When we first tried a closed beta version of Soapbox in September 2006, we felt that its ease of use and clean interface would help it challenge the Web-video leaders. Now available for general public consumption, Soapbox still carries the same potential, and it has also beefed up its integration with Microsoft services.

For example, you can add a Soapbox video to an MSN Spaces blog page with just a few clicks, share and watch a video simultaneously with a MSN Messenger instant-messaging contact, and use RSS feeds to view videos on a TV connected to a Media Center PC in full screen. Expect some sort of Zune or Xbox 360 Live integration next.

Despite Microsoft's promotion of its rival Silverlight technology, Soapbox uses Flash 8 to encode videos. A Microsoft spokesperson did say that the company will likely be adopting Silverlight for Soapbox at some point in the future. Soapbox lets you upload a large variety of formats (including QuickTime and Xvid), and videos also played back under OS X, in both Firefox and Safari.

Uploading our test file was speedy (about 1 minute), and it was live some 10 minutes later. Video quality was excellent for a Flash video; Microsoft's encoding process seemed to handle the third clip in our test video better than most other sites.

When you watch a video on Soapbox, it's added to a playlist of 20 recently watched videos. This playlist automatically appears as a stylish thumbnail overlay on your video (an easy, though not perfect, way to create a playlist). Overall, the embedded Soapbox player is one of the best-looking we saw (it does place a watermark in the top-right corner of your video). Our one gripe: You can watch a video in full-screen mode from the Soapbox site itself, but the embedded Soapbox player lacks this option.

Bottom line: Soapbox integrates well with Microsoft products like MSN Messenger, but unlike with most rivals, embedded video can't be viewed in full-screen mode.

Resources: See our Top 10 Video Sharing Sites chart, find out how we tested, and visit our video-quality comparison page (requires QuickTime).

Danny Allen