Lab Exercise 7

1. YouTube:

The YouTube video started almost immediately and I did not have to wait for any buffering throughout the viewing, even when skipping ahead the time for the video to continue is almost instantaneous. The video player has a number of options including the ability to view the video in HD or in a higher quality,the ability to go full screen, the ability to view closed captions or annotations (if added by the user who posted the video), and the typical options for pause/play and volume control. Some advertisements were shown as a watched the video, though they were merely banners that popped up on the bottom of the player, and did not interrupt the video. While the YouTube player doesn't have the best image or sound quality in every video, the lack of interrupting advertisements and the speed of the player causes it to rank highly with me.

The YouTube video was easy to embed, the embed code was listed right next to the player. A unique feature of the YouTube embed option is the ability to customize the video that you embed, you are able to change the color of the player, the ability to show a border or not, the option whether to copy the HD version of the video (if there is one), and the ability to enable an enhanced-privacy mode which turns off YouTube's ability to send cookies to the viewers computer. There were also options to copy the video's url and share the video among Facebook, Myspace, and other locations.

2. Hulu:

The Hulu video had an advertisement right at the start, and more at regular intervals throughout, though it did not stop to load or buffer during my viewing. When skipping ahead in the Hulu video the time to load/buffer was almost instantaneous, though if I skipped ahead past one of the spots where an ad was supposed to be, it would play before the video continued. The Hulu player had the largest number of options out of the three, including the ability to go full screen, bring the video out to another window, lower the lighting of the page surrounding the video, pause/play, raise and lower volume, turn on closed captioning, and play the video in 480p. However, whenever you embed the video, some of those options are lost. The largest issue I had with the Hulu player was the amount of advertisements, though the reasoning for them is understandable and the option to give your approval/disapproval for advertisements as you view them is a nice touch.

Embedding the Hulu video was easy, there was an option right next to the video to copy the embed code. And unlike the other two players, the embed code is automatically copied to your clipboard when you select the embed button, removing any option for problems that may arise when you attempt to manually copy the code. The Hulu player also has the ability to share videos to various locations like Facebook and Myspace.



3. Veoh:

The Veoh player shares many similarities with the YouTube player, though it has less options overall. With the player you can pause/play the video, change the volume, and change the size of the video (small/large/full screen). The video I watched had an advertisement before it started, after the advertisement the video continued smoothly. The video started relatively quickly, though the loading time whenever I skipped ahead in the video was noticeably slower than the other two players. The video also had banner advertisements similar to the ones seen on YouTube, they didn't interrupt the video and were collapse able. I believe that this video player is the weakest out of the three I used.

The embedding process for the Veoh player is simple, requiring only that you manually copy the embed code. Not all of the videos have the ability to embed though they all contain a url link and the ability to share the video to a number of locations including Facebook and Twitter.


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