Video: Should I upload them on YouTube or Vimeo?
Introduction
When auditioning for ballet companies or schools, there are two main concerns for you to keep in mind regarding how you share your video. The first is quality and the second is privacy. Both Vimeo and YouTube are popular platforms for sharing videos, but there are distinctions between them which could give a slight edge to one over the other. Below we will look at said differences and try to establish which platform is best for you to share your audition video.
Quality
Among video creators, it is no secret that YouTube reduces the quality of your content. As a rule of thumb, cinematographers go to Vimeo for the quality and to YouTube for the views. This gives it a significant advantage. It might not be of great concern when your video and audio are of high quality, to begin with. However, when the original copy is not of the highest clarity, avoiding further compression is crucial to preserve the best possible final result. This can make Vimeo stand out from its counterpart.
*compression or compressing a video means making the file size smaller by losing some data, resulting in loss of quality or information (colour, resolution etc.)
Privacy settings
Vimeo offers advanced privacy settings that outstrip those of YouTube, giving users more control over who can view their videos.
With Vimeo, you can password-protect your videos and only give access to certain users. Plus, you can share your video through a private link that you can share through email. This way, you can make sure that only the right people see your audition video and that it stays private from everyone else while ensuring that all the other videos on your profile remain inaccessible.
On the other hand, YouTube’s privacy options are more basic, you can only make your video public, private, or unlisted. Although it has fewer options you can still hide your video from the public, it takes a few more steps. Make sure your video is either unlisted or private and disable the embed options.
*embedding allows users to host a video from a video library (Youtube, Vimeo etc.) on a 3rd website
Usability
Using a video hosting platform gives you a neat library to sort all the videos you upload and share them accordingly. Remember to keep this library updated with your a latest showreel or performance videos.
The main point of argument here is the difference in storage space. YouTube is free and has unlimited storage space. On the free tier, Vimeo only allows you to upload 500MB a week which amounts to about 2-3 videos depending on their size, and a total of 5GB of storage space. Is this really important? If you aim to save all your videos online then Vimeo’s limit can be annoying, but it doesn’t necessarily pose a problem. You can delete some of your old videos. You can upgrade to a paid plan which will give you more space, however, I don’t know if this is deemed necessary considering the amount of data you require the free plan should be fine.
How easy are they to use?
While both are relatively easy, uploading a video is more straightforward on Vimeo. The process is more intuitive, your privacy settings are clearer and it is a quicker process. You can check our easy guide on how to upload videos on YouTube or Vimeo here:
In summary, while both Vimeo and YouTube are popular platforms for sharing audition videos, Vimeo may be a more favourable option. It offers superior video quality, advanced privacy settings, and a more user-friendly interface but lacks storage space. Some companies may specify in their application email which platform they prefer the video to be on. Both platforms are very useful for you to showcase your work so be sure to check them out!
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