I'm posting this on behalf of an MTGO player who took the excellent time and effort to doing all this video research for the MTGO community.  I hope everyone takes the opportunity to thank him as soon as he becomes a member. :)  Here's his most excellent article.

So as you all know we have had to use the third party site viddler for a while now since our original host denied us.  But lets face it, viddler is about as appealing your mom’s underwear.  Viddler was originally used because A) not a lot of sites had HD video hosting yet and B) because it was easy.  That being said, they are still in testing for their HD video support and their current quality is abysmal.  So i recorded an M10 draft yesterday and decided i would try out some other free sites and see what the results would be.  I will go over what is the best option for you guys for each site i uploaded to.  Here is the source video

Site #1: Blip.tv

 Analysis:  While the quality is good, the site does not allow video game content.  Which is pretty effing lame.  The site was easy to upload to and there is no limit on size or length of video either, which is also very appealing.

Recommendation:  Do not use this site.  While the quality and convenience is there, the legal issues might get you guys in trouble.

Site #2: Youtube (Make sure to select the 720 p option, which is HD)

Part 1

Part 2

Analysis:  Great quality video.  It is also fairly easy to upload videos, and the editing features are top notch.  The only drawback is the 10 minute video length limit.  This will require each person to chop up each video into segments for individual upload.

Recommendation:  If you don’t mind putting in a little bit of effort to crop your videos, i highly recommend youtube.

Site #3: Dailymotion

M10 1 Draft
Uploaded by mellamopobrede. - Discover more gaming videos.

Analysis: What terribly quality.  In addition to the bad quality, you must apply to become a motion maker.  In order to do that you have to submit an original video to the Dailymotion team for review by tagging it as Creative Content.  Now to be fair, this video has yet to be approved as creative content, but i uploaded this video hours ago.  So the process is arduous.

ACR #2 Draft
Uploaded by mellamopobrede. - Discover more gaming videos.

This video looks much better.  This is the improvement that happens after they approve your video as creative content.  Now this does not look as good as the two sites above, but keep in mind that this video was done on a dinky CRT monitor and also not produced in HD.  Considering those facts, dailymotion is pretty decent.

Recommendation: The quality is fine.  The problem is that the process is kind of tedious and you also have to wait a while before your video looks beautiful.  I would say stay away from this site unless you have no other choice.

Site#4: Veoh

Watch M10 1 Draft in Tech & Gaming  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Analysis and Recommendation:  Not a lot to say here.  Without HD support, the video looks horrendous.  Maybe when they come out with HD support this will be a viable option, but for now stay away.

Site #5: Viddler

This was just for shits and giggles.  It pains me to watch this and it was probably a waste of time to upload this anyway.  Promised HD support that they have not delivered yet, so goodbye old friend.

Winner: Youtube

With quality and convenience, youtube is the clear best option for this here fine website.  I have one last thing to show you guys.  I produced a 1:30 segment from the back end of round 2 of the draft i did.  I produced it in the original dimensions of my monitor (1920 x 1080) and uploaded it to youtube as well.  Make sure to use the 1080p option.  Enjoy.

We've had a great influx of new users to myMTGO since I visited WotC HQ back in November 09'.  One of the great things I rather enjoy with this site is the ability to talk to people about the things they want to see on myMTGO.com and other topical conversations like that.  The most common question I kept getting was, where are the forums?  I would explain to people that instead of forums we have groups.  There are discussions in groups.  If there's a group you don't see, you can create it by going to My Apps -> Groups.  I kept getting that feeling of a "ok, nice try there bub".

So I stepped back and took into a lot of consideration what the differences were between having forums vs. groups and what I figured was two things really.  1) You're right, it doesn't make sense to redefine what people already know and 2) get forums but don't kill groups.  So thinking about it, I came up with the following solution.  Groups are going to be re-engineered for clans.  If you're a clan leader you can create yourself a clan group, control the members of the group, have your own private discussion and albums.  Forums are going to be geared towards public involvement just like all the other forum sites out there.  The added benefit is we're going to make sure that each forum is moderated by someone in the MTGO community who is passionate about that particular forum.

If you would like to have your own forum, please fill out this form.

I'm currently working on the design stages of tournament software and I need your input.  If you have a Google account, please send me a private message here (DO NOT SEND IT HERE IN THIS THREAD FOR PRIVACY PURPOSES) letting me know so I can share with you the 2 documents.  The system is very simple yet complex to design.  Everything is being handled through Google Documents.  Your input will be greatly appreciated.

