemporary
Remix - Chelsie & Gev Contemporary
Remix - Courtney & Gev Rumba
Remix - Courtney & Gev Contemporary

I will be uploading all these videos to my other sites very soon. Unfortunately, I think this means my YouTube account may be disabled sooner rather than later. I'm debating whether to upload anything new to it and risk permanent removal or just leave it alone and hope that the current videos stay safe.

Decisions, decisions...

No Country for Old Men Montage

This is a montage I did for the movie "No Country for Old Men" earlier this year. I felt like re-posting it because it's Oscars season and so far I've enjoyed the movies I've seen, but I don't know if anything this year will top No Country.

I love Javier Bardem!!!

Kameron Bink Video Montage

Kameron Bink is Stronger @ Yahoo! Video

Show: So You Think You Can Dance, Season 3
Dancer: Kameron Bink
Music: "Stronger" by Kanye West

This was removed from YouTube a while ago. But it's back bitches!

DIRECT LINKS:
www.veoh.com/videos/v167666627tC3ENT6
www.metacafe.com/watch/2096723/
video.yahoo.com/watch/4023085/10883981
www.blip.tv/file/1519369

Season 3 Tribute Montage

Season 3 Tribute - Come Around @ Yahoo! Video

Show: So You Think You Can Dance, Season 3
Dancer: Various
Music: "Come Around" by M.I.A.

DIRECT LINKS:
video.yahoo.com/watch/4058109/10963042
www.metacafe.com/watch/2120625/
www.blip.tv/file/1539832

Sadly, it seems like Veoh and Dailymotion rejected the video. I'm kinda over those two sites. :-/ But in better news, I quite like the Yahoo embedded player. It's the only one that is widescreen!

So You Think You Can Dance Canada Top 4 - My Thoughts

Wow I can't believe it's the final four already on So You Think You Can Dance Canada. I swear the seasons go by faster and faster. Overall I am satisfied with the season if not necessarily the Top 4. I honestly felt like Vincent and Arassay should have been in the Top 4 along with Nico and Allie, but oh well. I never get my Dream Top 4 anyway so I can't be too upset. Here are my thoughts on the Top 4:


NATALLI - I didn't like Natalli at first but I think she has grown on me the most out of all the dancers since the Top 10. She has done well in every genre, there is no denying that. Her versatility is amazing. I think she is amazingly sexy too so that never hurts.
My Prediction: 4th place


MILES - I loooove Miles. <3 He is really adorable and his solos are sick. One of the best poppers this show has ever seen. I also think he has adapted to a lot of different styles (I'm pretty sure he has danced the most different kinds of routines than anyone left on the show). Like Natalli, his attractiveness never hurts either. :P
My Prediction: 3rd Place


ALLIE - Speaking of people growing on me, I'm surprised to admit Allie has over the last few weeks. I enjoyed her at the start but I felt like she lost a lot of steam, but I think her solos have been both technically strong and entertaining (a rarity for classically-trained girls IMO), and she impressed me in her Hip-Hop dance with Izaak during Top 6 week. She is beautiful, graceful, and has a great smile.
My Prediction: Runner-Up


NICO - LOL what else can I say about Nico that hasn't been said before? He is totally the Superstar of this season and I would actually be shocked if he didn't win. I don't think anyone has ever dominated a season as much as he has this year with his talent, charisma, and amazing looks. He is certainly the hottest male dancer ever on SYTYCD and I absolutely love how he interprets music in his solos (and his song choices rock too!). Nico has quickly become one of my favorite dancers ever and whether he wins or not will not change that.
My Prediction: Winner!

Video Sharing Sites Reviewed

So in my last entry I talked about how I wasn't only going to upload my videos to YouTube anymore, instead I was going to distribute my vids across multiple sites, in hopes that the Copyright Police wouldn't be able to find me. Well the last few days I've been experimenting by uploading videos to each site. Here is a quick breakdown of what I thought.


VEOH
My site: http://www.veoh.com/users/buffmetube
Veoh has a lot of things going for it, especially it's sleek design. It's very clear and uncluttered. The video quality is pretty good too, but it's still Flash video, so it's not like it will get much better anywhere else on the web. I like how easy it is to edit tags and the option to download is nice too (it even tells you the file size), but the catch is you must have the Veoh Player in order to watch the videos on your computer. Still, a cool option. The one thing that sucks is that Veoh recognized my Lacey Schwimmer video as being copyright-infringing, so it blocked it. None of the other sites I've tried blocked it, including Dailymotion, which is like the Blocking King apparently. Also, my views on Veoh have been small compared to the other sites. Overall, I like Veoh but I'm wary of how it handles copyright, especially since it's owned by the media companies.
Pluses: great design, good quality video
Minuses: probably strict on copyright, maybe not enough views to justify the hassle?
Grade: B


