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What's the Best Embedded Video Player?
lifegoggles.com — Comparison between seven online video sites: YouTube, Google Video, MSN Soapbox, Revver, Blip.tv, MyHeavy and Vimeo. One video has been uploaded to all these sites and you can see the differences between embedded Flash players, the video quality and the information displayed next to the video.
SG-1- 1069 diggs
- digg it
- SG-1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6Via http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/11/whats-best-embedded-video-player.html
- TKDWILSON, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Because flv is faster and cheaper to stream.
Eric Wilson - OmegaNine, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I like DailyMotion
- L0t3k, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I have to say, most all of them look nicer than YouTube, have less obnoxious controls, and some don't have those awful draw-away items when the video is over. Those are big factors for me.
- centinall, on 10/12/2007, -4/+45I'm sure I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but does the quality of the video/sounds really depend on the embedded player? Isn't it more to do with the compression and transcoding software on the server side?
- mlwarrior, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1Why is veoh not on the list, it's the best.
- GuyHitByTruck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17@centinall
I also have no idea what I'm talking about, but I believe you're right. All of those players are flash players, so it's all the same thing basically. What matters is the compression and encoding used on the back end by the services used to stream the video (youtube, google, etc.). - AlanKc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I would be interested to know how many of these video sites there are.. It seems every week I hear about a new one..
- Ahnteis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"I'm sure I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but does the quality of the video/sounds really depend on the embedded player? Isn't it more to do with the compression and transcoding software on the server side?"
Yes, but that's what they are measuring. The title, etc may have been misleading, but the page is still an interesting comparison of the different video services. - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nobody said which one looks the best! I like to use Vimeo and blip, but Youtube is not bad to use. If YouTube i.e. Google could take a page out of blip's book, they could redesign a less gaudy (albeit utilitarian) player.
- vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Where's the DivX Web Player in this comparison? It has by far the best quality I've ever seen.
http://stage6.divx.com/ - slsanity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ vuzman
Required download... :( - 21.0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1blip tv wins by far in clarity and ad-free...ness.
- TKDWILSON, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Because flv is faster and cheaper to stream.
- andrusk, on 10/12/2007, -16/+53Is it fair to say that they all suck equally?
- NeoTechni, on 10/12/2007, -36/+7Yes, why can't we go back to quicktime or windows media?
- pcgeek101, on 10/12/2007, -5/+72What's wrong with them? The ability to play video easily in a browser through Flash is great ... it beats an embedded Windows Media Player ActiveX object
- Woofcat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28@NeoTechni
Because Linux hates Windows, and quicktime blows. Also Flash is way more platform independent. - djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20they do all suck equally. however it's funny that the initial image for msn's soapbox is really sharp, but as soon as you start the vid, it drops down to the same resolution as the rest of the vids.
- stuartjmoore, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8This is online, embedded, fast video. qt and wm suck for that. If you want to download HD content, go for qt or wm, but for lots of applications flv is the best.
Actually, the best option is to have flv to view online, and avi to download and watch on a real TV. - karamba_kid, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4I'm with you. I can't stand flash. http://cryptome.org/macromedia-sec.htm
- badriram, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3Well flash is wonderful for cross platform purposes and all, however I would still rather deal with quicktime/ Windows media option. THE reasons has to be that
I want be able fullscreen videos if i want,
the controls are the same and everyone does not reinvent,
flash is annoying because people use it ads so i would rather block flash, and keep videos plugins
Flash uses an obscene amount of processing power for no apparent reason - GuyHitByTruck, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Theora FTW!
- carapi, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3GuyHitByTruck...even on Digg which is about 3 months behind the times, FTW has been out for a LONG time.
You may want to try Myspace. It is more your level of intelligence. There everyone uses inane acronyms WELL past the time when anyone considerde them clever. - cosequin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The quality sucks because they are all re-encoded.
You can't get a lossless download of the original. - Ahnteis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Err.. quicktime doesn't allow fullscreen unless you pay for the pro version.
