Vimeo ˈvɪmiːoʊ is a video-sharing

Video hosting service

A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...

 website

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein

Zach Klein

Zach Klein is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for co-founding and designing Vimeo in 2004. He also co-founded the on-line shopping site Svpply and assisted in the development of CollegeHumor and BustedTees...

 and Jake Lodwick in November 2004. The name Vimeo was created by co-founder Jake Lodwick and is a play on the word video, inserting the word "me" as a reference to the site's exclusive dedication to user-made video, and is also an anagram of "movie."

Vimeo does not allow gaming videos, pornography, or anything not created by the user to be hosted on the site.

Popularity

, Vimeo has over 3 million members and an average of more than 16,000 new videos uploaded daily. Roughly 10% of uploads are in HD.

Community

The community of Vimeo is large and filled with indie filmmakers and vast numbers of people with a passion for film. The Vimeo community has adopted the name Vimeans, meaning a member of the Vimeo community, usually one who is active and engaged with fellow users on a regular basis.

Notable content

Numerous popular musicians use or have used Vimeo to upload various music videos and other content, including M.I.A.

M.I.A. (artist)

Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam , better known by her stage name M.I.A. , is an English singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, painter and director of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her compositions combine elements of hip hop, electronica, dance, alternative and world music. M.I.A...

, Kanye West

Kanye West

Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...

, Tom Delonge

Tom DeLonge

Thomas Matthew "Tom" DeLonge, Jr. is an American rock musician. He is the guitarist and one of the two lead vocalists for the American pop punk band Blink-182 as well as the guitarist and lead vocalist for the alternative band Angels & Airwaves...

, Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...

, Moby

Moby

Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...

, Beck

Beck

Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...

, Placebo

Placebo (band)

Placebo are a British rock band from London, England, formed in 1994 by singer and guitarist Brian Molko and bass guitarist Stefan Olsdal. The band was joined by drummer Robert Schultzberg, who was later replaced by Steve Hewitt after conflicts with Molko. Hewitt left the band in October 2007 and...

, Lykke Li

Lykke Li

Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson , better known by her stage name Lykke Li , is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Her music often blends elements of pop, indie rock and electronic; various instruments can also be found in her songs, including violins, synthesizers, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones and cellos...

, Röyksopp

Röyksopp

Röyksopp is a Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø, formed in 1998. Since their inception, the band's line-up has included Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland....

, Devin the Dude

Devin the Dude

Devin Copeland , better known by his stage name, Devin the Dude, is a Houston hip hop artist, and rapper. He is best known for his unique rapping style, his long career signed to Rap-A-Lot Records, and his 2002 song, "Lacville '79"....

, Björk

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

 and Britney Spears

Britney Spears

Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...

, who premiered her new music video Radar

Radar (song)

"Radar" is a song by American recording artist Britney Spears. It was written and produced by Bloodshy & Avant and The Clutch in November 2006 as a record that did not relate to any of her personal problems at the time. The recording sessions took place the day after Spears filed for divorce from...

 there. Comedians Kristen Schaal

Kristen Schaal

Kristen Schaal is an American actress, writer and comedienne, best known for her role as Mel in the HBO series Flight of the Conchords, as Louise in Bob's Burgers and as a contributor on The Daily Show.-Early life:...

, Reggie Watts

Reggie Watts

Reggie Watts is a Seattle-based comedian and musician. His shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions. He also performs regularly on television, radio, and in live theater...

, and "Weird Al" Yankovic

"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...

use Vimeo as well.

The White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 posts high-definition versions of its broadcasts to Vimeo.

Vimeo has helped to offload traffic from Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere is a comedic performance art group based in New York City, formed in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes."The group carries out pranks, which they call "missions", in public places...

's servers after new pranks are announced, and continues to host most of their videos. Vimeo was also the original location of Noah Kalina's "everyday" video, a popular viral video

Viral video

A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...

.

Video quality

On October 17, 2007, Vimeo announced support for High Definition

High-definition video

High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...

 playback in 1280x720 (720p), becoming the first video sharing

Video sharing

Video hosting services refers to websites or software where users can distribute their video clips. Other sites such as file hosting services image hosting services and social network services might support video sharing as an enhancement to their primary mission, but in general, they are not...

 site to support consumer HD. Uploaded HD videos were automatically converted into 720/30p VP6

VP6

On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Video, and JavaFX media files.- Overview :The VP6 codec...

 Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

 video. Since August 2010, all videos are encoded into H.264

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...

 for HTML5

HTML5 video

HTML5 video is an element introduced in the HTML5 draft specification for the purpose of playing videos or movies, partially replacing the object element...

 support. All videos uploaded before were re-encoded. Non-HD videos re-encode at a maximum of 30 frame/s and they also have significantly higher bitrate

Bitrate

In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time....

s than other competing video sharing sites

Comparison of video services

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable video hosting services. Please see the individual products' articles for further information...

. Non-Plus users can upload up to 500 MB of videos per week, and up to one HD video per week (additional HD videos uploaded within the same week are encoded to SD).

Vimeo Plus

On October 16, 2008, Vimeo unveiled its $60-per-year 'Vimeo Plus' package, which allows users additional weekly uploads (up to 5 GB), unlimited HD videos, unlimited creation of channels, groups and albums, no ads, HD embeds, 2-pass video re-encoding that results in higher quality, priority encoding, and more. The arrival of Vimeo Plus also meant the downgrade of the free version, which up to that point also enjoyed unlimited HD re-encodings per week and unlimited creation of groups/albums/channels.

Since February 2010, Plus users can choose to re-encode their 1080p upload as either 1080p or 720p. As of July 22nd, 2010, the site offers unlimited HD embeds. As of January 4, 2011, Vimeo Plus users can upload up to five gigabytes of footage, roughly equivalent to 2.5 hours of HD video. This makes it possible for full length, high-definition feature films to be uploaded to Vimeo by Vimeo Plus users.

Vimeo PRO

On August 1, 2011, Vimeo introduced the PRO account type for business and commercial use, which allows 50GB of storage, 250k plays, advanced analytics, third party video player support and more.

Everyone except "small scale independent production companies, non-profits, and artists who want to use the Vimeo Service to showcase or promote their own creative works" must become Vimeo PRO subscribers in order to upload commercial videos or use Vimeo for their business's video hosting needs.

Vimeo Awards

Vimeo's first annual Vimeo Awards took place October 8-9, 2010 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, dedicated towards showcasing and awarding creative video content hosted on the site. Festival judges for the nine competitive categories included David Lynch

David Lynch

David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...

, Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Valentine Spurlock is an American documentary filmmaker, humorist, television producer, screenwriter and journalist best known for the documentary film Super Size Me...

, Rian Johnson

Rian Johnson

Rian Craig Johnson is an American writer and director, who won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with his debut feature, Brick.-Background:...

, M.I.A.

M.I.A. (artist)

Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam , better known by her stage name M.I.A. , is an English singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, painter and director of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her compositions combine elements of hip hop, electronica, dance, alternative and world music. M.I.A...

, and Charlie White. The competition received over 6500 entries. Winners were chosen for each category, with the documentary

Documentary

A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

 finalist "Last Minutes with Oden" taking home the $25,000 grand prize. Ben Briand

Ben Briand

- Biography :In 2007 he wrote and directed Hammer Bay. The one hour film was the winner of the People's Choice Award at the first annual Optus ONE80PROJECT. The award was a joint venture with Sony Ericsson, Optus and MTV Australia, produced by Cherub Pictures, the production company by which he is...

's short narrative "Apricot" won the Community Choice Award.

The two-day festival included video screenings and workshops from the likes of Philip Bloom

Philip Bloom (filmmaker)

Philip Bloom is a British filmmaker known for his DSLR filmmaking, blog and workshops. He has worked as a cinematographer for Lucasfilm, Sky and the BBC.-Career:He began his filmmaking career at Sky, travelling the world as a cameraman...

, Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...

, and DJ Spooky

DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...

, and an award show hosted by Ze Frank

Ze Frank

On March 17, 2006, Frank launched the daily video program the show with zefrank. The format of the program combined commentary on media and current events with viewer contributions and activities...

. A 3D projection-mapping

3D projection

3D projection is any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane. As most current methods for displaying graphical data are based on planar two-dimensional media, the use of this type of projection is widespread, especially in computer graphics, engineering and drafting.-...

 displayed on the Vimeo HQ/IAC building concluded the festival.

Gaming videos deletion

On July 21, 2008, Vimeo announced that for several reasons they would no longer allow gaming videos, one reason being that:
Existing gaming videos were deleted on September 1, 2008. All new uploads are currently subject to this rule.

However, machinima

Machinima

Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

 videos with a story of their own are still permitted.

Access blocking

Access to Vimeo is blocked in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, and Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.