Metacafe is a free video sharing website that serves both amateur and professional filmmakers, resulting in an unsual mix of styles and flavors of video. What’s more, if enough people watch your video, Metacafe will pay you for it!
Free
You retain the rights to your work. However, Metacafe can do whatever they want to your submissions (reproduce, modify, etc) as long as they remain on the website. Other users may also use your work, provided that it’s for noncommerical and personal purposes.
You may not upload content that is obscene, illegal, harmful, infringes copyright, etc.
Metacafe asks for a username, password and email address.
Metacafe does not let you upload videos as soon as you sign up; you must receive your confirmation email and validate your account first. Clicking on the validation link within the email will take you right to the upload form.
Metacafe supports an unusual number of file formats, including .mpeg, .avi, .wmv, .mov, .mpg, .divx, .asf, .mpa, .mpe, .m1v, .wmf, .m4a, .mp4, .flv, .3gp, .rm, .rmvb, .rv, .ram, and .mkv. Maximum file size is 100MB. Choose a file and click “Upload.” You are taken to a page that shows a progress bar, the time remaining, and the percent loaded; it goes pretty fast.
Underneath the progress bar is a form to enter a title, description, tags, categories and more. You can also flag your video as being inappropriate for anyone under 13, or mark it as 18+ (Metacafe’s Adult channel allows explicit content).
Metacafe enables tagging, and they even have tips on the best tags to use. Separate tags with spaces, not commas. For multi-word tags, group them with quotation marks.
Metacafe compresses your files. It also makes them available as downloadable Quicktime files.
You can choose to just upload the video to the site, or, if it belongs to you and is something you’re proud of, choose to register as Producer. There is no extra cost for being a Producer; you simply create a detailed profile for yourself.
If you think your video is really great, you can also submit it to the Producer Rewards program. If Metacafe accepts it, you get $5 for every 1000 people who view your video!
To share a Metacafe video, click “Blog/Embed Player” underneath the player to display HTML code that you can copy and paste to embed your video in another website. You can see a URL to link to by clicking “Download Video.” Note that you can only download a copy of the video if you have Metacafe Pro.
You can also send the video to your friends by clicking “Send to Friend.” Metacafe allows you to use your own email software to send a link, or you can add up to two email addresses and Metacafe will send it for you.