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Err.. quicktime doesn't allow fullscreen unless you pay for the pro version."
iTunes, which is pretty much how Quicktime is distributed these days anyway, will do Full Screen video without Pro. - whiskeysquared, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6People are constantly griping about flash video all the time, but I really don't understand why. It's fast to load, plays well and does what I want. Can't say the same for windows media player embedded vids. And quicktime, while it is nice looking video, takes a while to load. Is there really a huge demand to watch all of those quick clips full screen?
- adragons, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I agree, which is why we should all try to use divx :S It is by far the fastest loading one i've seen. (Good for you if you've seen faster)
- zoom1928, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2whiskeysquared, are you serious or just trolling? You don't understand why people complain about that proprietary Flash garbage? At work we spend about half our time with tech support talking people through downloading and installing Flash so the idiot masses can watch their lame videos. Of course that only works for about 1/3 of our users because most of them are smart enough to not use Windows. For 2/3 of them Flash does not work. So people correctly complain because Flash does not work without a lot of work or because it simply doesn't work at all. What is it you don't understand?
- LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Full Screen Flash Video is in the works...the newest beta version of Flash 9 added support for it. However, I've messed around with it, and it is still a little ways off. It doesn't play nicely with IE6 or IE7 for that matter (actually it doesn't work at all yet). But with FireFox it works exceptionally well. Also, it's sorta limited right now due to security restrictions. It works really well with video, but for say, a website, you can't click any buttons within a full screen flash file.
- whiskeysquared, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@zoom1928
I'm completely serious. I can't speak for how guys in tech support feel about the issue, but I run windows and linux machines, and I've had zero problems with flash. Maybe there's a steep learning curve I didn't get the memo about, but in my own personal experience, WMP and QT are troublesome. Again, I state that it's fast, lightweight and effective.
- ahill7, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6In my opinion, I'd have to say MetaCafe is lame and that I'll gladly avoid SoapBox as well.
That been said, its good that someone put together a nice comparison like this.- NeoTechni, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I dunno, soapbox loaded fastest for me
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6bury
- Dustyb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Soapbox loaded fastest for me too, and it seems to be the best quality. But you can't beat the non-intrusive gui of daily motion's player.
- duffman03, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Meta cafe accepts more content. Like boobies.
But rating the actual player itself I may have to go with Vimeo, only because it has more "checkpoints" where you can drag yourself to on the video time line. it allows you to rewind to a more precise point than any of the other video players. - Scatropolis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1umm....nevermind
- Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's hard to tell differences in quality, but some certainly take longer to load: a major factor in my opinion of embedded videos.
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Doesn't that really depend on server quality?
In my opinion i like Google video, their player allows you to click on parts of the video that haven't loaded yet and buffers from that point on, and unlike you tube, you don't need to rebuffer a new video if you decide to go full screen. - Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Plus Google allows you to download as iPod format, a big plus. Too bad they have the crappiest video service, the Google video player had so much potential.
P.S. I made another reply because i For some reason wans allowed to edit my last post. - Scatropolis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2and I've got that javascript bookmark that allows me to save the source avi of any google video.
- nubbler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Scatropolis
mind sharing that? - Namain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Firefox has many extensions for the same purpose. Ook? Video Ook! and Video Downloader are just 2 of them. Plus these are able to download from most other web based players to boot.
but here is the google video bookmark Scatropolis was talking about:
javascript:if(document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')!=null){window.location.href=document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')}else{alert('Go to Google Video to download videos as AVI.')}; - Scatropolis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1javascript:if(document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')!=null){window.location.href=document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')}else{alert('Go to Google Video to download videos as AVI.')};
Bookmark that and whenever you're at a google video page it will download the video playing...
Oh Namain got it. Well now you have a choice... :D
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Doesn't that really depend on server quality?
- xenonflash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Yeah, Google Video is my favorite player. Revver is nice too. Youtube is ok...
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11The ultimate combination would be Youtube service, with the Google video player. Its possible, too, because Google bought Youtube. I don't know why its not implemented, though.
- flamingmb, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2god why cant people just use quicktime, so much better and easier.
- Anand999, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Because 1.) Quicktime, on Windows at least, is a turd and 2.) it's not even available for Linux.
