Comments on: High Quality Without HD: A Fair Marketing Ploy In A HD Age?

By: Techcrunch: Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? | twitAD - Advertise On Twitter

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:52:42 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

By: Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? | twitAD - Advertise On Twitter

Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? | twitAD - Advertise On Twitter — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:52:14 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

By: Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? Only in NooYu.com

Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? Only in NooYu.com — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:05:23 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

By: The iMagazine » Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real?

The iMagazine » Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:43:47 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

By: Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? | RateJamaica

Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? | RateJamaica — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:57:40 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

By: Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real?

Did YouTube Just Turn On HD For Real? — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:08:47 +0000

[...] teasing us for a year with the option to watch “higher quality” videos that weren’t quite high-def, it appears that YouTube is making the switch to HD, at least for [...]

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By: Berlind’s Testbed mobile edition

Berlind’s Testbed mobile edition — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:01:29 +0000

[...] at least 720 lines of vertical resolution if not 1080. But on the Net, the definition of hi-def is the subject of some debate. In the the interview, Towes defines 480 lines of vertical resolution as being hi-def for the Net, [...]

By: Mr Video

Mr Video — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:28:48 +0000

it’s all about bit rate folks… you can take a regular 480P size image, and make it look stupendously sharp because the compression was not as aggressive, or you can take an ‘HD’ 1080P image and have it all blocky due to poor or too aggressive compression techniques.

So it’s not about the size of the TV, the aspect ratio… its the bit rate that determines quality.

By: www.CARversation.com

www.CARversation.com — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:20:18 +0000

radical.

By: Pete Steege

Pete Steege — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:21:03 +0000

Bandwidth is not the only limiting factor – storing HD video will take 4 times as much room per video for YouTube and their customers.

Not a show stopper by any means, but there is a cost beyond the time to download – just investing in enough space to keep it all.

Costs drop fast in the disk drive industry, but the vendors are collectively selling every drive they can make right now. Probably means the net cost to YouTube and others will be significantly higher than their current model.

Drive capacity typically grows at about 40% per year…will HD adoption take long enought to keep drive count neutral?

By: till

till — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:08:11 +0000

@27: Vimeo is NYC based, TC prefers the silly valley.

By: Jonny C

Jonny C — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:09:05 +0000

Yeah, what constitutes HD video nowadays wouldn’t quite translate on the internet today. When you’re talking about 720p and 1080p resolutions, the file sizes and processing speeds necessary to view/store those files are well beyond what’s reasonable. Just getting “standard def” files on YouTube would greatly increase the quality of what they have now.

I also noticed that the videos I see on Google Video (direct) appear to be a higher resolution than that of YouTube.

By: Stage6 Lover

Stage6 Lover — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:00:48 +0000

Stage 6 rules above all…the future,,

By: HonestMall.com

HonestMall.com — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:03:08 +0000

as till above mentioned, this is the second post about HD video with no mention of vimeo’s excellent pioneering work.

i think they deserve some credit.

By: Grammar

Grammar — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:27:04 +0000

you “cant help than wonder”? Man I wonder what that is like…

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:05:38 +0000

IanDanforth nailed it – quality should be measured by faithfulness to the uncompressed source. I’d much rather watch 480p in its original broadcast-ready quality than 1080p compressed all to hell.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:20:57 +0000

The internet is not ready for streaming HD. It just takes too much bandwidth.

480p is actually pretty damn nice for streaming video. But any improvement in resolution is good in my opinion, considering that currently, YouTube videos are about 2×2 pixels.

By: Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:46:50 +0000

HD – YouTube?
A direct contridiction

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:29:16 +0000

They have been quoted as saying HD but I think what they really mean is “high quality”, indicating that the video they have on their site now is anything but high quality, or even quality- by any measure. But of course, most people could care less as long as THEY can “get it”. If quality was an issue, then of course beta wouold have won the bets vs. vhs wars of the 80’s and we wouldn’t have to have the HD-DVD vs. Blu Ray debate of today, we’d have both “high quality” formats. But as David Pogue has put forward- who cares? Therefore, using the term HD in the same sentence with YoutTube is a complete misnomer.

By: rick

rick — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:28:04 +0000

HD is the forcefed future, you’re right Duncan. But for anyone who has gotten laid this year, the improvement in quality isn’t worth replacing your entire DVD collection. HD is a holy grail for geeks and for the rest of us only useful for pro sports.

The switch from magnetic to optical was compelling; it was a no brainer. HD, on the other hand, would never succeed organically. Thank goodness it’s practically government mandated.

By: El Honathan

El Honathan — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:30:00 +0000

@12 Duncan.
I agree that HD is great and that we are moving in that direction I think most people posting would agree to some extend to that theory.

@Duncan’s Department store Rant: Chris Bidmead is right is is all about the quality at source HD MPEG 2 is running much higher that normal DVD. And there is no way you can see a difference if the source comes from the same good quality file. You need to compare like for like -(Chris mentions HD vs SD at 20 Mbps) not just about going into department store and look at the big screens and the glitzy tech.

HD will be used where it is most effective. For UGC like youtube you would still need the orginal source in HD otherwise transcoding DV 5 Mbps into HD MPEG 2 (or other HD formats/codecs) will not provide any additional quailty to the image. It would just take up more storage and more bandwidth to deliver. So what would be the point in that? In this way yes it is a marketing gimmick. At least until the majority of youtube users have HD capacity on their mobile phones and camcorders. Then it is an infrastructure question whether youtube can actually support HD for all users.

- For large production HD is definitely coming on strong. Look at sports, film TV production and Live acts. These are the areas where people might want to see high-end production values. So it is about setting the technology into the right application. If Hulu/Amazon has the balls for HD then that could be interesting from a Net perspective.

Re: Fired debate- you need to grow some thicker skin. Don’t let it bother you

By: Chis Bidmead

Chis Bidmead — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:50:59 +0000

@Duncan

>Walk into a department store and ask them to play a standard
>DVD vs blueray and tell me you cant see the difference

I don’t get the impression from any of your replies that you understand the fundamental point: the difference you are seeing between HD and SD is primarily a function of bandwidth and compression artifacts.

To recap: HD MPEG2 is doing around 20Mbps. DVD MPEG2 is doing 10MBps absolute max, and probably more like 5Mbps. I’ve been present at an engineers’ test of HD versus SD streamed at the same (~20Mbps) bandwidth. It is extremely hard to discern the difference without getting up close to the screen.

–
Chris

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:33:29 +0000

I read somewhere a while back that YouTube have been encoding videos uploaded in both the flv format and the new h.264 format as well. This as kayoone says is a much more efficient codec and provides far better video quality with the same bandwidth.
By encoding the videos in h.264 they are ready for when Flash Player 9 is released in a month or so. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what they are referring to and when the next flash player is released we will see a jump in quality.

Just found where I read it. YouTube on the iTV uses the h.264 encoded videos.
http://www.ilou...tube-h264-deal/
They didn’t just do it for the iTV, its for flash player 9 as well.