High Quality Videos Coming to YouTube Soon

Speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference Youtube Co-founder Steve Chen said that Youtube will at some time in future stream high quality videos. 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.

Steve Chen said that the high-quality streams will be available in the next months, but only for some of the videos. This is probably the reason why YouTube’s bulk uploader increased the size limit for a video from 100 MB to 1 GB.

YouTube probably has the lowest quality videos on the Web today thanks to the Flash 7 Technology. According to Wikipedia,

“YouTube’s video playback technology is based on Macromedia’s Flash Player 7 and uses the Sorenson Spark H.263 video codec. (…) [The video] has pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 and runs at 25 frames per second. The maximum data rate is 300kbit/s.”

Steve Chen also confirmed that in YouTube’s internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was uploaded it. However, he said, a large portion of YouTube videos are pretty poor quality to begin with — 320 x 240. Streaming them in high-quality mode isn’t going to help much. So expect the rollout of High Quality Videos to be pretty slow from Youtube since the existing setup is working well for them, so this is just an experiment.

[via dailyApps]

iDesktop.tv the new YouTube?

So what is iDesktop.tv?

iDesktop.tv is an incredibly cool dynamic web 2.0 application, with a terrific modern design, for searching, watching and downloading videos from the richest online video archive, YouTube.
This is basically adding functionality and experience to what "should be" there. The possibilities of the site reach far beyond that. It gives you the chance to create your own environment for watching video clips, saving them and sharing them with friends.

What makes iDesktop.tv unique?

Designing iDesktop.tv we followed one primary idea - to bring normal desktop application experience to the browser - windows that can be dragged, resized, minimized in a tray, drag'n'drop of videos between players and results, standard menus - all with one goal - to make the richest web application for viewing and managing video content! You will be amazed by the flexibility and fabulous design of the website. It is user friendly and easy to navigate but also has great functionality.

Video to Android - The Google Phone

Below is the video from Sergey Brin, where he begins by explaining how excited he is about Android. Yet, I don't see the excitement, not a smile, not any body movements, nothing. If you are excited about something, SHOW IT. The other guy who follows Sergey also seems bored with the whole thing. Scoble calls the $10M a bribe, I wonder more if indie developers will care seeing as tho there was no passion in any of these videos. Naturally corporate and startups will get their developers working on apps for this new OS.

So to sum up Android: It's a Google OS which is "open" to anyone to create whatever they want with. I can only guess that phones that support Android will ship with lots of fun Google apps pre-built.

Here is Sergey's intro video to Android:

[via Centernetworks]

Windows Live wants to build Flickr competitor

It’s hard not to have seen this coming, but I have to wonder whether or not the world needs another Flickr or YouTube.

In a Microsoft job advertisement posted yesterday for a program manager position, the description clearly outlines Microsoft’s strategy to build a photo and video sharing website.

Come make Windows Live the best place to share your digital memories! Heard of Flickr? YouTube? How about. Mac? This role will work across the new Windows Live division with teams like Spaces, SkyDrive, Messenger and Hotmail to construct a winning strategy for Microsoft in photo and video sharing. This role involves leading the team to design the strategy then build and implement a winning solution that will be loved by millions of customers. This feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with flickr, smugmug and other photo web solutions today. This is a “v1” opportunity.

This role requires a strong PM with several product cycles of consumer experience. Successful candidates will have strong strategic thinking, outstanding cross team leadership and a proven track record of shipping. The right candidate for this position has an entrepreneurial streak - and functions well as part of a team. The ideal candidate has experience shipping consumer web solutions.

The Digital Memories Experience team (DMX) is helping people make deeper connections with those they care about. We want to give you the ability to effortlessly share your memories, be that a simple slideshow of photos and videos (e.g. evolution of the Vista Slideshow or of Photo Story), a carefully authored experienced (evolution of Movie Maker), or a fully interactive cinematic multimedia experience (a narrated 3D path through a Photosynth that you can control). And we want to make it easy and fun to enjoy your photos and videos, whether that is on the PC in your office, the Media Center in your living room, the XBox in your entertainment center, or on your mobile device when you are out and about. DMX is a part of the Windows Live Experience division (WLX/LEX), which also includes Mail, Hotmail, Messenger, SkyDrive, Spaces, Writer, Calendar, and Family Safety. To achieve our vision for digital memories we work with many other teams including: Core User Experience, Find & Organize, Graphics (Windows Imaging Codecs - WIC - and DirectX) in WEX, MCE, Expression, SmartFlow, and Xbox.

I hope this isn’t some sort of knee-jerk reaction like it was with MSN Soapbox, rather than a serious attempt to set a foothold in the photo sharing market. Whilst I love using Flickr and admire their service, there are still times I wish I didn’t have to pay $25 a year.

But in the mean time, it’s great the DMX team can put aside their differences and build Flickr integration into Live Photo Gallery.

[via istartedsomething.com]