Vimeo introduces "storage limit" for free accounts (5GB max for all videos)

[puredrifting]

Have had Vimeo Pro for two years. No complaints. The ability for clients to add notes to the review page alone is worth the money for me. We use it a lot for collaborative workflows with clients. No complaints. YouTube is amateur hour for clients.

 

[TheTrickster]

Just got this email:

"Supporting our community of creators is, and has always been, our top priority. As we invest in more tools to help our creators — and continue to be an ad-free service that relies on member support instead of ad revenue — we have to adjust what we offer for free (like storage, which, between transcoding and hosting, is pretty expensive).

This is to let you know that starting January 29, we’re introducing a 5GB total storage limit for Basic members. You’re currently 2.35GB over the limit. You won’t lose any of your current videos, but you won’t be able to upload more videos until you either upgrade your membership or free up some space on your account."

[snip]

Are you happy with Vimeo and their services?

I had the same email, and having a free account for a few years, I moved to YouTube and my vimeo went dormant, but with the onslaught of the ads. I took up their option today to save 30% and go Plus and I'm going to migrate off youtube back to Vimeo.

Happy so far

 

[Oller Visuals]

Three or four years ago, Vimeo's image quality was clearly better than YouTube's. But then YouTube improved their codecs and bitrates, and Vimeo was still looking like 720p to me. Many of you say it's got better image quality than YT right now, but I wouldn't know, I just left the platform at some point.

When I got the email from Vimeo, my first thought was "damn I have to upload my new stuff to Vimeo, I always forget" but then I read the email and well, it seems I just won't upload anything new there.

Yes, what Vimeo gives us is amazing. But they don't live in a vacuum, YT also gives us something amazing, and it's not just free, they actually pay me for the privilege of showing my videos to people. All while bringing me an audience that I just can't reach on Vimeo.

In any case, I understand I have a very different perspective on this, because I'm not trying to reach clients, I'm trying to reach an audience, and the audience is on YT. My videos are about to reach 5 million views on YouTube, whereas on Vimeo they are still at around 150k. It's true that the audience at Vimeo is of much higher quality: professionals that will give you valuable feedback, and clients that may hire you. But the size difference is just killing Vimeo for me: four years ago, I was getting more paying customers on Vimeo than on YouTube, but that has changed completely, YT is also king for this right now, just because it reaches so many people. At least for me. YMMV.

At least one other person here feeling the same way as I do about Vimeo.

Also seem to be lots of biased hate towards YouTube here for no other reason than that Vimeo is somehow "higher quality audience".... really?

You probably get feedback from others like yourself easier (ie filmmakers), but what's the point with that?

Also in my experience clients don't prefer Vimeo, many of them have never heard of the site before and might even ask why my stuff isn't on YouTube. Which it hasn't been for years, because I used to love Vimeo. But with this massive freebie restriction and also seeing these defensive comments that Vimeo should remove free accounts all together etc... honestly, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Really? Why so defensive? My criticism against this new restriction seem completely alien and unfair to you?

I remember Philip Bloom joking about YouTube... then he started a channel, and a few years down the road he seems to have realized the power of the platform. I used to hate on YT as well. For what reason? "Oh you know, Youtube..." Yeah, what about it? It's great. Only thing I miss is password protected videos.

I login with my google account and BOOM list of all channels comes up... easily switch on the fly, different channels for different audiences... and it's is so big now, that there is a de facto niche audience for EVERYTHING... if you tag your videos right and post your YT videos in the right social media channels you get filmmakers looking at your stuff, the SAME people that hang out on Vimeo... If that's what you want?

Like I said in my initial post, I see Vimeo in a similar position as DeviantArt. Both brands are in some kind of identity crisis, unable to keep up with changes and doing too little too late (and making the wrong decisions). No I don't hate Vimeo. But introducing a 5GB restriction is a BIG BIG thing, don't pretend otherwise. And no, they should not try to compete with YouTube (because they can't), but they should be able to apply a good enough business model so that free accounts still has a purpose.

Otherwise, Vimeo will just become more and more niche in an attempt to preserve its core audience, unable to see the big picture and adapting bold new ideas. Because a 5GB restriction sure isn't a bold new idea... is a desperate move.

 

[TheDingo]

But introducing a 5GB restriction is a BIG BIG thing, don't pretend otherwise.

...But you're talking about a FREE account that you paid nothing for. If Vimeo doesn't turn your crank then you can switch over to YouTube any time you like.

