New Video Hosting Service from DivX

Stage6 is a new online video hosting service from DivX. As such, it’s not surprising that you have to use their format to store the videos, but the quality is very impressive, especially from material that was shot in high definition in full screen mode: it looks a lot better than Google Video and a huge amount better than YouTube. It’s pretty good in bandwith terms as well: while Google Video can be a bit of a bandwith hog, videos on Stage6 are heavily compressed. They also allow you to download the videos as well as streaming them, and to charge people to watch them (you set the fee, and DivX takes a percentage). Try this short clip from the comics festival Comicon for an exmple of some camcorder footage.

 

You do need to download and use the DivX player or Web plug in to watch the videos, but neither is a big download, and it’s definitely worth considering if you’re looking for an online home for your videos and your viewers don’t mind having to install the player software.

 

[Via DVGuru]