Sharing video with family

[mcl82]

Hello,

I have started making videos of family events (mixture of photos and HD video) and want to share it with family members. As I get more into it, I am finding that iCloud (which I use to share photos) does not meet my needs on video. It is limited to 5 minute videos at 720p. I would like something up to 10 minutes or so and in full HD.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a service that would allow me to share full HD videos of up to 10 minutes privately with just a few family members? I don’t mind paying for such a service, but I would only use it occasionally (perhaps once per month or so, based on my current rate of producing these things).

I am assuming I need some kind of service like Vimeo or YouTube, but maybe I am thinking about this wrong. I suppose I just need to share the file so that family members can open and play it - i.e., they don’t really need to stream it. But it would be a big file and more than any email could handle.

Any ideas or advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks.

 

[Boyd01]

I have been very happy with Vimeo for this. The free account is fine for many purposes, but I have "Vimeo Plus" which costs $7/month with a 12 month subscription. This gives you more storage and allows you to create private links that are the only way to view your video. These links work for anyone, regardless of whether or not they have a Vimeo account. You have a variety of further configuration options, such as allowing downloads or streaming only.

Generally speaking, I've been pleased with the quality of the videos (and I shoot with a pro camera) and they seem to be tailored to the device you're using and your connection speed. They stream well on my iPhone over LTE, also worked well when I had a very slow (sub megabit) DSL connection. I now have 150/150 FIOS and can upload a one gigabyte video in less than a minute.

 

[mcl82]

Many thanks.

 

[BeechFlyer]

I'd try YouTube, just because it's free regardless of size and quality of your videos. When you upload, you can specify who can see it: anybody (public), only people that have the right URL/link, or a private group.

Vimeo is a higher-quality option, but it costs money except for the most basic version.

 

[Boyd01]

I see lots of complaints that YouTube will disable or flag your video if there is any question of copyright issues - even with private video not available for public viewing. For example, if you film somewhere and recorded music is playing in the background it could be a problem. No personal experience with this however, I stopped using Youtube long ago.

 

[BeechFlyer]

I see lots of complaints that YouTube will disable or flag your video if there is any question of copyright issues - even with private video not available for public viewing.

Yes, that can happen, though in most markets (read: geographic areas) all that means is YouTube will play an ad before playing your video. I understand that is sometimes not desirable, and then Vimeo is probably what I'd use.

 

[mcl82]

Thanks for the responses very helpful.

 

[ColdCase]

If you want to be free of restrictions or have 100+GBs in video or 3GB+ video files to share, another alternative is to create a private web page on a server host you rent or own. A lot harder than Vimeo or YouTube, but you have much fewer constraints (a 60 minute HD home movie for example).

Perhaps not the best for your use case, but is perhaps the ultimate alternative.

10-15 years ago there wasn't any other choice I think.

 

[Fishrrman]

Try Microsoft's "one drive":
https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/plans/

Register for free, you get 5gb.
If you pay $1.99 per month, you can get 50gb (probably not necessary in your case).

I upload completed videos, and then get a "public URL" for that particular file that I can give to others.
Works with pics, files, etc.

 

[Boyd01]

another alternative is to create a private web page on a server host you rent or own.

I have three different personal sites hosted at two different providers that I use for various things. One of them has unlimited storage and bandwidth. But Vimeo is much faster which I assume is because their infrastructure was designed to support video.

I have also used my free dropbox account for video and that seemed to work fine.

 

[ColdCase]

Yeah, lots of variables. Its been awhile since I've been shopping. I think that, to get decent HD video streaming, one needs a dedicated host, rented or owned, not a host thats shared. I get good performance from the one hosted on a mini I own thats parked on my business internet service as long as there are only two or three users streaming from it. But that approach is certainly not for everyone.

I recently "upgraded" one of my host plans to an unlimited service. That seems to have slowed connection speed down noticeably, especially uploads.