DAILYMOTION
My site: http://www.dailymotion.com/user/buffmetube
Dailymotion is probably the most similar to YouTube out of all the sites I've tried. You can do a lot of things with your videos, like add it to a blog, a channel, a jukebox (?), and a videowall (??). Yeah not sure what the last two are, but you can do it if you want to. The process for editing your video details is easy and the player automatically pauses (unlike the Tube where it takes you to a totally different page). I especially like the option to watch the videos in high quality by simply hitting the "HQ" button at the bottom of the video screen. Then again, the HG video quality is about on par with the regular quality on blip.tv and maybe even Veoh. But what really sucks about Dailymotion is how crazy strict they are on copyright. I don't know what kind of filtering software they use but out of the 5 videos I tried uploading, it only allowed 2. And all of them at the upload point. Anyway, it was really annoying and they never tell you why it was rejected. At least YouTube tells you this! So yeah I'm gonna keep trying to upload to Dailymotion but I will probably give up on it soon if it keeps blocking my videos.
Pluses: similar to YouTube in design, HQ button, seems pretty social-networky
Minuses: crazy about copyright
Grade: D


METACAFE
My site: http://www.metacafe.com/channels/buffmetube
Out of all the sites I've tried, I prefer Metacafe by far. it's a little more busy than Veoh but less cluttered than Dailymotion. I also like how you can edit the video info while the video is playing! That's pretty cool. Tagging and editing tags is simple as well and you can also track the changes you make to each video. Overall, Metacafe gives you a lot of ways to adjust the metadata on your videos. Video quality is almost on par with Veoh as well and much better than Dailymotion's non-HQ quality. But what I especially love about Metacafe is the community aspect of it. When you upload a vid, it goes out to other users for review, and they will rate your video (or flag if its inappropriate). None of my videos were flagged and all of them made it online so I guess copyright isn't a big thing. And I got the most views by far on Metacafe than on any other site (probably because of the review process). In fact yesterday I got more views on my 5 Metacafe videos combined than I did on my 50 YouTube videos combined. That's crazy! The one thing that might suck is how picky the community is. On YouTube it's common to get 4 or 5 stars from someone, but on Metacafe you are lucky to get a 3! And the few comments that I have gotten have been mostly negative. But still at least people are watching!
Pluses: good interface, community aspect, lots of views!
Minuses: picky users
Grade: A-


BLIP.TV
My site: http://buffmetube.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc
I really like blip.tv as it is probably the most unique of the video sites I've come across. It definitely has a very simple design, less sleek than Veoh but more inviting. It seems more geared towards actual Internet TV, with each video you upload considered an "episode" of a show (the show being your account: 'buffmetube' in my case). The video quality is the highest I've seen of all the sites minus Dailymotion in HQ mode. What's more, blip.tv gives you the option of watching the video in the original format it was uploaded in. Ironically the video quality is not much better, but the audio quality definitely is. Still I found the loading process for this option to be really slow (I uploaded MOV files). Hopefully that will work itself out later. Blip.tv also processed my videos the fastest in comparison to the other sites. My view counts have been small but yet larger than the rest of the sites except for Metacafe. Finally, blip.tv gives you a good amount of stats on each video, including daily summaries of views, how many views in each format, and where the views came from (either from blip.tv or from an outside site like Truveo or AOL).
Pluses: great design, very high quality Flash, option for viewing in original format, lots of stats, easy to upload
Minuses: problems with viewing in original format, not very social-networky
Grade: B+


YAHOO! VIDEO
My site: http://video.yahoo.com/people/ 5250233
Yahoo! Video is kinda like a combination of Veoh and Dailymotion. The look is warm but not cluttered. The video quality is good (but the player screen is somewhat small). It definitely has a social-networking feel, but I don't really get a sense of a community around it. The front page consists of Featured Videos, Featured Playlists, Featured Networks etc etc. but on the video pages there are the usual sharing and commenting options (it all looks very similar to YouTube). So yeah this site strikes me as a place where you have to let your viewers know you are there or else no one will ever find you. I could be wrong though. The upload process isn't a problem and I haven't gotten blocked or anything so I will continue to use Yahoo! and hope things will pick up there for user-generated content.
Pluses: warm and nice look, easy to upload
Minuses: not friendly to UGC?, not really social-networky, small video screen
Grade: B- B
UPDATE 12/5/08 - I really like Yahoo's embedded video player. It's the only one with widescreen. I'm switching the grade to a solid B.

