YouTube upload question...

[MinionZombie]

I worked on a documentary a while back, that runs for about 50 minutes, and the director wants to put it on YouTube - is there a way to put the whole thing on YouTube in one piece?

I've seen videos on YouTube that run - as one upload - for around that time, if not longer, and not just from places like Channel 4, but from "normal users" too.

So how could I do that - anyone know?

[MikePizzoff]

I've been a YouTube user for so long and have so many channel hits that they allow me to upload videos over 15 mins with no questions asked.

Now that I've boasted...

There IS a way to upload vids that are whatever length for the average user; I can't quite remember where the option is, so you'll just have to look around. From what I can recall, you need to turn your account into a 'directors account'. HOWEVER, there was this lengthy contract you have to read over and I'm pretty sure it was essentially saying that whatever you upload under that director's account basically becomes Night Of The Living Dead - royalty free and up for anyone to use at their own will.

EDIT: I forgot my bottom line.... BOTTOM LINE is, if he's serious about people seeing the doc online then he should just get a Vimeo Pro account.

[krakenslayer]

I've been a YouTube user for so long and have so many channel hits that they allow me to upload videos over 15 mins with no questions asked.

Now that I've boasted...

There IS a way to upload vids that are whatever length for the average user; I can't quite remember where the option is, so you'll just have to look around. From what I can recall, you need to turn your account into a 'directors account'. HOWEVER, there was this lengthy contract you have to read over and I'm pretty sure it was essentially saying that whatever you upload under that director's account basically becomes Night Of The Living Dead - royalty free and up for anyone to use at their own will.

EDIT: I forgot my bottom line.... BOTTOM LINE is, if he's serious about people seeing the doc online then he should just get a Vimeo Pro account.

Sorry to steal your thunder, but all users can upload videos of 15-16 minutes in length. They raised the 10-11 minute cap last July. :p

At one point, probably until about 2008 or so, any user who had a "Director's Account" was able to upload longer content. It was widely abused to upload full episodes of TV shows, etc. You can still open a Director's Account (in fact it is now very easy to do so), but it no longer grants you the ability to upload long videos. However, some users who had a Director's Account back before the rules changed, and have continued to adhere to the Youtube TOS, have been allowed to keep this feature.

As it stands, the only way to upload videos longer than 16 minutes is to become a Youtube Partner. This works on an invitation-only basis, and relies on Youtube seeing promise in your channel. Once you become a partner, you can upload videos of any size and Youtube will place contextual ads next to your videos (which both you and YT can make commission on). There is a way to submit your channel to be considered for a partner invite, but this is very rarely successful - they are usually only interested in channels with no TOS breaches, thousands of subscribers and tens of thousands of views, in which case you will have come to their attention anyway.

EDIT: Sorry Mike, I just saw you said "over 15 minutes", my bad :p