A major sign pointing to this emerged last week, but now we’re (literally) talking: YouTube cofounder Steve Chen has confirmed that the video-sharing site is interested in showing HD video.
It’s not unconditionally devoted to this objective – an increase in YouTube’s maximum allowable file size (without a corresponding increase in maximum allowable video length) occurred without much fanfare. Still, people who are sick of seeing fuzzy videos should be happy with the result.
“Chen told me that he expects that high-quality YouTube vids will be available to everyone within three months,” reports Rafe Needleman. “Although YouTube’s goal, he said, is to make the site’s vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer’s Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if they want it.”
Hopefully there will even be an option for people with slow connections to see HD clips – if they’re willing to wait, why not?
Anyway, aside from issues of revenue-sharing, this development should address one of the biggest complaints about YouTube. Look for fans to rejoice and competitors to frown as the three-month mark approaches.
