Youtube raises the HD streaming video bar to 1080p

As the internet’s main repository for everyone’s two minutes of stupid caught on video, Youtube has been working hard to shed it’s silly, low quality, short format image. Last year it began offering long form programming with resolution up to 720p. I suspect it;s trying to get a jump on competition in announcing the jump to higher quality 1080p video.  It will be interesting o see if Youtube can attract more quality, long format content to justify the upgrade.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen announced high-quality YouTube viewing at NewTeeVee 2007. He also said, then, that YouTube stores all video it receives at the resolution it’s uploaded at. So when YouTube ads a resolution option, as it did then and is doing now, it simply needs to re-encode videos for the new player, not get new raw content.

Walk said that about half of the 1080p content in the YouTube database has been re-encoded so far.

Only about 10 percent of playbacks on YouTube are now in the high-quality player. Walk said that this is due in large part to the fact that for many viewers, hardware or bandwidth limitations prohibit high-quality viewing. Also, more content is coming in from mobile devices than ever. “We’ve seen about a 2,000 percent increase in mobile uploads this year,” Walk said.