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Pretty much every video site out there (from YouTube down) are encoding HD videos at higher resolution. For example, YouTube's SD video is 320x240 and their HD

by nickb 18y ago

Pretty much every video site out there (from YouTube down) are encoding HD videos at higher resolution. For example, YouTube's SD video is 320x240 and their HD is at 448x336. What you're suggesting is technically true but not really based in reality.

DarkShikari 18y ago
What you said isn't true either--and I can confirm it, because two weekends ago I met with the guy who wrote the Youtube video encoder ;) Youtube has no "HD video"; the "High Quality" mode just sends you to the H.264 video, which isn't there for the primary purpose of being "Higher Quality"--its in iPhone-compatible Baseline Profile, for the purpose of being compatible for mobile devices, in particular phones and such that they intend to provide support for. If Google was really aiming at "higher quality" they would have chosen full-on High Profile H.264, but they intentionally chose Baseline for mobile compatibility. Apparently storage was at enough of a premium that they explicitly chose not to have two formats available, and just chose the most compatible option. The resolution chosen for the H.264 encoder is different because its meant to be targeted at the iPhone. Again, the "higher quality" mode is a secondary feature; the real purpose is to target mobile devices. Edit: Also, reading your post, what you said makes no sense--"they're encoding HD videos at higher resolution", well, obviously, that's what HD means. Are you sure you didn't mean to say "they're encoding H.264 videos at higher resolution"?
- nickb 18y ago
  what you said makes no sense Everything I said is absolutely correct. It's just that you are misconstruing what I said. Go check YouTube resolutions and then tell me they're not correct. You're the one making spurious connections between television HD and what YouTube calls HD, not me. Again, re-read what I said and not what you think I said. 1) YouTube's SD video is 320x240 2) YouTube's HD video is 448x336 3) Their HD uses MORE bandwidth The fact that they use it for iPhone and who knows hat (G1 maybe) is completely inconsequential since you can play almost any YT video in HD by appending a variable to the end.
  - DarkShikari 18y ago
    2) YouTube's HD video is 448x336 "HD" is not an arbitrary term that means "higher resolution than what we had before". Unless perhaps you're in marketing. If you told anyone on the Youtube team that their "&fmt=18" was "HD", they would probably laugh you out of the room.
Timothee 18y ago
Hold on a second: HD means a resolution of at least 1280x720. Anything lower than that is at best SD (720x480) but most probably less. I understand we're talking about online videos where the quality and resolution is clearly lower than what's done in the broadcast industry but the terms used should still mean the same thing. So, overall, very few video sites out there are encoding in HD and especially not YouTube. What DarkShikari is saying is that h.264 is the codec used to encode the video. h.264 can be used for videos for mobile to HD. HD is referring to the pixel resolution of the video. Both are completely independent. I suppose that by "not really based in reality", you mean that most people doing HD are using h.264. That's true but that was not your question.

by nickb 18y ago

DarkShikari 18y ago

What you said isn't true either--and I can confirm it, because two weekends ago I met with the guy who wrote the Youtube video encoder ;) Youtube has no "HD video"; the "High Quality" mode just sends you to the H.264 video, which isn't there for the primary purpose of being "Higher Quality"--its in iPhone-compatible Baseline Profile, for the purpose of being compatible for mobile devices, in particular phones and such that they intend to provide support for. If Google was really aiming at "higher quality" they would have chosen full-on High Profile H.264, but they intentionally chose Baseline for mobile compatibility. Apparently storage was at enough of a premium that they explicitly chose not to have two formats available, and just chose the most compatible option. The resolution chosen for the H.264 encoder is different because its meant to be targeted at the iPhone. Again, the "higher quality" mode is a secondary feature; the real purpose is to target mobile devices. Edit: Also, reading your post, what you said makes no sense--"they're encoding HD videos at higher resolution", well, obviously, that's what HD means. Are you sure you didn't mean to say "they're encoding H.264 videos at higher resolution"?

nickb 18y ago
what you said makes no sense Everything I said is absolutely correct. It's just that you are misconstruing what I said. Go check YouTube resolutions and then tell me they're not correct. You're the one making spurious connections between television HD and what YouTube calls HD, not me. Again, re-read what I said and not what you think I said. 1) YouTube's SD video is 320x240 2) YouTube's HD video is 448x336 3) Their HD uses MORE bandwidth The fact that they use it for iPhone and who knows hat (G1 maybe) is completely inconsequential since you can play almost any YT video in HD by appending a variable to the end.
- DarkShikari 18y ago
  2) YouTube's HD video is 448x336 "HD" is not an arbitrary term that means "higher resolution than what we had before". Unless perhaps you're in marketing. If you told anyone on the Youtube team that their "&fmt=18" was "HD", they would probably laugh you out of the room.

Timothee 18y ago

Hold on a second: HD means a resolution of at least 1280x720. Anything lower than that is at best SD (720x480) but most probably less. I understand we're talking about online videos where the quality and resolution is clearly lower than what's done in the broadcast industry but the terms used should still mean the same thing. So, overall, very few video sites out there are encoding in HD and especially not YouTube. What DarkShikari is saying is that h.264 is the codec used to encode the video. h.264 can be used for videos for mobile to HD. HD is referring to the pixel resolution of the video. Both are completely independent. I suppose that by "not really based in reality", you mean that most people doing HD are using h.264. That's true but that was not your question.