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6@flmaingmb
Because full-screen isnt worth 30 bucks - crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I think he meant the format, not the actual software. If you don't like Quicktime, there's always VLC.
- ministewy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"Because full-screen isnt worth 30 bucks"
some people actually paid the $30??....
yikes - tarkam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You can watch quicktime files in fullscreen without shelling out the $30, just import into itunes (which most people have since its bundled with quicktime) and from there you can easily watch quicktime filles in fullcreen mode for free.
- SSYe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Revver took the longest to load, so it sucks. The player which had an ad at the end sucks too. YouTube is great but i don't like it because I'm me. Soapbox... not really. None of them are really THAT good but i favor MetaCafe. Google video compresses it a bit more than others...
- sovietmedia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Revver has an ad on the end so that video producer can earn money from clicks. Personally I admire a website that's willing to not only provide free online content storage, but share revenue with the content creator.
blip.tv apparently does this too. These two are the only two (to my knowledge) that provide viable revenue generation for content providers, others require the video to be watched something ridiculous like 20,000 times before it starts even tallying toward earning money.
- sovietmedia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Revver has an ad on the end so that video producer can earn money from clicks. Personally I admire a website that's willing to not only provide free online content storage, but share revenue with the content creator.
- Broelke4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Google and Revver FTW.
Youtube is ok because of it's proliferation of most of the internet; it's not a big surprise when it comes up. - AnotherName, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i am anxious for this issue to become a widespread demand of the general public.
free high quality streaming video will come, it's just a matter of how soon, mang! - Urgo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1From that page, I liked Blip.tv, Vimeo, and Google Video the best in that order mainly because of the seek feature. I really hate how youtube doesn't let you fast forward unless its already buffered. Some of the other players on that page supported that, but I think these three supported the it the best, and worked the best all around.
Personally though, I still prefer an embedded WMP so I can full screen it as its playing by double clicking the video... - tikistyle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Check out some of the technology behind all this. http://www.on2.com
- dimension89, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1im gonna get dugg down in 3..2..
"hey kids! let's make a song about dupes! dupe du-du-dupe du-du-dupe dupe dupe.."
ok nvm i tried too hard :) its also late and i need to be sleeping
but really ive seen this before..- blackbookdesign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i didn't... am i a dupe for being in australia and catching my rss stream too late?
Can't wait to come back in canada and eventually become so much up to date with everything!
(* please you can surely denote a tone in this post)
Learners need to have it repeated...
- blackbookdesign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i didn't... am i a dupe for being in australia and catching my rss stream too late?
- davidleeroth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Xtube anyone?
- jsleno, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Good One!
I'd be interested in finding out the types of content that each service will/won't accept. Sort of like, what will YouTube accept that MSN won't, or what will xtube accept that pornotube won't, etc. Does anyone have a link to such a comparison? - FantomCircuit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0mmmmm, porkolt.
- jsleno, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Good One!
- Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I like Soapbox the best....Started playing faster than most and shows information on the video in the nav bar.
- blackbookdesign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1started faster, means smaller traffic or bigger compression.
Smaller traffic means no a huge collection of video.
Maybe we should keep it as a secret....
- blackbookdesign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1started faster, means smaller traffic or bigger compression.
- olik, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I find blip.tv to be the best. No stalling, good quality, and unintrusive player. Next would be myheavy, second only for its intrusive player.
The worst was soapbox (didn't even work), then vimo which was choppy, then google. - fenixconnektion, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3The Soapbox player seems aesthetically nice to me. I really like how the video information is displayed...it's both elegant and functional. I just hate the big Soapbox watermark in the top right corner and the minor buffering issues that it has.
When starting and stopping the players at specific points, the only one to jam on me was the Youtube player.
If I had to choose three, I would choose Soapbox, Metacafe, and Google Video for a balance in quality and ease of use. - MrHammer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Blip.tv is really good, and I encourage people to consider using it. You can upload to .flv as well as .wmv, which is really interesting and useful. However, when you upload to a .wmv, it's quality is really really crisp. Go try it out for yourself.
