It took 2 seconds to load give or take a second. It took 3:40 for 7:32 video to load so it buffered a little faster than 2x real time for me.

any ideas? I just tested my download speeds for the hell of it and they are just fine. Something stupid is going on since it seems to be completely random as to who can or can not download from youtube fast.

EDIT: exact same video on vimeo fully loaded in 1:39 for me just now.

http://www.vimeo.com/2525899

Your Vimeo version took :44 to buffer for me. It's certainly faster but it's a much smaller frame size than the YouTube version. YouTube is actually using a higher data rate which would take it longer to buffer.

There may well be Internet path issues affecting some areas.

Thanks Craig, you know, on Xbox360 games my lag out here is always worse than my buddies some of whom are in the same city! Maybe it is a location thing.

EDIT: oh and I forgot to mention, all the standard def videos, no matter how big they are on yuotube, load super fast. Only the HD videos come to a stand still.

Funny thing is, it's not even HD, it's just standard def...

But people are so used to garbage resolutions and bit-rates, this is a big upgrade... enough that Youtube can get away with calling it HD... =/

Don't be fooled by the YouTube playback window. It's HD. Expand to full screen. People who've captured YouTube HD have found it to be 1280x720 VBR encode with an average of 2000kbps and peaks near 4000kbps. Vimeo, btw seems to be CBR at about 1800kbps.

Youtube's HD seems to be even bigger now! :O End of Vimeo?

I don't think people are going to move away from Vimeo, and if they do, it'll be a small amount. I think people that use Vimeo are going to stay loyal simply due to the fact that many members there have established friendships and, in some cases, partnerships. You might see some move to Youtube for quality purposes, or whatever, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that Vimeo is going under.

Vimeo doesn't have a sustainable business model at the moment. They are depending on $60/year subscriptions but the playback quality is worse than YouTube because of their self imposed frame rate issue. They limit uploads to 2GB per week whereas YouTube has no limit. On these two points YouTube is both Free and Better.

Vimeo's target seems to be the creative filmmaker but creative filmmaker shooting at anything other than 24p will have dropped frames. All you have to do is look at some of the very long threads about YouTube.

In short some will not pay $60/year and anybody outside of USA CAN NOT pay $60/year even if they wanted too.

Vimeo has already stated they can't survive on free accounts with ad based revenue.

From "the other end" there's ExposureRoom which is completely free and has no weekly limits too.

You are probably right, however, I believe Vimeo will now see a slow down in NEW users. With YouTube giving folks what they want, they are much less likely to search around for an alternative (which is the only reason I found Vimeo in the first place).

Youtube still has 10min time limit.
Since you mentioned Vimeo - I think the best advantage of Vimeo is the community and the quality of material. I've seen many really great films on Vimeo, very few on Youtube - if they are there, they're burried in garbage.

right after youtube finished maintenance yesterday it worked fine for the rest of the night. All videos loading fast... today... right back to the stand still.. LOL

Good to hear you're getting good playback again on YouTube.

The thing about Vimeo, although I love the community that's not significant to the people I show my uploaded video to. I'm not targeting the Vimeo community, I'm targeting clients, potential clients, showing work of artistic merit to people outside the Vimeo community.

After hearing those people respond with "It looks jittery, is it the way you shot it?" That's NOT what I want to present to the outside world. Not only does YouTube play back in the native frame rate of the uploaded file, it now plays at 1280x720 frame size.

People complain about the comments on YouTube but you can put any video comment area on moderate or completely off.

I do like the fact that Vimeo has password protection as some people I shoot for want to have control over who sees it. I also like the ability to download the source since, in some cases, I want the video to be available as a source for others. And yes, I like the fact that you can upload more than 10 minutes.

So for those features I'll put a specific video up an Vimeo as long as it's no more than 1 HD video a week. Everything else can go on YouTube.

Certainly if I want peer response I can put something on Vimeo but it becomes a very closed community if that's the primary purpose. If I need to show good 720p30 video to the public, YouTube seems better.

Keep in mind ExposureRoom doesn't have a 10 minute limit and also has password protection and there's no GB per week limit either. Who knows what their business model is though.