As far as I'm aware, there's no general consensus on which method is best (the magic world being what it is, though, I doubt you could find a general consensus on whether finding the spectator's card is really the best thing to do, or whether just leaving him in suspense for ever and ever wouldn't be the better course of action -- but I digress).
Let's first get a few general things out of the way. First of all, the up-the-ladder cut was originally done to simulate a strip cut (or running cut). So you've got to ask yourself: how do I best simulate this action?
1. In a normal strip cut, you don't have any packets protruding from the sides, so you should minimize the time these packets are visible, and the amount by which they stick out (over time, try to get it to 1/4").
2. Don't "strip" too often! You often see cardmen repeat the up-the-ladder cut over and over, with the packets getting thinner and thinner, until they finally slap the last packet on top. Ask yourself, how often would you strip the cards in a legitimate running cut? Not more often than four or five time, I bet. So stick to simulating a four- or five-part strip by doing the up-the-ladder only four or five times (as you did in your video). As Steve Forte says: "If you haven't convinced them that it's a legitimate strip by that time, doing more cuts won't help -- in fact, it'll do the opposite!"
3. In a normal strip cut, the packet in your right hand is getting thinner with every cut. Try to achieve this with your up-the-ladder cut as well by always undercutting at least half the cards from the protruding packet.
4. No matter what kind of up-the-ladder you end up doing, avoid setting it up by undercutting half the deck, and then undercutting half the deck again. Even the most stupid spectator will see that you haven't changed the order in the deck, but simply nullified your own cut. Instead, go into the cutting sequence after a push-through, or, if you absolutely have to do it from a "standing start", set it up not by one undercut of half the deck, but by two undercuts of about a quarter of the deck (ideally even these should be of different sizes). This way, the spectator can see that you are not undercutting from the same place, but from a different place every time.
5. You need a certain amount of speed -- the process can't look like a step-by-step instruction to the spectator.
Now, these tips don't necessarily have to apply to magicians (except for the last point about speed). Magicians can fool a spectator even with a sub-par up-the-ladder, because there's no pressure for it to look like a regular strip cut; most spectators will believe it's simply a fancy way of cutting the deck. However, I believe that a shuffle looks best to the audience if it looks like something they know, and so I think getting this false cut good enough (by the above standards) is a worthwhile task.
All of that said, I greatly prefer the second variation you showed. The problem with the first one is that (a) it's more difficult to get up to speed and to do cleanly, and (b) you have a packet protruding from the side all the time, from the moment you set the cut up right until you finally slap the last packet on top.
Hope this helps!
