Webshots troubles

[Chester]

Months ago, after years of posting videos/pics, I started having trouble uploading typical movies to Webshots. The movie clips were well within the spec parameters, and no different than the ones I'd uploaded for years. As a paying member, like once before, I asked for tech help to solve the problem (a standard 24 hr service for Premium members). After two months of no response and a couple of promises to look into it, they stated that they just couldn't help me! But, near the end of all this, they did bill my credit card for the next year's dues. So, after a few more emails, I got a credit and went back to free service, pulling gobs of videos and pictures off to meet the standard limitation. Quite a sad ending to a customer who had a million hits, and had his pics/videos used in their own advertising.
Well, now I see the problem. Webshots is becoming "Smile", and although they state they don't have a final decision on dues schedule/rules, you have the option to just accept their terms and all your stuff will be on the new site. But in the fine print, apparently it will be a pay only site. So for those that enjoyed my pics/videos there, my content has been vastly reduced, and will be removed shortly. So I'll be looking for a new place to make a few new landscape albums, and help their sites advertising.

[Half Ton]

Got me too! I will not use Smile either. Flickr ain't bad for photos, but I'm not sure about videos. Pinterest will also take photos, and they may take videos I think.

[Cowper]

Hate to hear this. Ain't gonna pay more for less, and it will probably be way too much trouble to recreate my old albums, unless there is a way to do a block download that retains the album groupings...

[Chester]

Cowper, if you reply by the deadline, they'll zip all your pictures into one (or two) files, and all your videos into separate "flv" files for downloading. But neither the pics or videos are grouped into albums, and the videos by any name you'll recognize, very long and cryptic titles, downloaded slow and individually. You may want to at least download the 1 or two zipped pic files.

[David Mac]

I hate to see this happen. Webshots was one of the best spots for sharing photos with family and friends. I guess I'll try one of the other services for sharing or maybe just go back to e-mail.

Fortunately I keep all my photos on my computer (and backed-up to a seperate server) so I have no need to download all my stuff from webshots.

[Chester]

David, mine are all backed up to. But I wanted to have a folder that just had the pictures/videos I was sharing online. Saves me from looking thru all those landscapes again to find the best ones.

Here's what I've found out so far (but still reading):

Flicker:
Basic> Free. 300MB worth of photos each calendar month. You can upload 2 videos of 90 secs and 150mb. But only the most recent 200 photos are displayed.
Pro> $25/yr. Unlimited photo uploads (50MB per photo); Unlimited video uploads (90 seconds max, 500MB per video), The ability to show HD Video.

Pinterest:
Pictures only. Videos can only be linked from another site like YouTube.

PhotoBucket:
Free> 2 GB of free storage of your original photo files, or videos under 500mb and 10min length. Linking is ok up to 10GB bandwidth./mo.
Plus count> $30yr. for 20G (also 50-500G options). Unmetered bandwidth.

YouTube basic or Partner:
Videos only, no photos (photos can be embedded in your video).