Vimeo has consistently been the video sharing site of choice for filmmakers, with their high-quality uploads and file-size permissions that have allowed filmmakers to upload complete, longer-length films without the irritating time-limit restrictions of YouTube.

Now, as of last week, Vimeo has upgraded their Vimeo Plus user accounts to allow filmmakers to upload full 5GB videos in one shot. That means that Plus users can now upload a full 2.5 hour long feature film in quality HD to the site. As of this writing, this file-size increase is in Beta mode, meaning that not all the kinks may have been worked out yet. A Vimeo Plus membership costs either $9.95 per month or $59.95 per year.

Prior to this change, several filmmakers have already taken advantage of Vimeo’s higher upload limits without time restraints to put their longer films online. On the Underground Film Journal, we tend to consider films over 47 minutes or so to be of “feature” length and have featured several of these films on the site already. Some of these films include:

• 50,000,000 Joe Franklin Fans Can’t Be Wrong, dir. Joshua Brown
• Wanted New Talent! The Walt Gollender Story, dir. Mike Z
• Bumps, dir. Bob Moricz

You can also frequently find great quality looking “short” films on Vimeo that run between 20 and 30 minutes long, such as David Fenster‘s documentary The Livelong Day. Several of these films can also be found on the Underground Film Journal’s Underground Film channel on Vimeo.

Lastly, to help budding young — or old! — filmmakers, Vimeo has launched an informal online Video School that provides short video lessons on filmmaking tips and tricks.