- eesser, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Actually it looks to me like the google player has the worst video quality. I was quite surprised at how soft the video looked. I didn't read the links in the comments about about how this stuff works on the back-end, however my understanding is that every one of these hosts transcodes whatever video you upload into their standard settings for streaming (or wrapping into flash, or whatever). So, it seems like there are really three separate issues: quality of the transcoding, quality of the streaming (speed mostly?), and quality of the player itself (visual, controls, etc).
I was surprised that I like soapbox (because I've never heard of it, and becuase it's an MSN thing). - Danl, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1it looks to me like a tie between the first 3 (minus Google video) quality and frame rate wise. In my opinion, though, YouTube still seems to be the best, it has the least intrusive bars and buttons WHILE the video is playing and has really good quality.
- logicalnoise, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4out of them all metacafe is the only one I have problems with. No matter what vid it always stutters when it plays. I'm running firefox 2.0 with the latest flash version and I'm still having trouble with their crap site.
- Spo8, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1MetaCafe wins as far as I'm concerned. Slick interface and you don't have to do anything extra to grab the embedding code.
- Wavey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1YouTube, Metacafe, Soapbox, and MyHeavy all have watermarks.
Metacafe and MyHeavy have too big of a control area on the bottom, which makes the actual video "feel" smaller to me.
Revver takes too long to load and has an annoying ad at the end.
Vimeo's UI is godawful.
Blip has trouble with its slider. It feels like it is fighting me if I try to slide it backwards while the video is running.
So, I guess it's Google Video for the win. No watermarks, nice simple interface, loads pretty quickly, and video/sound quality is on par with the others.- tomeitel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i agree the water marks are a drag and google video plain rocks they even let you use the player to do what you want with it even download it with out some plugin.
- debuggercll, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I liked Vimeo the best. Google came in second.
- GodsHand, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Revver has the best quality.
- corevette, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@neotechni - obviously you've never tried soapbox under linux, because it doesn't even show up. blip.tv, myheavy, google video, and youtube are the only ones for me that work on linux. i'm sure the others would if i had flash 8/9 installed.
- TiE23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In general it seems like Google is the best all around, with Revver having the best video and sound. YouTube seems to take the cake with having the worst quality.
- Daiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think without a doubt, the best player out there is stage6. It's super high quality. Only issue is it's a bit slow to buffer large files. You can even embed, but it's a bit tougher to do with it, but it can be done using the following link.
http://labs.divx.com/WebPlayerCodeGenerator - andrew.bell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is there anyway to have a dynamic embedded Google Video? I want to embed my latest video. Also, can you put a link on an embedded google video?
- darshil, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Soapbox looks like the best thing Microsoft has done after DOS
- andrew.bell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can customize the layout of the Google videos. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/11/customize-embedded-google-video-player.html
- eatdjorange, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0a more in depth review for best quality would require:
input/uploading:
what video compression was used when uploading?
i find that divx work best with google video, the reason why other compression fail sound syncing and frame rate distortion is because the video server (FLV) actually frame server every video upon upload and resync with sound. so if you have a web ready video ready to upload the bit rate and frame rate are variable VBR as appose to constant CBR thats how the sound sync and distortion problem come in when the server break it down into frames and then re-encode to FLV.
output/viewing:
data bit rate?
150kbps - sorenson is common on youtube which is ***** quality. I wonder what's the bit rate for the other. if they only would upgrade and uses VP6 codec supported only in flash8 higher quality at lower bit rate all these stupid Sorenson codec problem would go away but then not everyone has flash player8 and to automate VP6 tools aren't out there someone would have to write them also.
conclusion: I would rather see data and number than the actual stupid embed they all look the same after a while.- tikistyle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1check out flix by http://www.on2.com. They're the power behind Flash 8.
- agent42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0SG-1 (or whoever is responsible for the test) -
I'd like you to send me your high res copy of the video. My website can actually stream flash8 (VP6) at up to 2000kbps and do real fullscreen on it too, thanks to a Directshow filter. Right now my website uses an embedded WMV/ActiveX player (its a gaming site, caters to the Windows users) - but I'd gladly slap a flash player up to see the comparison. No, I am not joking. You'll have to look up my website in my profile, since I'd rather not spam it. - spargett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think Vimeo was the best hands down. Clean, simple, great interface, and I really liked the quality and personality of the service.
