Easy Ways to Share Home Video, Worthy or Not
His name is Earl.
He’s my dog -- and now a somewhat reluctant but worldwide video star.
This week Earl became a pioneering participant in three Web-based services that allow users to share their videos with family members, friends and even a global public.
This is not the place for us to debate whether home movies are the highlight of holiday gatherings or the worst thing your friends could ever foist on you. But websites Grouper.com, YouTube.com and, perhaps inevitably, Google.com -- in world-domination mode -- contain enough humorous, weird and just plain interesting videos to merit checking them out.
And you can add your own for others to delight in or snicker at.
Sharing services for still photos have been on the Web since the late 1990s, but it took longer for the online world to be ready for video. The main obstacle -- besides the fact that the highly photogenic Earl was not yet born -- was that video digital files are far larger, requiring much more time to upload and download.
“We had to get to the point where more people had broadband,” said Josh Felser, chief executive of Grouper Networks Inc., which introduced video software for its file-sharing service Dec. 7.
There’s another factor behind the arrival of the three video-sharing sites: the increasing availability of video modes on digital still cameras. Felser said most of the more than 70,000 video clips that had been uploaded to Grouper came from still cameras.
“Now that you can buy a digital camera for less than $300 that can take TV-quality video, a lot more people are experimenting with it,” he said.
Grouper’s downloadable, free software allows subscribers to add titles and simple effects, and it prepares clips for uploading. The software is easy to use, even for a video novice like myself, but it’s available only for computers with the Windows XP operating system.
The other services -- from YouTube Inc., which also launched this month, and Google Inc.’s project, which has been out for public testing since June -- allow clips to be uploaded directly to their sites. So they work with other versions of Windows, as well with Apple Macintosh computers.
If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably already asked this question: Doesn’t video sharing on the Internet open a big Pandora’s box -- amateur porn? After all, pornography has helped fuel the proliferation of Internet services and features.
Clips sent to Grouper and YouTube -- which are promoting their services as great for families -- are not screened before they are posted for viewing.
But executives at both services said there had been few instances of anyone trying to slip porn onto their sites. (Both have anti-pornography clauses in their user agreements.) And soon after subscribers complained about such clips, the executives said, they were deleted.
Google Video, which also has an anti-porn clause in its terms of services, reviews all clips before they are made available for viewing, according to the website. Company executives did not respond to inquiries for more details.
To compare the three services, I shot a brilliant, one-minute, 17-second clip of Earl doing a sit-and-stay (well, he sort of stayed) and then getting a treat. Spielberg has nothing to fear, but I thought it would be fun for family members far away to see the clip.
You can see it too (more on that below). But like most of the clips on these sites, it’s almost exclusively of interest to those who know the people (or pets) involved.
You also can see some old Web favorites, including the original “Star Wars” kid who ineptly acts out a battle scene and some highly embarrassing karaoke. There are new candidates for high-camp status as well, including a just-added clip from the Mrs. Kansas pageant on YouTube.
But there also are some genuinely wonderful little films that can be found. The most amazing one I saw: “Russian Climbing” at the Google site.
Here’s how Earl and I fared with the three services:
Grouper
After adding a simple title to my video, which in the MPEG-1 format was a rather hefty 21-megabyte file, I clicked the button to upload the clip to this service. Less than five minutes later it was processed and posted.
I could have chosen to make the clip available only to people in a group that I had created or to people who were invited to join. But in this case I went public. It can be searched under the keywords “dog” and “treat.”
Because Grouper is a peer-to-peer file-sharing program -- like the old Napster before the courts struck it down for enabling the illegal distribution of recorded music -- it theoretically could be used to distribute copyrighted movies. But Felser said the company would track down and take action against any subscriber who did that.
One advantage of Grouper being a file-sharing program is that clips can be downloaded for viewing offline or for sending in an e-mail.
All aspects of Grouper are free now, but future versions of the software could contain premium services.
YouTube
With this service, uploading was quite easy -- the entire procedure took 12 minutes. And about 20 minutes later the clip was on the site.
I could have restricted viewing to people I listed by their e-mail addresses. But I again chose to make Earl’s performance available to anyone who came to the site.
I feed him, but his talent belongs to the world.
Again, I used the keywords “dog” and “treat.”
Within two hours of being posted, the clip was viewed 44 times. One user rated it five stars.
I have no idea why.
Google’s service, at video.google.com is more oriented toward professionally made clips, a few of which require a payment to view.
There are, however, home videos on the service. They are all public -- no invitation-only clips are allowed.
The wait to see whether a clip has been deemed appropriate for the site -- no guidelines are given, except that it cannot be pornography or copyrighted material used without permission -- is a bit like the process of applying to a film festival.
So will the little saga of my doggie getting a treat make the cut at Google Video?
After 12 nervous hours it finally did, and it was worth the wait. The Google version, which can be found by searching for “What I Go Through” (the clip’s title), features the best sound and image quality of the sharing sites tested.
Now we’re waiting for the call from Sundance.
David Colker can be reached via e-mail at technopolis@ latimes.com. Previous columns can be found at latimes.com/technopolis.
