Screencast.com vs. YouTube

When it comes to sharing tutorials, business presentations and training videos, there are more options than just YouTube. And given the vast array of non-professional content that YouTube hosts, it makes sense to choose a different video hosting provider than the one that's notorious for piano-playing cat videos and vlog confessionals. To that end, Screencast.com offers a refreshing alternative to the de facto video sharing giant YouTube. Here are a few ways these two services are different.

Google vs. TechSmith

YouTube is owned and operated by Google. As touched upon earlier, this means that there's going to be a heavy mix between personal and professional content. But the plus side of a Google-hosted service is that it's supported by a cutting edge team of developers that consistently offers the latest and greatest innovations in web features. Plus, YouTube videos rank incredibly well in Google Search results—especially if you take the time to craft SEO-friendly keywords and titles.

TechSmith, on the other hand, is a smaller software developer known for their screen capture and recording software, such as Jing, Snagit and Camtasia. Screencast.com is essentially a hosting service for all the content that you can produce with TechSmith's products, some of which are free. But you can also upload photos and videos from other sources to Screencast.com for hosting, embedding and sharing.

What really matters, though, is the terms of service. Screencast.com is very adamant about the fact that the content remains yours and private (if you choose). Google, on the other hand, reserves the right to archive, analyze and reproduce any content uploaded to any of their services and share your information with its affiliates. This is primarily used for improving their services, but for many users, it makes them uneasy.

Storage and Bandwidth

YouTube is free. You can upload an unlimited amount of videos and generate an unlimited amount of bandwidth from views without incurring any extra fees. Screencast.com, on the other hand, offers its free users 2 GB of storage space and 2 GB of bandwidth. You can pay for a premium account that ups those limits. The plus side of this is that Screencast.com also acts as a digital, cloud-based file locker. You can download your videos in their original format as many times as you want.

Conversion and Encoding

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about YouTube is the way it handles (or mishandles) your video files. When you upload them, YouTube will re-encode them and occasionally downgrade the quality or alter the aspect ratio. Also, YouTube videos cannot be downloaded without third-party browser extensions. Screencast.com, on the other hand, doesn't process your videos.

Branding and Embedded Player

YouTube embedded players are recognizable by their logos and their default buttons and options that come built-in. Also, YouTube videos will show suggested videos at the end of the play by default. Sometimes, the recommended similar videos are inappropriate, either due to explicit content or irrelevance. Or, perhaps, the recommended videos could be content from one of your competitors. Beyond that, YouTube seems to project an air of informality, no matter what it's context. This may not be ideal for your business-oriented presentation.

Screencast.com's embedded player, on the other hand, is clean and unbranded. There's no fluff on the embedded player, and in fact, there isn't even a Screencast.com logo on it.

The one downside from Screencast.com is that they currently do not offer an HTML5 player, as YouTube does. As such, those viewing your site on browsers that do not support flash may have trouble.

Overall, Screencast.com is worth a try. It gives you a more professional and flexible way to share your videos without having to serve your content alongside skateboarding videos, frat party videos and Auto-Tune the News music videos.