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Best of the rest

We mentioned earlier that the number of sharing sites is vast, and we weren't joking. It's not possible to list them all, but here are some other notable examples. Other than a 25MB maximum file size, www.putfile.com has no limitations, so you can upload as many files as you like. Videos can be in WMV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, ASF, ASX, MP4 and 3G2 formats. You get your own homepage, but it's a little more rudimentary than what you get from Neptune or DropShots. GoFish (www.gofish.com) is another site that offers unlimited storage, but each video must be 100MB or under.

Perhaps the weirdest video sharing site we've come across is www.my5minutes.com. This gives you unlimited video storage, but uses the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing system for downloading. It also uses a ranking and popularity system, where unpopular videos are removed after a while.

Even social networking sites are getting in on the act. MySpace (www.myspace.com) supports the uploading of video, with a 100MB size cap per file. The range of formats supported is extremely long and covers most options you'd care to use, from DivX to 3GP2 mobile phone files. However, we found that MySpace's servers were often too busy to complete uploads. Facebook has also recently added video to its repertoire. At first it allowed users to embed YouTube videos, but now it has its own service. The company claims that this

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offers much better video quality than YouTube, although it hasn't released details of how much higher its streaming resolution is.

One site that has some unique qualities is Stage6 (http://stage6.divx.com), created by the people behind DivX. Stage6 places a whopping 2GB limit on the size of your video, enough for a full-length movie at DVD resolution, but unlike most other sites all videos must be uploaded as .DIVX files or DivX-encoded AVIs. Stage6 also has a weird concept called 'Karma', which is a measure of your participation in the community. The greater your Karma rating, the more privileges you get. These privileges include the ability to create your own channels.

Some video-sharing sites restrict access and are not open to all amateur user-generated content. Al Gore, former US vice-president and star of the film An Inconvenient Truth, has helped found www.current.tv, a serious video news site devoted to citizen journalism. Current.tv has a UK-specific branch at http://uk.current.com. You upload your news-related video, which the site calls a Pod, and the site's staff watch and consider it. Videos that pass muster make it to the website, and the Current TV community can vote it on to the Top Ranked list and even the broadcast channel. Unlike most video-sharing sites, Current.tv has been picked up by satellite and cable TV. You can find it on Sky channel 193 and Virgin Media channel 155. So by submitting a video to Current TV you could end up on 'real' TV - and you get paid if you do, too.

One of the oldest names in online video, which straddles the gap between the user-generated content sites and these more professionally orientated options, is Atom Films (www.atomfilms.com). This trailblazing site is the host of such internet hits as Star Wars Gangsta Rap, viewed by over six million people. You can upload videos up to 100MB in size, or Flash animations up to 20MB. However, your videos are vetted by human beings and put on the site only if they make the grade. Hence, the content on Atom tends to be the cream of the crop, and the site claims to pay successful video-makers, too.