I do my editing in Premiere CS5 and export using H264 VBR of 7Mbps. Everything looks great locally but when I upload to Youtube or Vimeo the video is MUCH darker. Other than making the video brighter, is this a issue with those services when they process the video? Or is there a setting on export that I should be using to prevent it from getting crushed.

If you dig thru their site you should be able to find the spec that they actually use online.
If you output to the same spec, that should be your best shot at fidelity.
However, I have often noticed small differences in appearance anyway between Vimo, etc., and what I get if I publish the file to my own website. I'm not sure what accounts for that.

yeah, I'm just curious what they do in the conversion process that seem to crush blacks or lower the exposure overall.

Are you using the Vimeo and/or YouTube export presets built into Premiere? That's what I use and they come out perfectly.

More or less. I use them but change the files resolution from 720p to 1080p. That's really it.

Does the same problem occur when you accept the default 720? Are you a "Plus" member? If not, you can only display at 720 so they're downscaling and your NLE will likely do a better job... no point in encoding at 1080. Also they recommend about 5Mbps, not 7, so that might be an issue. Will try and let you know.

Are you using the Vimeo and/or YouTube export presets built into Premiere? That's what I use and they come out perfectly.

That's choice!
I'm one of those guys who updates his software, but not his brain.
I need to look around a bit more.

Yeah, my first video encode with CS5, I was flipping back and forth between Vimeo and Premiere, tweaking everything just so, and then after about fifteen minutes I saw the preset in the dropdown list.

Oh. Um, okay.

But Brant brings up an interesting issue. I'm trying a 1080 encode now and will throw it up on Vimeo to see if I experience the same darkening issue.

Edit: Video encoded at the higher bitrate and resolution looks identical to previous (720p, 5Mbps) version, so that tells me a) it isn't that that's causing your problem, and b) there's no point in doing it.

Are you on a Mac? If so, you might be using Gamma 1.8 whereas it is 2.2 everywhere else.

Do you have a 'Plus' Vimeo account? If so, give us the link to the video and check the video's settings to allow other people to download the original clip. I have a Plus account so I can download it and check it. You can also download the original clip from Vimeo and see if it is different from what Vimeo is playing back.

Are you on a Mac? If so, you might be using Gamma 1.8 whereas it is 2.2 everywhere else.

Do you have a 'Plus' Vimeo account? If so, give us the link to the video and check the video's settings to allow other people to download the original clip. I have a Plus account so I can download it and check it. You can also download the original clip from Vimeo and see if it is different from what Vimeo is playing back.

I'm on a PC. I do have a Vimeo Plus account. I'll need to put up a new video tonight. All the video I put up there I decreased the contrast so they didn't get crushed.