YouTube and Vimeo are two popular video streaming hosts that also allow embedding of videos into third party websites such as this blog or company sites.
YouTube’s web site has the ability to detect a mobile device. When browsing YouTube with a mobile device, the web site is smart enough to understand this and it only displays the special mobile version of the web site. The web pages are actually reformatted to allow YouTube mobile to fit comfortably on smaller mobile screens.
YouTube also has specially programmed standalone applications for devices, such as Windows mobile, that can be downloaded directly to the device. These applications allow searching for and playing YouTube videos, directly from the device, without having to browse the internet first.
More information on YouTube mobile is available at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/mobile
Vimeo does not seem to have similar standalone applications yet but does appear to be able to adjust to some mobile device formats. To activate this Vimeo feature, the mobile device user must browse to this special URL hosted on the Vimeo site: http://www.vimeo.com/m
On certain mobile devices such as the Apple iPod, the Vimeo site is reformatted to fit the device screen. This special site then allows the viewer to watch Vimeo videos streamed directly to the device.
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| Vimeo Mobile Site viewed on iPod | Selected Vimeo video viewed on iPod | Vimeo Mobile video played on iPod |
The Vimeo mobile site still appears to be under construction. Navigating directly to a Vimeo video using an "m" in front of the short cut displays a mobile page for the video but does not allow playing of the video or any other interaction. Example: http://vimeo.com/m/14503700
Currently, Vimeo mobile device support appears to be limited to iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Android based devices such as the DROID.
For my testing purposes, I created and uploaded a high school sports video clip hoping to play Vimeo videos on mobile devices. The clip below was uploaded to three different hosting sites: Vimeo, YouTube, and Facebook.
The only mobile devices I currently have access to are iPod Touch, iPad, and Windows Mobile. The test Vimeo clip plays on the iPod and iPad, but not Windows Mobile. I still need to find someone with a Blackberry and other mobile devices to test with, but the results are listed below thus far.
| Hosting Site | iPod | iPad | Windows Mobile | DROID | Blackberry |
| Vimeo | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Unknown |
| YouTube | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown |
| No | No | No | No | Unknown |
Clip Title: CPA Lions 2010 vs Lexington Christian Academy - Interception
Test clip notes:
Camcorder: Canon HV30
Raw HDV Clip
Video: 29.970 fps interlaced, 1440x1080x12, MPEG-2
Audio: 48,000 Hz, Stereo, MPEG Layer 2
Rendered MP4 Clip in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0e
Audio: 128 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, 32 Bit, Stereo, AAC
Video: 29.970 fps, 1920x1080 Progressive, YUV, 6 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000
Profile: Baseline
Test Clip 1: Hosted on Vimeo
Test Clip 2: Hosted on YouTube
Test Clip 3: Hosted on Facebook
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| Test Clip as Viewed on iPod |
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