I can't remember why, but I was running through the various video hosts out there recently. I think everyone knows about You Tube (which is free), but I wanted to take a look at another option so I trundled on by the free video hosting service, Blip.tv
I went into this with some trepidation. Blip started life as a free podcast host named rPodcaster or something, but they were a definite model for the "You get what you pay for" notion. They sucked. And bad.
I'm not sure of the logistics behind it, but things started looking up when they hooked up with, or became, Blip Media. Blip.tv is starting to crop up in conversations now and again, so it sounds like their video hosting is a little better than the original podcast hosting offer.
I gave Blip's video mobile blogging a whirl and it started out very well. Setting up an account was very easy and within minutes I was uploading videos from my Treo 650 via email. Once they had been uploaded, though, the prroblems began.
I can't seem to view any of my videos. There's a setting where I told Blip.tv to show my videos using the Flash player, but it doesn't. Whenever I attempt to view a video, my browser tells me that I don't have the proper plugin to view .3g2 files. That's the native format my phone records in and shouldn't be visible to me as the viewer. Presumably, telling Blip.tv to use the Flash player should...well...load the Flash plugin and play the video, no?
I'm still looking around for an option that I might have missed, but at the moment not being able to play the videos that I upload is kind of a deal breaker with a video host.
Update: It appears that Blip just takes time to convert the file to Flash. After a few minutes, it was available as both Flash and the origina 3g2 format. However, it still doesn't work as I am prompted to install the Flash plugin every time I attempt to view the video. I can view other Flash sites without a problem, so Blip is still a no-go for me.
