VReel was a video sharing

web site A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, ...

that allowed users to upload, share and view high resolution videos by use of a proprietary

video codec A video codec is software or Computer hardware, hardware that data compression, compresses and Uncompressed video, decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, ''codec'' is a portmanteau of ''encoder'' and ''decoder'', while ...

. The site was in

open beta The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

in an effort to replace the now defunct

Stage6 Stage6 was a video sharing website owned and operated by DivX, Inc., where users could upload, share, and view video clips. Stage6 was different from other video services in that it streamed high quality video clips that were user-encoded with ...

site with a viable alternative. Using a similar style to Stage6, VReel also received a licence from

DivX, Inc. DivX, LLC (; also formerly known as DivXNetworks, Inc. and DiVX, Inc.) is a privately held American video technology company based in San Diego, California. DivX, LLC is best known for creating the DivX family of digital video codecs. The com ...

to use their video codec, and signed an agreement with

Edgecast Edgecast, Inc. (formerly Edgio, formerly Verizon Digital Media Services, formerly Edgecast Networks, Inc) was a subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. and provider of content delivery network (CDN) and video streaming services. ...

to distribute the web site globally.

Early development

VReel began in 2008 under the title DivXIt.net, drawing attention from the Internet community by means of social bookmarking web sites, such as

Digg Digg (stylized in lowercase as digg) is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral phenomenon, viral Internet iss ...

. DivXIt.net's inbound traffic gained the attention of DivX, Inc., who immediately issued a cease and desist order against the web site for trademark infringement. Following this event, DivXIt staff responded to the order offering to sign the domain name over to DivX, Inc. in return for a free licence for the web site. This arrangement was met and the site renamed itself VReel, and the DivXIt.net domain was transferred to DivX, Inc. Having moved to a new domain (VReel.net), a short time later VReel was contacted by

Limelight Networks Edgio, Inc., formerly Limelight Networks, was an American company that provides a content delivery network (CDN) service, used for delivery of digital media content and software. Following a 2022 acquisition of Edgecast, the company re-brande ...

, and was offered a hosting plan on their network. The original

beta test The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

of VReel.net was scheduled to begin on 18 May 2008, with the full release occurring at the 31st of the same month. However, on May 23, VReel released a statement stating that its

programming team A programming team is a team of people who develop or maintain computer software. They may be organised in numerous ways, but the egoless programming team and chief programmer team have been common structures. Description A programming team c ...

was late in releasing the beta version of the site, and that as of that date, their contract legally allowed for 2 more days to deliver the beta release. This did not occur however, and the site's lead developer started an

arbitration Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

process. The May 23rd statement also stated that a new development team was to be selected "in the next 5 days", a period which would end on May 27. VReel servers went down on Saturday 31 May 2008 due to a fire at The Planet data center. The site recovered on Wednesday 4 June 2008.

Downtime

On August 3, 2008, VReel disabled all video playback. This was due to multiple "leech sites" stealing bandwidth and causing high operating costs that were needed to fund the development and launch of the second beta. VReel announced that the web site would be back online by August 30, 2008. Financial problems forced the company to postpone.

Relaunch

In October 2008, VReel announced a partnership with

Lavasoft Adaware, previously known as Lavasoft, is a software development company that produces spyware and malware detection software, including Adaware. It operates as a subsidiary of Avanquest, a division of Claranova. Adaware's headquarters are i ...

. Eoghan stated "VReel.net, the home of high definition and high speed online video has today announced its software partnership with Lavasoft, for their highly acclaimed and award winning Ad-Aware anti-spyware software. VReel Beta 2 introduced several new features, including expanded community features and premium accounts.

Closed beta

On November 10th, VReel enabled private access to its second beta. They introduced beta testers in waves, and applications were available for users to apply. The second wave began on November 14, and finally the third Began on the 21st. During the closed beta period there were free keys given to those who won "Treasure Hunts" that Eoin made.

Open beta

VReel announced a 24-hour trial period during which the site would be openly accessible to the public. Following the 24-hour trial on 28 November, the site remained open indefinitely. VReel acquired the StageHD.com domain, and forwarded all

traffic Traffic is the movement of vehicles and pedestrians along land routes. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic laws and informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly an ...

to the VReel video portal. VReel's traffic share continued to rise since its launch. The site was taking in more than 500,000 unique hits per day and continued to rise. In July 2009, the site was ranked #30,500 by Alexa. By October 2009, the site had risen to rank #16,824.

Hosting and distribution

May 5, 2009, the site announced that in addition to its original partnership with EdgeCast Networks, it is now also directly

peering In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-a ...

with various

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non ...

s, including Level-3 and

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

. The announcement also stated the site's backend was moved to a new set of servers. It was previously hosted on 3 servers in Germany and moved to 10 servers in the United States.

VReel-Player

VReel has been working on their own webplayer, based on the

VLC media player VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source, software portability, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media Server (computing), server developed by the Vide ...

, to replace the DivX Web Player. With the new web player, VReel would natively support 4 formats. The VReel Player has not yet been released to the public. The May 2009 announcement stated that contrary to previous announcements, the VReel Player will not be based on the VLC player and neither will it be

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

. After the project has been put on hold it has now been continued and will be (re)built from the ground up in

closed source Proprietary software is software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing the software or modi ...

. Among concerns, the primary concern for going closed-source (instead of open-source) was the confrontation with too many security issues when having the source open for everyone. The VReel Player would be redeveloped under a closed source license, and will be fully capable of DivX, XviD and h.264 playback.

Shutdown

References

External links

* {{official website, http://vreel.net/ American entertainment websites Former video hosting services