Friday, Dec 19, 2008    Text size: 

Last November, YouTube cofounder Steve Chen said that his company would add HD content within three months, and even though they didn't quite meet that goal, YouTube has been slowly ramping up their site to be HD-friendly.

Regular YouTube surfers will have seen the changes, which included the adoption of a 16:9 video player and the gradual inclusion of HD content. Now that the company has officially added the HD videos, YouTube also has added an expanded player that showcases the increased quality without forcing the user to switch to full-screen mode.

Last year when YouTube made the pledge to add HD content, adult industry professionals said that as helpful as it would be to have an HD option on YouTube, widespread adoption of HD technology on the user side was still years away.

OC3 Networks' Ycaza Thrush told XBIZ that it would take 3-5 years for 40-50 percent of average Internet users to acquire the level of technology needed to easily play HD videos online.

Although HD adoption for computers hasn't spread as quickly as it has for TVs, the success of movie- and TV-watching portal Hulu.com indicates that offering high-quality video with a reasonable number of advertisements is a winning formula.

According to online reports, Hulu is primed to make more money than YouTube despite having a far smaller user base, a feat made possible by Hulu's commitment to only offering licensed content. That means they can sell advertising for its entire content library. By contrast, only 4 percent of YouTube's content is licensed.

YouTube still has a long way to go, but offering HD videos is a start. More and more adult performers keep video blogs about themselves in YouTube, including Trina Michaels, Joanna Angel, Dana DeArmond and Nikki Benz, among others.

Benz told XBIZ that while she shoots content for her site in HD in anticipation of putting it on DVD, she prefers to shoot her video blogs on the fly with a less expensive – and lower quality – camera.

To see an example of YouTube's HD videos, watch this video. In the lower-right corner of the default player is a link to watch the video in HD.