Youtube now has HD video.

[ronscuba]

Not full resolution 1080 HD, but still pretty good.

It doesn't default to HD. You have to click "watch in HD" in the lower right hand corner just beneath the video screen.

YouTube - Indonesia Preview

Here is the same video on Vimeo.

Indonesia Preview on Vimeo

Curious to hear which one people think looks better.

 

[Gombessa]

Nice. I've seen a couple of other HD YT vids over the last week and they look good.

It's hard to compare to Vimeo because the video dimensions are different. If the source file is the same, I'd say they're roughly equivalent. You get a bigger viewing window on the YT player, but it may be scaled up, since the Vimeo output is clearly sharper in its smaller screen.

YT lets you change your settings to view HQ videos by default; perhaps there's now a setting that lets you view HD by default as well.

 

[TSandM]

Playing both back on my laptop, on a high speed cable connection, I'd say the picture quality on YT is superior, both in sharpness and in color. However, the YT version doesn't stream smoothly, whereas the Vimeo version does.

I also have to say that's some of the best reef video I've seen. Normally, after two or three minutes, I'm snoozing; but you edited for things that were moving and doing something, or for short periods of very pretty views, and it really held my attention. Loved the flatworm swimming!

But WHAT is that rhinoceros-looking thing toward the beginning?

 

[ronscuba]

For comparisons, both sites let you watch in full screen. I don't think either site plays the original source file.

The "rhinoceros-looking thing" is a cuttle fish. Indonesia was amazing. We had our heads buried in the fish ID books after every dive because we saw such strange and interesting things.

 

[TSandM]

The thing right after the sea moths was a CUTTLEFISH? Wow . . . I went back and watched it again, and I still can't resolve a cuttlefish out of that.

Indonesia was amazing, particularly the Lembeh Strait. Truly the weird and the wonderful everywhere.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

I think I liked the YT video better. The framerate seems more fluid then Vimeo. Have to watch again on a high speed connection. Currently working on a broadband card, and once I started encoding to H.264 (some more Indonesia video...) playback of all video went to a standstill...

 

[ronscuba]

I agree, YT HD is a little better. Biggest problem with Vimeo is you are limited to 1 HD upload per week. I like to split up my trip video into smaller 3-5 minute videos for internet viewing. 1 upload per week is a pain.

 

[ronscuba]

Added 3 more HD videos on Youtube. These are real high quality vids. I can't take credit for them. They were shot and edited by the video pro on the liveaboard I did in Indonesia.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7rP_9176Bg&fmt=22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDQYtM6MvPM&fmt=22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiMVsFtmji4&fmt=22
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[bfowles]

I recently switched from using vimeo to Youtube. Youtube is higher quality than vimeo as it has a higher bitrate. The one advantage Vimeo has over Youtube is the ability to embed HD video but that does cost you extra.

If you want to check out some of my videos see Youtube videos. Most the videos are from Melbourne Australia except for the trigger fish shot in Bunaken Indonesia.

Byron

BTW if you want to link youtube videos so the HD version plays add "&fmt=22" to the end of the url.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Besides being able to embed higher quality video as you could in the past with YouTube (as described here), it looks like embedding the HiDef version works as well, as described here. Here is the resulting embed code I've been able to use (you can override the dimensions if you want to make it the true 1280x720):

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qmob1Sn_wjI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qmob1Sn_wjI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

As far as discussion boards go, I think new tags would be needed for the HD versions.