We are currently working on the login issue and hope to be back up here fairly shortly.  We deeply apologize to everyone who's trying to register for the 100 Card Singleton tournament.

Thomas

We've continued to push the envelope and listen to the MTGO community to making this site even better.  Over the past few weeks we've been behind the scenes making advancements to the deck database area.  So go test it out for us.

Just click on Beta Test area to see the new layouts and improvements.  Once we have everything tested and finalized I'll make a more formal announcement.  You may make all comments and suggestions here on this blog.

So I'm msg'd from a long time friend today on MSN with this bit of information:

Wizards of the Coast is pleased to announce that we're upgrading to a new community platform. We are in the process of migrating our forums to a system that includes a host of new features like friends lists, groups, an invite system and calendar, blogs and wiki.

The forums will be down until at least August 26, and possibly through the end of the month. We apologize for the inconvenience.

He then passes me this link http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1801puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php where Hamtastic spoils this information.

I'm also in the group of folks lucky enough to preview the new WotC Community Site. It's nice and should be a very good replacement to the old boards.

Think MyMTGO + WotC Boards, but for all WotC products and you'll be about right. You can do the normal social networking stuff. Blog, wiki, etc.

What do you guys think?

Thanks to the efforts of Matt (webmaster410) and JacQues (Infobot) we have made a few minor changes to the deck view portion of the deck database.

EDIT WORKS

As reported by platipus10 there was a small minor inconvience regarding the edit function, mainly how it didn't edit but recreated the deck.  This has been a lingering issue and has now been fixed.

FAST LINKING

We've made it even easier for you to share your decks with everyone by including 3 links on every deck.  Use the URL to paste it into MTGO, use Embed Code if you want to post in a forum or the MyMTGO Blog Embed Code if you want your deck to appear in a blog.  Note, the MyMTGO Blog Embed Code will only work here on MyMTGO.com.  To use it just do the following:

While creating or editing your blog click on Source.  Paste the MyMTGO Blog Embed Code then switch back out of source.  Your result will be like the following:

Pretty amazing stuff!!  Our next upgrade is actually quite amazing as soon as we get the kinks worked out from Internet Explorer.

Tweaker

I've been looking at how to continue the advancements of this project and I have stumbled upon a product that many of you may be interested in.  I have the availability to get forums installed on MyMTGO.com.  But the problem I have and can see is what would be the differences between Groups and Forums?  Here's a small list I've come up with to support the arguement.

As it stands now, every verified member of this community has the ability to create their own group.  I think this is really amazing as it gives people the ability and control to be able to help shape the community and its needs.  It's like starting up your own little club.  You find people with common interested and you discuss amongst yourselves your little club topic.  I for one love it.  But there's a draw back.  There are groups that have little to no activity in them.  There are groups with no to few members in it.  So the upside is you can talk about what it is you want to talk about, the downside is you can have groups that have little to nothing to talk about once said group is created.

But there's something to be said about this though.  MyMTGO.com, as a whole and a project, has always been about doing things that hasn't been seen in the MTGO community.  We were the first to do username verification with Infobot preventing username-snipping.  We were the first to give people an out-of-MTGO identity.  We were the first to give the players the control to be able to create groups.  We were the first to have the ability to let you import your MTGO collection into the website and browse a deck with the website showing you which cards you are missing (if any).  All of these first. 

People wanted an Arcade so they could play games.  I did that but hesitantly.  Arcades on websites are already done.  But, it's what some of you wanted so it's done.  Now the option of me having Forums is upon me and I'm asking, do you guys want this?  One key advantage to having Forums (I promissed Huma I'd be looking into this issue here) is I can set moderators.  But Forums are constrictive to what I create, not the users.  That seems limiting in an environment like this.  Freedom to create what you want.  So I'll leave it up to the members of the site.  Let me know your opinion and what you think.  Kill Groups and Get Forums?

Tweaker

I'd like to get everyone's feedback regarding the Latest News feature on MyMTGO.com.  Currently it's been populated primarily with MTGO: tags.  But I'd like to expand on it.  I do occassionally do SITE: related news but I try to limit those for the sake of the game and not just the site.  So I'd like to open the floor to everyone to throw in some creative idea's towards developing more MTGO related news.

