Help + Frequently Asked Questions..

We're here to help you along every step of the way. Have a question that you need some help with? Just ask!

General.

Privacy.

How Do I...

Mobile.

Technical.

Facebook + Flickr + Twitter.

General.

  • Q. What is Viddyou?
  • A. Viddyou (pronounced Vidd-you) is a free and premium personal video service focused on offering the best quality in video, privacy control, and overall ease of use.

  • Q. What is a "Vidd"?
  • A. "Vidd" is short for video, only better, because "vid" doesn't look as cool and "vidd" matches Viddyou.

  • Q. What is High Definition?
  • A. High Definition (HD) is a high-resolution video format that offers 3x the detail (resolution) available in Standard Definition (SD) for stunning clarity and an immensely sharper image. That's 3x the resolution detail than your television! HD allows you to see the fine details from eyelashes on a newborn to the foamy mist from crashing waves at sunset. A visual comparison between 480p SD (TV Quality), 720p HD (Better), and 1080p HD (Best) is below that shows just how small and lacking in detail SD TV quality is compared to HD.

  • Q. What Are The Differences Between The Free and Premium Accounts?
  • A. Refer to the chart below for a quick overview of the key differences between our Free and Premium accounts.

    Viddyou Account Features Comparison Chart

  • Q. What Are Communities?
  • A. Communities are groups that you can join or create yourself about any interests you have from coffee to lip synching. Creating a new community is as simple clicking on "Communities" and choosing a community name followed by pressing the "Create" button.

  • Q. What Is A "Profile Vidd?"
  • A. A "Profile Vidd" is your quick about you in video form. Think of it like a profile picture, but in video. Have fun with it and change it regularly.

  • Q. What Is High Bitrate Video?
  • A. High Bitrate (HBR) video preserves the fine details of your original video from your digital camera or camcorder for a vastly improved viewing experience even at full-screen! Most video sites online over process your video to such extremes that fine details, like the grains of sand in the below example, become lost and turn into blurred blobs. Viddyou is serious about video quality. The videos you're spending the time uploading mean something to you, your friends and family and deserve to have their brilliant details preserved in a near-original quality.

    Viddyou High Highbitrate Comparison

Privacy.

  • Q. How Private Are My Videos?
  • A. At Viddyou we take privacy very seriously and realize the sensitivity of posting video of your personal life online. You have full control over exactly who sees your videos and have created robust privacy settings to keep your videos as public or private as you desire.

  • Q. Can I Define My Own Privacy Settings?
  • A. Yes, with Privacy Groups you have selective control over which of your friends can view your videos. To create a Privacy Group click on the Manage tab, then click Friends, and one last click on Privacy Groups. Select the friends that you want to put in a privacy group by clicking on them, name your newly created group and click "Save." When you upload a video you can select this Privacy Group and only the people you added will be able to view your video.

    For more details Watch Our Quick Video On Creating Privacy Groups.

  • Q. Can I Hide My Video On Viddyou But Embed It On Another Site?
  • A. Yes you can. The "Hide Video On Viddyou" option is revealed by clicking the "More Options" link when Uploading, or after Recording a new video. Checking this option will hide your video on Viddyou, but still allow you embed the video in a blog, social-networking site, etc. This option is not the same as a privacy protected video and should be treated as publicly accessible. The "Hide Video On Video" feature can only be applied to videos marked as "Public."

  • Q. What Do The Different Privacy Settings Mean?
  • A. "Public" videos can be viewed by anyone. "Friends-Only" videos are viewable only by the people you have added as friends on Viddyou. "Just Me (Private)" videos are only able to be viewed by you. "Facebook Only" is for those that have accounts on Facebook and use the Viddyou Video Blog application and want their videos to only be shown on Facebook.

How Do I...

  • Q. How Do I Respond To A Video?
  • A. Make sure you are logged into Viddyou first. Below the video you wish to respond to click the "Respond" button. You will then be given 3 options to "Record" which lets you record a video response using your webcam, "Text" which lets you leave a written response and "Upload" to upload a video as a response.

    For more details Watch Our Quick Video On Responding.

  • Q. How Do I Upload A Video?
  • A. After you login to Viddyou you are taken to "Home" by default. If you are already logged in you can always click on "Home" which will take you to your userhome where you will see "Upload or Record." The default is Upload and you beging the short process by entering the Title of your video followed by a short Description. Next you select the file you want to upload by pressing the "Browse" (sometimes labeled "Choose File") button and locate the video stored on your computer. By default the video is posted to your account with a "Public" privacy setting which you may change as desired. When you're satisfied with your Title, Description, and Privacy Setting, click the "Upload" button and a progress bar will appear displaying the time remaining for your upload. Once the upload is complete you will be presented with a message that your video has uploaded and will be converted as soon as possible.

  • Q. How Do I Record A Video Using My Webcam?
  • A. Make sure you have your webcam installed, plugged in, and that you are logged into Viddyou. Click on "Home" and you will see "Upload or Record." Click on "Record" and you will see an alert pop up asking for permission to access your webcam and microphone. Choose allow and Viddyou will then automatically detect your webcam and microphone. If Viddyou does not detect your webcam or microphone you can manually choose either in the drop down menus. Begin recording by pressing the "Record" button. When you are finished press the "Stop" button. You can then click the "Playback" button to play your recorded video and if you wish you can press the "Re-Record" button to record the video again. If you are happy with your recorded video click the "Keep" button and you will be brought to Step 2 where you add a Title, Description and select your Privacy Setting. Click the "Upload" button to upload your newly recorded video.

