ClipShack is a pretty standard free video sharing website along the lines of Grouper, but it has a few unusual features - like being able to map your clip content and search for it by location using Google Maps.
Free
ClipShack sign up looks more complicated than most free video sharing sites, but a lot of what you see is explanatory text or optional information. All that's actually required is your first and last name, a login name and password, and a screen name (which can be your real name, your login name or something else altogether).
If you want, you can also put in your gender, marital status and interests, and choose to sign up for email updates.
You must be 18 or older to use ClipShack. You retain all the rights to your content but, as usual, you grant the site a license to do what they want with it. No harmful, obscene, illegal, or copyright-infringing content is allowed.
Also, Clipshack has extremely strict regulations on adult content: you are not allowed to upload anything even suggestive - including things along the lines of "Tell me your wildest dreams" (this is explicitly stated in the Terms of Service) or anything else deemed to cause "lustful or lascivious thoughts."
You get 5 GB of storage on the site. When you sign up, you are taken to a home page, and the "Upload Clips" link in the menu bar will take you to an uploader. By default this is the web uploader, which supports files up to 100MB. Here you can set the number of files to be uploaded at one time (up to 5).
If you use the web uploader, a window opens showing a progress bar and the number of bytes uploaded so far, as well as a Cancel button. This upload is not too fast but not terribly slow either.
Clipshack supports .mov, .mp4, .3gp, .mpg, .mpeg, .mp2, .wmv, .avi and .dv formats.
Just below the web uploader there are links to a webcam upload, a mobile phone upload, or the ClipShack uploader. This is a downloadable uploader that allows for unlimited file sizes, has simple drag-and-drop capability and works even if your network is disconnected and then reconnected.
The ClipShack uploader is very simple to install, and somewhat faster than the web uploader, but the real advantage is that you can upload any file size within the limits of your account, instead of having to stick to the 100MB limit.
Clipshack enables tagging. Once your clip is uploaded, under the viewer you will find an "edit clip" link. This will take you to a page where you can add a title, tags, a description, a location, and decide if others can comment on or rate your clip. Also, your clip is set to Private by default, so if you want others to see it, you will have to change it so that either only your friends or everyone on Clipshack can see it.
ClipShack videos are small and not terribly high quality. They also have a tendency to be a little jerky. The really irritating thing, though, is that they reload every time you watch them, so they always end up being jerky in the same place.
To share a Clipshack video, you can copy and paste the HTML code under the player to embed the video in another website. A URL you can use to link to the video is provided underneath. You can also click "Email this clip" to send a link and a short message to your friends, or "Add to my blog" to send the clip to your blog.