This was a pretty neat idea by Syco11978.  Since we have the ability for players to import their collections into MyMTGO.com, why not a simple way to see what cards you are missing from each set?  So I took the concept and ran with it.  The page can be accessed from the My Apps -> Collection page.  I broke the page up into individual sets as well as rarities.  I figured pauper players would appreciate that type of breakdown.  But I decided to take it a step further.

After a couple of weeks of testing I'm proud to announce the development of TWYGS (The Way You Get Stuff).  TWYGS is a simple set of open sourced output that MTGO webshops can impliment to allow all MTGO players to automatically load their wish list into their cart.  We've officially developed and support a number of TWYGS.

wishlist.wl

This wish list is an UTF-8 file generated by MyMTGO.com.  It is comma delimited.  Set + Number is represented by a unique card identifier for a specific card.  This file is generated by the Set Completion tool available by accessing My Apps -> Collection.  This is available to all registered players who have uploaded their collection to the website regardless if their collection is set as public or private.  The only qualification is that you have imported your collection.  This format supports the SPECIFIC card that a player is looking for as opposed to a generic version.

Format: Qty, Set+Number

Example Output: 4, 10E61

Note: In the example the wishlist.wl file is specifically asking for a 10th Edition copy of Wrath of God.

{deckname}_wishlist.txt

This wish list is a UTF-8 generate file generated by MyMTGO.com.  It is space delimited.  This wishlist simply requests for the card itself and is not set specific.  This wishlist is MTGO Wish List compatible.

Format: number card name

Example: 1 Wrath of God

TWYGS is open source and can be utiliized by anybody and anyone.  All that I ask that you tell players how to build their own TWYGS and link them to MyMTGO.com.

I realize this has taken me a while to actually write about.  The matter of a Top User in a point system like what we have was a very popular feature of the site in the earlier days of MyMTGO.com that the removal of said such point system really did take a major effect on the system activity.  Let me recap what actually happened to cause the original point system to be deactivated.

When I enabled the point system on MyMTGO I had it enabled but really not configured properly.  That was a mistake on my part initially in not realizing the potential for all the points that could be earned.  When I realized what needed to be done to get things under control there were a small handful of people who had a large amount of earned points.  In addition to the points earned, I had a system where points could be converted to MTGO Event Tickets.  I think the ratio was 1000:1.  And it was amazing to see the activity sky rocket the way that it did.  Someone then showed me how people could earn essentially hundres of points within a few steps and potentially ruin the entire reward system.  After this was verified I had no choice but to take down the entire point system for every player.  I did reward every player who earned 1000 points with an event ticket.  But the damage was already done in my eyes those as site operator.  People enjoyed fighting out for that top spot or even breaking the Top 10.  I'm also afraid to admit we, as a site, lost a few players who were heavily active on the system who may or may not have earned points legitamatly.

Over the next couple of months I learned the software a bit more and now have re-initialized the point system.  Unfortunantly (at the moment) I have removed the reward system for converting 1000 points into an MTGO Event Ticket.  I do have other plans at this time to reward top active players and I think, at least at the end, everyone will appreciate all the effort that has gone into bringing this point system back to MyMTGO.com.  One of the key factors has been that now, instead of disabling point system-wide, I can now disable points on an individual player level.  There is now also a system-level audit trail of rewarded points that I have access to at the admin level to see rewarded points.

I am currently working on a different type of reward system for spending earned points.  I would love to tell you I'll have it up in a matter of days but, as I have learned, it's very important to make sure that I have things setups properly at a system level before announcing to everyone what that new system is.  So far after about a week of the points being active, things are looking like they are working properly and that is extremely encouraging.  Activity is up, player interaction with the system is up and overall I'm very pleased with the results.  I hope everyone shoots for the top points :)

Starting with today's official decks provided by Wizards of the Coast, MyMTGO.com will be publishing a new awards banner for every Top 8 player and attaching them to their personal profile.

I'm still working on fine-tuning the look and feel of each of the banners.  Some of the current MyMTGO.com winners are m0x, TheFriendlyHippo and Bazaar of Baghdad.  This system even works for players who have yet to register with the system.  When they do, their award banners will be waiting for them with open arms 

As an open invitation, I'd also like to welcome any and all PRE (Player Run Events) to message me with winners and I will be more than happy to place a winner's banner for each of the winners.  PRE hosts, please message me directly if you are interested in this.

Since the launch of the deck database people keep asking me "When will you finally support MTGO DEK files?".  Well, I'm proud to say that thanks to the efforts of jacQues (Infobot) we are now fully compatible with DEK files.  You can still utilize the TXT in addition to the new DEK files, so it does BOTH.

