How to describe YouTube in a short, succinct paragraph while
truly getting across to the readers how successful a site it has become?
It is
a
global web-based phenomenon of truly epic proportions, and has proven
itself,
over the course of its existence, both as an independent service and
one held under the dominion of Mountain View, to be a very effective
outlet for everyone from amateur paparazzi to diarists to
people-strangely-obsessed-with-unboxing-electronic-goods.
These people all use the service to get their
clips out to the masses, from whence millions on a daily basis look in
to the web video hub for news, entertainment, and plenty other
miscellaneous items anyone might wish to see at a given moment. Yes, in
short, it’s a great, great thing.
But…
Yet, as beneficial as the invention is for many, many
Net-connected
folk around the globe, it’s got its sore points.
There’s the ongoing
battle surrounding copyright and the dispute had between YouTube and
content owners in Big Media Land.
There’s the matter of
privacy and the
numerous claims of defamation made against users and the host site
itself. There’s even a good bit of vocal opposition to the
service’s
ongoing roll-out of in-video advertisements, however limited it might be
at the moment.
And then there’s the issue of video quality.
Or lack thereof. For years, both distributors and viewers of video on
YouTube have more or less accepted the sub-par quality that came of its
conversion engine.
Whether video would be high or low quality going
into the upload process, it was pretty much guaranteed to tend toward
the not-so-good by the time it reached the end of the line and was made
available on its very own web page. Which wasn’t so
bad.
HD Needed
Most
things
didn’t need to carry with them superb definition. As long as
one could
see the cat chase the bear, and distinguish the two curious creatures
relatively easily, the final product was tolerable. But no longer is
tolerable “good enough.”
Now many have seen that the grass is most certainly greener on
the
other side – thanks to businesses like Veoh and Vimeo, who
specialize
in providing better-than-average viewing experiences – and
now they’re
looking to get more out of Chad and Steve in the way of picture
quality.
They’ve seen that higher
definition can be done, and
they’re demanding that YouTube makes the changes necessary to
see that
they get what they want. As they should. If there’s something
better to
be had, one would be foolish to request anything less. Agreed? Agreed.
Well, you can rest assured. YouTube has heard the
public’s cries for
better quality stuff, and if all goes as planned, they’re
going to
deliver on that demand. Don’t believe me? Ask Steve Chen,
co-founder of
the Web video giant.
Steve Chen Speaks
Speaking yesterday at NewTeeVee Live, a conference
organized by GigaOmniMedia,
a series of popular online publications commandeered by Om Malik, a
well-known and well-regarded pundit of the world of tech, Mr Chen
described his company’s plans to deliver
“high-quality YouTube video
streams…soon.”
According to a brief story on the matter in
CNET’s Tech News Blog,
Chen said the site’s primary purpose was the make available
its “vast
library of content available to everyone” as quickly as
possible, which
thus far “requires a fairly low-bitrate stream” to
provide reliably.
But company is nonetheless working to incorporate a smarter
video
player; one which “detects the speed of the
viewer’s Net connection”
and supplies a higher-quality alternative if available. (Which one most
likely is. Chen says every piece of content is saved on the
company’s
services in its original, unconverted, uncompressed form.)
Low Bandwidth Allotment
It’s true that, until very recently, the average
bandwidth allotment
for the majority of YouTube users connected via broadband has been
relatively low.
But increases made in transfer speeds throughout the US
and pockets elsewhere in the world (Asia is of course well ahead of the
global median) make it fitting for video outlets –
particularly one as
popular as YouTube – to make efforts to deliver better viewing
experiences.
Web technologies are, after all, becoming ever more
efficient, and it’s now entirely possible for even the
largest and most
traffic-heavy of new-media websites to cater upgraded services quite
effectively.
Alright, you’re saying, enough with the blabber.
What you really
want to know now is just how long will one have to wait for
high-quality YouTube video to surface.
On Way By Feb 2008?
Well, if Steve Chen’s
projections are accurate, we’ll start to see the good stuff
(as opposed
to the bad stuff) in roughly three months’ time.
Think you can wait that long? I think you can hold out.
Interested in YouTube’s plans for the
delivery higher-quality
clips, courtesy of a new video player? Fine with what you’re
given now?
Couldn’t care less? Let us know in the comments below!
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
