Buzvia Blog

I am a man of many hats, one of which is a wood model building site called WoodMarvels.com. A thing that has been on my mind since its conception was showing people how to build their own Wood Marvel using not only a digital step-by-step guide but also a 3D animation. We are visual creatures and the more ways we can see something coming together from different perspectives, the better.

Youtube video quality frustrations!

After wasting a few days uploading, deleting and re-uploading animations using different codecs, compression ratios and even re-rendering a few files at different resolutions, I gave up on youtube. The quality of the work that I upload is pretty decent but it looks like regurgitated shit by the time their servers are done compressing them. Sure it loads fast but in between the uploading “failure”, the slow user interface and the horrendous feedback mechanisms (of which there are none)… they lost my business. I read a number of forums to try to find a simple solution to this quandary, searched the internet far and wide to see what other video professionals do. You see, I want to release 3D animations my company produces to help people make the models as easily as possible and to help promote my site but all I could find was shared frustrations. A few producers got so sick of it that they migrated all their work to Revver.com so I decided to give these guys a try.

Revver: What internet video sharing SHOULD be

I swear, Revver is an oasis in the middle of a desert of frustration! These guys know what people who care about quality, monetizing and promotion want… man do they ever deliver!

Quality Control

Most importantly, the quality of the site blows youtube away! Each video is reviewed by a person which slows down the approval process but unlike youtube, this leads to a site that is free of most of the video junk pollution. The quality of the compression they use is second to none, there is room for improvement but compared to youtube, it’s like comparing the audio quality between an 8-track player and a Bluray disk. In the blog picture for this post I have a side by side comparison, it doesn’t do the difference justice. On the Revver side, you can clearly see relatively sharp lines, wood grain and shadow gradients, on the youtube side, you see something resembling a masterpiece if seen through the eyes of a 90 year old man. One more thing, you get an e-mail once a video is approved… a nice feature that saves lots of time.

Monetizing

I actually feel into this by accident, I wasn’t looking for a way to monetize my work, that isn’t what motivates me but it sure is nice to have a company that actually provides a baked in solution towards receiving just compensation. Google has introduced this in their videos after youtube was acquired but it’s nowhere near the ease of use that Revver provides. These guys won my business with video quality and this is just icing on the cake!

Promotion

Here is where youtube fails miserably, Revver actually has a wordpress plugin that not only shows video stats, uploads and monetizing but it works seamlessly within my blogs! This is a HUGE… ENORMOUS even compared to the archaic methods employed by youtube so far. I haven’t even mentioned the video response system and a host of other features… these guys rock!

What I don’t like about Revver

They share half the revenues from my work, that’s fine, but no mention of sharing half the revenue from the 3 google text banners that surround my video… my guess is those are NOT shared revenue streams. I can’t bitch about it, I am guessing this is their only source of revenue other then videos but it would be nice to profit from my work in the same way across the board. Other then this, they are by far better then youtube in every way except one, exposure and traffic… but, I consider this my job anyhow Another thing, Revver just isn’t a name that is easy to remember, I keep typing in Revvit or other deviations, youtube spells as it’s said, Revver isn’t… I would suggest they get a new name.

(Update January 5th, 2008)

I got an e-mail reply back from Revver when I asked them for their corporate video embed code, here it is! By the way, the name of the song is “Twisted Sister” by Kinky.

The Bottom Line

Quality always wins over quantity except when it comes to money.

Buzvia: Youtube, Revver Video Sharing Network