Some of the other sites give you some pretty gnarly artifacts when they encode into flash. yuk. - distrbnce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Revver looks the best to me, pretty clearly.
- alexpigment, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3STAGE6 (divx's official page). hands down.
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2stage6 requires the user to download yet another plugin. Just about everyone already has flash installed.
w/ that said, quality is definitely awesome.
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2stage6 requires the user to download yet another plugin. Just about everyone already has flash installed.
- lukejames, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the subtleties are... subtle. so i can't say so much which has the best quality so much as i can say which have the worst -- so i won't bother. but i will note that google allows you to download as mp4, and that trumps all of the others by a huge margin.
- seaotter02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Revver allows you to download in Quicktime mp4 as well, without the need for a special player. They also pay you for sharing that file (20%) and pay the creator (50% of remainder), so you can use them in podcasts or on p2p networks and still earn money for your work or for sharing others' work.
- DevlinD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Meh they are all pretty much the same, in the battle for online video supremacy there are two main things that matter.
1. How fast does it load?
2. What else can I watch?
Videos that have good algorithms for suggesting alternative content keep the users on the site longer and therefore have a better chance of attracting and raking in more advertising money. YouTube's is the best in my opinion (they also have the best content to offer suggestions from mind you) but they never do it for their streaming videos. Once they integrate advertising into these streams Im sure they will though, it only makes sense. They also load quickly along with Google, Soapbox was also fairly fast. - fash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1check out http://flowplayer.sourceforge.net/
FOSS and ad-free - mechanicaltiger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1ummm.... they're all in flash. flash is flash is flash.
- PsychTouch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mmh there was something familiar in that landscape ... then i figured out it's a couple of km far from my house ^_^
- bdc2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I really think that of all of these Flash players, YouTube has the worst video quality.
It should be noted that YouTube is still using Flash 7 < (Sorenson Video Codec) to encode their videos! Most of the other sites are using the latest Flash 8 > On2 Codec.
1.6b for Flash 7 video.... geeezz get with it guys.
I think Soapbox and Vimeo have the best quality video.- barcode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I commend YouTube for this, it means that it works on my Linux machine, the Flash 9 Player for Linux still has many issues.
- daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it's obvious many sacrifice some quality for less bandwidth and cpu usage.
- richms, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I dont get how people can say that there is nothing wrong with flash video.
It doesnt use overlays, so when "fullscreened" it lags badly as it stretches the 2" video to fullscreen in software, and loads of tearing since the player doesnt seem to support vsync.
I much prefer the embedded windows media player to these flash ones.- daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the embedded windows media player needs 'windows'.
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like rever only because I found out they actually pay you. Cool aspect. Otherwise, probably would stick to youtube just for the fact they have a huge community... for now.
- storstygg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Huge community? Most of them are fetish communities... I think most people just watch videos and scram.
- Erroneus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1DivX people!
The more who use it, the more spread their plugin will be. Lets make it a "standard" like flash :) - rasman1978, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you use Wordpress, nothing's easier than this Revver plugin.
http://digg.com/software/Revver_Wordpress_Plugin - Doomhammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What I wonder is why don't any sites just let me download the damned movie ?! I hate *all* embedded video players. ActiveX objects and the such don't work under Linux, and don't even work *well* under Windows. Flash would be alright, except for the complete lack of full-screen-ability, and also the fact that they haven't released a new version for Linux in a VERY long time (isn't the latest stable Linux Flash player still 7 ?!)
However, if they would just let me download the damned thing, then I could play it in whatever player I want, when I want, etc. - JazzAddict, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Audio not good enough to make a comparison. They should have uploaded a music video.
- storstygg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I like all the little features the MyHeavy player has.
Otherwise... they all suck!
We can land a man on the moon... but can't stream good video. ack! - yonas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Flash. Period.
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