GOOGLE VIDEO
My site: umm, I don't think I have one
Google Video is weird in that it isn't really it's own site, instead it acts more like a search engine for other videos across the web. I don't even think I have a central place for my videos. So yeah, there is literally no social-networking aspect to Google Video, which makes it not useful to me at all. What's more, the video quality is the poorest out of all the sites I've tried and harkens back to the early days of YouTube. I don't think I will be using Google Video at all.
Pluses: ?
Minuses: no central video channel or site, not social-networky at all, poor video quality
Grade: F


MYSPACE TV
My site: http://www.myspace.com/buffmetube
I was excited to upload my videos to MySpace TV but apparently the site is looking to dethrone Daily Motion as the Ultimate Copyright Nazi. I uploaded a few videos and got blocked from ever uploading again unless I take a "Respecting Copyrights" online course or some junk like that. Umm yeah, no thanks. I use MySpace more as a portal anyway, and while having the video right there would be convenient, I don't want to risk having my entire MySpace account removed because of their silly copyright bizness.
Pluses: ?
Minuses: EVERYTHINGGGGG! :P
Grade: N/A


So there you have it, my rough and very non-scientific review of all the major video sites. There are others out there that I haven't explored and I plan on doing those soon. Overall, in addition to the almighty YouTube, I am definitely going to keep uploading to Metacafe and blip.tv as those were my favorites, and I will also upload to Veoh, Yahoo!, and Dailymotion but keep a suspicious eye on those as well. I'm pretty much done with Google Video and MySpace TV.

If anyone has any thoughts on these sites or others I'd like to hear about them!

keywords: youtube vs metacafe vs dailymotion vs youtube vs blip.tv vs metacafe vs myspace tv vs youtube vs google video vs dailmotion vs yahoo video vs youtube vs veoh vs dailymotion vs blip.tv vs veoh vs metacafe, comparing video sites, review video sites

Pissed Off at YouTube, Music Labels

I don't know if others have been experiencing this lately, but recently YouTube has been a real bitch about copyright, more specifically, audio copyright. In the last 2 weeks I have had four of my videos removed from my channel: three montages and one remix I worked really hard on. Some that were favortied by the very dancers who I made them of! :-/ Now it has gotten to the point where I cannot even upload music from certain bands at all. And all because I used music from artists who happen to belong to one company: Universal Music Group.

This is the notice that I get:

"A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video. The audio content identified in your video is Come Around by Timbaland. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue."

I'm so pissed about this. I'm not making profit off these videos. I'm not making fun of the band or anything like that. If anything, I am doing the bands a favor by using their music. I can't tell you how many times people comment on my videos with "Who is this band?" or "I like that song!" etc etc. UMG is not losing anything from me using their music. They only have fans and customers to gain. So tell me: what the eff is the point?

Anyway, what is really perplexing is that it used to not be like this. Not long ago, whenever I got a copyright notice from YouTube and UMG they would keep the video up but put advertising on the page, with all the revenue going towards the copyright holder. In fact, in some instances on my video I would see links to buy the song I was using on iTunes or Amazon MP3. I don't know about you, but I think this is a much better option. Now UMG can be making money from the video I uploaded! This was the notice I used to get:

"UMG has claimed some or all audio content in your video. This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program. Your video is still live because UMG has authorized the use of this content on YouTube.

Your video is still available because UMG does not object to this content appearing on YouTube at this time. As long as UMG has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video's page."

Why the change UMG? In my opinion the second option works out much better for you. And for me of course.

So where do I go from here? Not YouTube, that's for sure. Or, I should say, not only YouTube. There are definitely a lot of video sites out there where I can upload, sites where the copyright issues are not quite as stringent: Yahoo!, Veoh, Dailymotion, Metacafe etc etc etc. The problem used to be that uploading to all these sites was a real hassle, requiring you to create accounts and painstakingly upload each and every vid, including writing the description and properly tagging.

Well, that isn't a problem anymore, thanks to the site TubeMogul, which lets you upload a video once and then broadcast it to many video sites, including all the ones I mentioned above. You still have to create an account at each site, but TubeMogul saves your account info (or not, if you prefer) so anytime you upload directly to TM all you have to do is write the description and the tags once and they get exported to each site you tell it to broadcast to. Sounds simple to me! I'll do a more comprehensive review of the whole process later once I upload more videos.

Anywayyy, I'm still annoyed about this. I hope somehow YouTube and UMG (and the rest of the labels) come to some sort of conclusion where fan videos like mine aren't removed because of the audio content. Until then, I will be very wary of what I upload to the Tube.