I am very proud to announce two new Infobot commands to use directly with MyMTGO.com.  Simply open a chat within Infobot and send it a private message.  I'd like to personally thank jacQues for all his continuing efforts for the MTGO and MyMTGO.com convergence.

ME

Syntax: me {text}

Output: It will automatically update your MyMTGO.com status profile in addition to making a formal announcement of your status change on the home page.

Notes:  You may use the me command once every 5 minutes.  This is done within the MTGO client itself.  In addition when using the me command you do NOT need a / in front of me command itself.

Correct:  me is hungry.

Incorrect: /me is hungry.

YE

Syntax: ye

Output: Within MTGO and the Infobot private chat box ye will display to you the last 20 players updates there within the MTGO client itself.

I'm really proud to announce a few advancements to our blog software.  I think you guys will like this stuff.  But before I tell you what they are, I want to personally thank Hamtastic for all of his personal efforts to help bring to the MyMTGO community a feature you guys asked for.  So be sure to thank him.  So, without futher adu, I'm proud to announce two new advancements for blogs.

Autocard

To use the new Autocard feature do the following steps.

Step 1) Type the name of the card you want to Autocard.

Step 2) Highlight that card name

Step 3) Click on the new magic card icon

Easy as that.

Example: Wrath of God

myMTGO.com is proud to announce the development and execution of the new deck database. The deck database is the only MTGO user-centric system that allow's MTGO players to be able to import, view, download, rate and comment on. We've taken the standard MTGO deck and built it around the MTGO player's experience with a bunch of special features.

How does it work?

Every user has the ability to upload and contribute decks to the deck database. We've made that process very simple to use.

On the tool bar, select My Apps -> Decks. Then click Upload Deck. You can upload a TXT based deck for import right now (DEK support to come later)

To save an MTGO deck as a TXT file in MTGO just save the file as a Local Text Deck.

When you upload your deck the fields for the deck are automatically populated with the cards information. Always remember to give a description on the deck. You have the ability to keep your deck as public or private.

So how is ours different from everyone else?

Well, great question. In a number of ways you could say the development of the Deck Database application was built with the MTGO player in mind. So we've added a few additional features to give the experience of the MTGO player a more enjoyable one.

Import Collection

myMTGO.com supports the ability for every player to import their collection to their personal profile. Go to My Apps -> Collection. Browse to the export of your MTGO collection and then click Upload. When it's all said and done you will see your collection listed. As an additional feature, we have built privacy rights into the application so you can keep your collection hidden from your profile as well as card search results but still utilize the features of the application. As your collection grows with each new trade simply import your collection to the system to keep it up-to-date.

For instructions click here.

Missing Cards from Deck

If you've sucessfully imported your collection to myMTGO, you can now fully utilize one of the biggest features of the project. While you are looking at a deck, the application will automatically show you which cards you are missing from your collection automatically. That's right, no more buying cards that you thought you needed for a deck you want to try out. But that's not all. Ever wonder what that Wish List is when you are in trade? Well, I'd like to think WoTC built that for me (but they didn't) and this application. If there are cards that you are missing for any deck you can save a Wish List which is compatible with MTGO's Wish List feature.

Show Deck's Against Collection

If you've sucessfully imported your collection to myMTGO, you can now fully utilize another huge feature of the project (my favorite features really). You can see a quick search result of decks that you can build with your current collection WITHOUT having to buy any additional cards. Yes, I just said that. You can SEE all the decks that user's have contributed and if your collection has all the cards that support it, you can play it. That's just awesome :D

Add a deck to your profile

I've seen on multiple website's (mainly forums) where people say/announce what type of decks they play. Well, I thought that was a neat idea, so we have it.

Future development

Support for the import of DEK files.

Rules engine to show the format a deck playable in.

Personal Comments

I wanted to take this time to thank a few people for helping me with this project.

To the design team (Cardhoarder and Silenus) for their valued input on how this application should run, function and to enhance the over all MTGO experience for the MTGO player.

To the card team (Infobot and macrocide) for all of their efforts to providing me with the card information for the deck database.

To the beta team (AJ_Impy, ALightJedi, syco11978, Neoshinji and Marc_1978) for their endless persuit of finding all of these bugs.

To the developer, Qiao. Without your endless hours of development and committment to this project none of this could have ever happened. Qiao never even heard of Magic the Gathering but took the time to learn and understand the game and developed this amazing application.