As I stated previously, I think Vimeo produces a better looking image, and has features like password protection that I can use to showcase videos for potential clients. In the corporate world you often produce work for clients that is not made for public consumption, not because it's porn or something seedy, but because it features corporate IP that you don't own, but you may be allowed to show small portions of it in a limited way. Ideally you would like to show your work in person on a good laptop, but often this is not possible, so having a platform where you can grant limited access to this footage via the web is a very useful feature to have.

 

[stoneinapond]

I also find that in general, the people commenting are a little more, should I say, "restrained"?

 

[groveChuck]

At least one other person here feeling the same way as I do about Vimeo.

Also seem to be lots of biased hate towards YouTube

There's no hate, nor bias, just different opinions and different needs.

Samuel uses YT for monetization and finds YT quality slightly better (in his case). I've never had a client complain about Vimeo.
I got the message from YT that India quotes and said "well, there goes any possibility anything I post on YT will make money. Shrug".
Different strokes for different folks, that's all...

 

[Jaime Valles]

90% of my uploads to Vimeo are password protected for my clients. I shoot lots of theater workshops and readings for potential investors, and those videos are only for internal use by the producers of the shows. They send the links to investors with a 5-day viewing window, then I change the password and they can't see it anymore. Vimeo Pro is the easiest, most cost-effective way I've found to do that. Not to mention, I like Vimeo's video quality better than Youtube.

Vimeo certainly isn't perfect. I HATE that I can't force 1080p playback for my clients nowadays like I used to. And Youtube's instant playback is much smoother than Vimeo's. But the password protection, ability to replace video files, and the review pages make Vimeo Pro essential for my work.

 

[Cary Knoop]

90% of my uploads to Vimeo are password protected for my clients. I shoot lots of theater workshops and readings for potential investors, and those videos are only for internal use by the producers of the shows. They send the links to investors with a 5-day viewing window, then I change the password and they can't see it anymore. Vimeo Pro is the easiest, most cost-effective way I've found to do that. Not to mention, I like Vimeo's video quality better than Youtube.

Vimeo certainly isn't perfect. I HATE that I can't force 1080p playback for my clients nowadays like I used to. And Youtube's instant playback is much smoother than Vimeo's. But the password protection, ability to replace video files, and the review pages make Vimeo Pro essential for my work.

YouTube has the ability to make unlisted videos, effectively the link is the password.
Without the link no one would be able to find the video.

 

[TheDingo]

YouTube has the ability to make unlisted videos, effectively the link is the password.
Without the link no one would be able to find the video.

...But you can't disable and then re-enable the unlisted video at a different URL without deleting and re-uploading the video again. With Vimeo's password system you don't have delete or re-upload the video to stop one user from accessing the content and then granting a different user the ability to see the content. You can also give the user the password over the phone, where I would not want to give the user the YouTube URL over the phone. And as mentioned previously, you can upload a new version of your video to the unchanging Vimeo URL, which is currently not possible with YouTube.

 

[groveChuck]

YouTube has the ability to make unlisted videos, effectively the link is the password.
Without the link no one would be able to find the video.

True, but you can't change a YT link like you can change a Vimeo PW (in Pro or Plus).
Edit: oops, cross-posted with Dingo.

 

[Shenan]

I used to use Vimeo (both upload and watch other people's work) a few years ago. I really don't produce/publish much, but unfortunately like the 2nd time I uploaded a video that I wanted to make public I ran into a technical problem with Vimeo - AV synch was off on Vimeo on a file that was fine locally. I re-rendered many times, uploaded several times (including short clips), worked with their support for a while, but was never able to fix it so I had to give up and publish it on Youtube instead. :\ Ever since then I just by default uploaded my work to Youtube instead. Maybe I'll give Vimeo a try again given the mostly positive reviews here. I do like the crowd and "ambience" better over there.

I just tried to do a search for Vimeo sync issues and found many threads on their forum about it, but it seems that they have shut down their forum. You can still read the old threads through Google search result cached pages. The old threads do seem to be around the same time frame when I had the issue a few years ago (mid-2014), so perhaps they eventually resolved the issue.

 

[Ryan Farnes]

I've not been a fan of vimeo for a long, long time. Years ago, they seemed to have the clunkiest of players. Years later, nothing has changed. Your mileage may have varied from mine...but I've accessed and used Vimeo since 2009 or 2010. It just seems, well, clunky. The player doesn't respond, or the stream freezes while loading. The mobile version of their site is almost unusable at times, even today in 2018.

