1080p YouTube videos? Um, sure.
Get ready to upload: 1080p YouTube videos are coming next week, the company said today.
By Andrew Heining | 11.13.09
Ever been Rick Rolled in stunning 1080p HD? Well, now you can!
Announced Friday on its blog, video sharing site YouTube will begin displaying videos uploaded in 1080p at their native resolution. What’s that mean? Mediocre, shaky clips can be displayed as no one ever intended them!
But seriously, isn’t enabling high-definition video on YouTube akin to using Kobe beef for a stew? Picassos for kindling? A Hummer for soccer practice chauffeur duty?
Well, maybe. But as YouTube software engineer Billy Biggs points out, YouTube is just positioning itself to keep up with the times. “As resolution of consumer cameras increases, we want to make sure YouTube is the best home on the web to showcase your content,” he writes on the company’s official blog.
In other words, YouTube’s not saying all your home videos should be shot in 1080p, it’s just saying that if you want to drop money on the latest video gear, and use swaths of hard-drive space to store it, only to use up gobs of bandwidth to upload it so others can leave snarky comments about it, YouTube wants to be your video site of choice.
And don’t forget: your average PC hooked to the Web will have a hard time choking down such a large video file, so to take advantage of the new high resolution format, users will need a fairly robust computer and a good Web connection (or hefty dose of patience) to match.
One segment of users who will surely make immediate use of the new format: Hollywood studios. In April, YouTube made its first challenge to Hulu, buddying up with the BBC, CBS, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony, and Lions Gate Entertainment.
YouTube is actively soliciting good HD videos, vowing in Friday’s blog post to feature the top submissions on its homepage.
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See also:
Google video chalked up ten billion clicks in August
YouTube rental challenge: getting off the desk, onto the couch
Screen wars: stealing TV’s ‘eyeball’ share
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2. TinyDancer500 | 11.14.09
I’ve had a channel on YouTube for nearly 4 years now, my main focus is Sesame Street. I can count on one hand the number of videos I’ve watched that you’re alluding to. I just don’t care for vlogs or comedians, I enjoy the classic TV, movie, and music clips YouTube offers instead. Hulu is useless to me here in Canada, so thank God for YouTube and all they do.
4. youtuber | 11.14.09
this just shows the ignorance of people outside the youtube community, who think youtube is just clips of people falling over. ever heard of shane dawson or nigahiga? that’s why youtube needs 1080p.
5. Avigadro | 11.14.09
The folks at Google/YouTube aren’t thinking about today’s infrastructure when they enabled the 1080p video format. It is for what is coming. Hard drives are getting larger. Computers are getting faster. Bandwidth is getting higher. The world is moving to 1080p. The point is that they are putting the pieces in place for the next generation of Internet based television.
This is always how things have been done. You don’t think about what is needed now; you have to be a forward thinker. I’m sorry if you don’t agree but it is the truth.
6. Michaelc | 11.14.09
1080p? I still can’t get my 720p uploads to look decent even though they look fine before I upload them.
7. peter | 11.14.09
finally youtube ! congrats ! was so sick and tired of all the poor quality videos !
8. stranger | 11.14.09
This article is terrible and the person who wrote it is clearly ignorant of the wide range of videos youtube offers. You can find ANYTHING on youtube from educational videos to music even to drama series or movies. A recent survey has found that after Google, Youtube is now the second most used search engine in the world, more than Yahoo.
13. Jawn | 11.14.09
“this just shows the ignorance of people outside the youtube community, who think youtube is just clips of people falling over.”
you win
14. Jay | 11.15.09
Got to hand it to Google there pretty smart and know that the competition like(revver, metacafe etc)could configure their sites to extreme HD to attract more youtubers over to their network.
Also I think youtube will have a split option for viewing. One for the 1080p HD and a default lower quality for computer/bandwidth considerations.
15. Jay | 11.15.09
Got to hand it to Google there pretty smart and know that the competition like(Revver, Metacafe etc)could configure their sites to extreme HD to attract more Youtuber’s over to their network. Also I think Youtube will have a split option for viewing. One for the 1080p HD and a default lower quality for computer/bandwidth considerations.
16. afewtips.com | 11.15.09
YouTube needs to create an area that is supported by the networks.
Hulu is the model that is working from a revenue point of view. Youtube needs to be more legit and not just a place to see nonsense. Yes many of the videos are quality, but if I want to see a TV show of movie, I check Hulu, not YouTube. YouTube is more about surfing and just keep clicking for something, while Hulu is episodes.
17. none | 11.15.09
Too bad YouTube has a problem with keeping up with the traffic in its crappy resolutions right now - there is NO WAY it’ll ever be HD unless it’s full of advertisements.
Goodbye Youtube.
18. lalalalalalala | 11.15.09
its ironic how you said that youtube videos were a waste of effort to upload just so that others can leave snarky comments about, when thats exactly what this is. try being positive next time.
19. Brandon | 11.15.09
I second what everyone else said, I’m glad Youtube is adding 1080p. Progress is beautiful.
21. John | 11.15.09
Are you kidding!!? In a year or two nearly everyone will be taking 1080p videos with their iPhones, Driods, flip HD, etc. and anything less will be for cavemen. I’m surprised Youtube didn’t already enable this feature. 1080p is the new standard for video and standard Def is already becoming outdated. Many new desktop can now store up to or over 2TB (2000 GB), more than enough for days of HD video. As prices continue to fall, as they always do, standard def will become an historical footnote in the early days of Youtube.
22. Woow | 11.15.09
Cool 1080p most people don’t even have a TV that will do 1080p. 1080i or 720p but not 1080p.
23. Troy | 11.15.09
The following comment left me very confused…
“But seriously, isn’t enabling high-definition video on YouTube akin to using Kobe beef for a stew? Picassos for kindling? A Hummer for soccer practice chauffeur duty?”
24. Jeff | 11.16.09
In a few years, I bet this guy will be writing a snarky article entitled, “3-D YouTube videos with Smellovision? Um, sure.”
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1. coolstorybro | 11.13.09
I’m not sure what’s with the smartassary, but it’s called progress. No one is forcing you to watch 1080p content.