    For more details Watch Our Quick Video On Recording.

  • Q. How Do I Add Or Remove Friends?
  • A. Make sure you are logged into Viddyou first. When you find someone you want to become friends with you will see a [+] Add Friend Icon icon. Clicking the [+] Add Friend Icon icon will bring up the option to "Add Friend" and by selecting "Yes" they will be added. After you've added them as a friend you will see the [+] Add Friend Icon icon turn into a [-] Remove Friend Icon icon which is the "Remove Friend" icon. Clicking the [-] Remove Friend Icon icon will prompt you to confirm the removal and selecting "Yes" will remove them as a friend.

    For more details Watch Our Quick Video On Adding + Removing Friends.

  • Q. How Do I Embed A Video On Another Site?
  • A. Any video marked as "Public" or "Hide On Viddyou" can be embedded in other websites like MySpace, your blog, etc by pressing the "Share" button under the video you wish to embed. After clicking the "Share" button you can click on the "Embed" code and copy the code and paste it into your blog, MySpace Profile, etc.

Mobile.

  • Q. How Do I Access Viddyou On My iPhone?
  • A. Start by browsing to iphone.viddyou.com on your iPhone. From the home screen you can view the latest vidds, enter a username to view someone else's vidds, or login to view and share all of your vidds.

  • Q. How Do I Access Viddyou On My Smartphone?
  • A. Visit http://m.viddyou.com on your smartphone for viewing on the go!

  • Q. How Do I Setup Mobile Posting?
  • A. Once you have logged in click on the "Manage" button, then click on "Account." Under "Mobile Posting Information" you will enter your mobile phone number and set a password to use for uploading to Viddyou. This password should be something easy to remember and different from your password used to login to Viddyou. After you have entered your mobile phone number and password click the "Update" button and your "Mobile Posting Link" will be updated. Email your videos you record on your mobile phone to the "Mobile Posting Link" (Example: ryan.1234@m.viddyou.com) and they will appear on your account on Viddyou.

Technical.

  • Q. What Video File Formats Does Viddyou Accept?
  • A. Viddyou accepts many popular video file formats; .avi, .dv, .mov, .qt, .mpeg, .mp4, .3gp, .asf, .wmv, .moov, .flv, .divx, .mpg, .m4v, .3gpp, and .3g2

  • Q. What Is The Best File Format To Upload?
  • A. We highly suggest the H.264 codec for video and the AAC codec for audio as this combination yields the highest quality video and audio with the smallest file size for faster uploading. There are many resources online to learn more about optimal encoding of video that can be found with a quick search.

  • Q. How Do I Get My Videos To Appear in High Definition? HD Icon
  • A. You must upgrade to Premium as only Premium members are able to take advantage of our High Definition capabilities. Upload a video in a supported HD resolution: 1280x720 (16:9) or 960x720 (4:3) for 720p and 1920x1080 (16:9) or 1440x1080 (4:3) for 1080p. Our servers will automatically detect your High Definition video, and encode it accordingly. Look for the HD Icon icon in the Title of your video.

  • Q. What Hardware Requirements Do I Need To Use Viddyou?
  • A. We require that you have Flash Player 9 or newer installed and using Firefox 2 or newer, Safari 3 or Internet Explorer Version 7 as your web browser at the very basic level. For optimal playback of HD video you will need to have a newer computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo or better with at least 512MB of RAM and 64MB video card and a high-speed internet connection that's 2Mbit or faster.

  • Q. Technical requirements for browsing
  • A. We've found that most computers made in the last several years are fast enough to smoothly play our HD and regular video content. We do require Flash player 9, and a modern browser (Firefox, Safari, IE, Opera, etc). Your average residential DSL or Cable connection should be fast enough, but with video: the faster your connection is, the more fluid your browsing experience will be.

  • Q. How Do I Get My Videos To Appear in High Bitrate? HBR Icon
  • A. Free and Premium users can upload a video in the supported High Bitrate (HBR) resolution of: 640x480 (4:3) and our servers will automatically detect your HBR video, and encode it accordingly. Premium users can also upload video in the following HBR supported resolutions: 853x480 (16:9) and 960x540 (16:9) as well. Look for the HBR Icon icon in the Title of your video.

Facebook + Flickr + Twitter.

  • Q. Can I Attach My Photos On Flickr To My Video?
  • A. Viddyou does video best. Flickr does photos best. That's why we added the ability to attach your Flickr sets or individual photos to your videos on Viddyou. When you Upload or after Recording a video you can click on the "More Options?" link and paste in the link to the Flickr set or individual photos (each photo link must separated by a space) where you see "Flickr Set URL." If you have already uploaded a video that you would like to add photos from Flickr to you can edit your video under "Manage" then "Vidds" and add the Flickr photos in the same manner described above.

    For more details Watch Our Quick Video On Editing Your Vidds.

  • Q. Can I Have Viddyou Automatically Update Twitter When I Upload?
  • A. We saw how popular Twitter was ages ago and added the option to update Twitter whenever you post a new video with a "Public" privacy setting. If you have a Twitter account you can add your account credentials under "Manage" > "Account" > "Preferences" and you're set.

  • Q. Can I Share My Videos On Facebook?
  • A. Yes you can with our Viddyou application for Facebook that lets you Upload, Record and View your videos on Viddyou from the comforts of Facebook. To make things even easier your latest post will always show up on your profile and we'll even update your News Feed so your friends on Facebook know you posted a new video.

    For more details Add The Viddyou Application For Facebook.

Questions, Comments, Feedback.

If you have further questions, a few comments, or some feedback, please Contact Us.