YouTube has innovated exceptionally well in my opinion. For paid presentation of work? Wistia all the way.

 

[Samuel H]

I think it's clear by now: Vimeo is best for interacting with clients (and then you're making money so it's OK that they make you pay for their service), YouTube is best for reaching an audience (and you're providing them content so you should get money out of it). Different needs, different tools. No point in comparing hammers and screwdrivers, you either have a nail or a screw.

 

[Jaime Valles]

i think it's clear by now: Vimeo is best for interacting with clients (and then you're making money so it's ok that they make you pay for their service), youtube is best for reaching an audience (and you're providing them content so you should get money out of it). Different needs, different tools. No point in comparing hammers and screwdrivers, you either have a nail or a screw.

bingo

 

[jimagine]

I think it's clear by now: Vimeo is best for interacting with clients (and then you're making money so it's OK that they make you pay for their service), YouTube is best for reaching an audience (and you're providing them content so you should get money out of it). Different needs, different tools. No point in comparing hammers and screwdrivers, you either have a nail or a screw.

FWIW, we use Vimeo to preview all of our spots and films for clients. Also. we typically output three versions - uncompressed master, broadcast, vimeo (which is where we also link all of our and clients versions for our websites.)

 

[karma17]

I think this is a bad move on Vimeo's part. I have paid for the service when I needed to upload more than my 500 MB and then cancelled the next month when I didn't need. But then they changed that, so you couldn't buy just a month and had to subscribe for a year. And now this. I have uploaded 17GB and can't upload anything now unless I delete 13 GB or pay for the service. I understand that Vimeo is a business and is considered more professional than You Tube, but I have also had major problems with videos buffering and not streaming smoothly, and this was even when I paid for the service. It seems they basically want you to pay for the service and I suppose for those that perceive value in that, then that's great. But many filmmakers, especially young and students, don't want to pay for something they can get for free elsewhere. There are many fine filmmakers who put their work on You Tube. Oats Studios comes to mind. And if you don't like the ads, you skip most of them. Vimeo is certainly entitled to do whatever they see fit, but it just feels like a noose tightening. I don't see how they can compete against You Tube, especially given the buffering and what now is a forced subscription service. You should be able to buy what you need for your needs, and not forced into a subscription, especially when their videos buffer and freeze more often than not. There is a maxim in business that you need to match the competition, and I just don't see Vimeo doing this. And I fully expect them to eventually say they won't keep hosting content that's over the 5 GB. That's been the pattern, creeping incrementalism into a yearly subscription model that you may or may not need. And the irony of all is they are just taking all this subscription money and running "Vimeo changed my life" ads on You Tube! That should tell you something right there! LOL.

 

[karma17]

Vimeo only partially markets itself as a high-end format for displaying videos. They primarily market as a community for filmmakers.

 

[karma17]

@Oller Visuals

Completely agree. This reminds me of a business that decides to make customers start paying for parking and then wondering why customers are going somewhere else. And the crazy thing is high-end Vimeo is running ads up the ying-yang on You Tube. Obviously, there's a problem with the no-ads model. And you can't even say there are no ads on Vimeo because they promote themselves and paid-streaming on Vimeo itself.

 

[Run&Gun]

You can use whatever service you want. But it still amazes me the amount of complaining that people do about FREE services. The sense of entitlement that society has now knows no bounds. SOMEBODY has to pay for the services they are providing and the free accounts are subsidized by the paying accounts. Maybe it's hit the point where the free service is starting to take away from the paid service(eating up all the storage). So what do you do? Do you apply limitations to the paying customers? No. You apply limitations to those that do not pay for your services.

They have been willing to provide a free service that is not cheap to do. They never had to do it and nothing is making them continue to do it. It's not like they are holding your files hostage, either. What's there is there and available, you just can't add anything else if you're at or past the storage limit unless you free-up space and get back below the storage cap.

 

[alaskacameradude]

@Oller Visuals

Completely agree. This reminds me of a business that decides to make customers start paying for parking and then wondering why customers are going somewhere else. And the crazy thing is high-end Vimeo is running ads up the ying-yang on You Tube. Obviously, there's a problem with the no-ads model. And you can't even say there are no ads on Vimeo because they promote themselves and paid-streaming on Vimeo itself.

Hmmm....how is Adobe CC (with it's forced rental/subscription model) doing these days
now that DR is a free NLE?