Google Video is a very straightforward video-sharing site. Though not as popular as YouTube, Google’s other entry in the world of online video sharing, Google Video does offer some unique features.
On Google Video you have the ability to add captions or subtitles to your movie. What’s more, there’s no file size limit! The site accepts AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Real, and Windows Media formats.
Free
To use Google Video, you’ll need a gmail account. You can then log in with your gmail name and password.
There are two ways of uploading content to Google Video. One is their online uploader, which accepts files up to 100MB and emails you a link to your video right away, though all videos go through a clearing process before they become searchable.
Or, you can download the Google Video Uploader, which lets you upload files from your desktop. This is convenient because you can upload much larger files and also upload multiple files simultaneously.
Google Video uploads are quite fast and generally result in better-quality videos than YouTube does. The site recommends uploading the original source file if possible, which is possible with the desktop uploader, since there’s no file size limit. If you’re using the online uploader, you’ll get the best results using Google’s preferred video file settings.
Unlike YouTube, Google Video does not ask for search keywords; it does, however, allow you to list credits for the movie. You can make your video ‘unlisted’ so that it doesn’t appear in the search results.
Google Video gives users the ability to email a video link, and you also have the option of allowing viewers to download the video to their computer or embed it on other web sites.
After uploading a video to Google Video, you retain all rights to the content. No content that is obscene, illegal, harmful, violates copyright, etc. is allowed.
To share a Google video, click the blue “Email-Blog-Post to Myspace” button to the right of the player. This automatically opens up a form to enter email addresses to send the video to. If you want the HTML to embed the video in another website, click “Embed HTML” just under the blue button and copy and paste the code it displays.
You can also post the video to MySpace, Blogger, or TypePad directly by clicking one of these links just underneath the “Embed HTML” link and entering your login information for the site.
You can also download the video to your desktop by clicking the “Download” button.
