Vimeo 17+

Vimeo has been excellent for distributing and viewing videos for our non-profit. The quality and ability to embed is great and doing live video from a laptop computer has been one of the more consistently trouble-free experiences we’ve had from a live streaming platform. On the down side, it isn’t cheap, storage space is limited, and the social media aspect is fairly light. There are plenty who will view a video, but getting hearts/likes and followers isn’t as easy as some other platforms. Overall we are pleased but we do need to supplement our live broadcasting with another soc media platform in order to get wider social engagement.

I placed a pre-order for a Video On Demand from a creator and was sent an email confirmation. When the time came for the release of the product, my preorder did not go through. When I inquired via their support, they first told me that the creator canceled my pre-order. When I contacted the creator and they told me they didn’t, I inquired further with Vimeo further. Their support then told me that they had a bug in their system that canceled my pre-order accidentally. When I inquired if I could still get the title at the discounted price, I was told I couldn’t because they they don’t control that. I eventually got escalated up to a higher support their because they knew that their system messed up. From there, Charles H and other members of their support team gave it a “is what it is” attitude and where little to no help. Simple question such as, why did I not get an email that my pre-order was canceled could not even be answered. All they could do was say, I’m sorry, our system messed up, and you need to pay a much higher price for a title you pre-ordered.

So I want to like the app, I think it’s a great platform, but the navigation is completely frustrating and even made me quit viewing my video to make this review. It’s frustrating because as a platform it seems to hold great promise, but being 2019 it’s hard to accept the lack of some very basic app navigation.

For once the video quality can’t be adjusted and if you have a not-so-great connection, you have to tolerate poor quality streaming. A feature where you can select the video quality manually (despite longer buffer times) would be so appreciated.

Another improvement would be the video playback navigation. Specifically, features that can be tapped during the video to rewind or fast forward 5-15 seconds (like the podcast app on iPhones, or YouTube’s double tap). It’s so irritating to have to drag the little play indicator and hope you land on the part of the video you intended to.

Lastly, on a desktop it’s really tricky and non-intuitive finding the videos you have purchased. Don’t remember the path to access them off the top of my head but I do remember it’s not very explicit. A simple “purchases” or “downloads” tab would be amazing.

Hate to rate so low but these are so basic that in 2019 they should be standard for playback applications/platforms.

Thanks for the consideration.