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Is the Web ready for HD video?
Adobe has pre-released a new version of the Flash 9 Player which includes support for HD quality video including hardware acceleration. This is big news for video on the Web but how close are we really to HD in our browsers? The short answer is... not that close.
Before we go into the technical details and the problem we face on the web, let's look what HD will mean for the quality. Let's compare the main formats currently used:
- YouTube
- BrightCove
- TV
- DVD
- 720p HD
- Full HD (or True HD)
I have used the best possible source for comparing HD content - Pixar's Ratatouille. It is a pure digital production and as such it offers much higher clarity and sharpness than what you get with a motion picture.
All the movies are compared when playing full screen using a HD capable monitor.
YouTube
BrightCove
TV
DVD
720p HD
Full HD
As you can see, HD quality video is really stunning. The differrence between Full HD and YouTube is no less than dramatic. Why should we accept watching pixilated low-quality "garbage" when we can get HD?
Just take a look of these side-by-side comparisons:
There is no question that HD quality video is coming. A quality of that level is going push itself on to the market. The only question is - who is going make it available first, and when will people actually able to see it.
But, the Web isn't really ready for HD. You see there are three obstacles we need to overcome before we can see HD in a browser. They are: Size, Bandwidth, and client software/hardware.
Just a note: When I say HD, I always mean Full HD. There two sizes of HD Video. Full HD which is technically referred to as 1080i/p and "crap" HD which is half the quality called 720p. I don't want low-quality HD - that is useless.
Obstacles to HD on the Web
Let's look the obstacles that we need to conquer in order to bring HD to the browser.
Size:
The biggest obstacle for viewing HD quality video in a browser is the size of the video. HD has a resolution of 1920x1080px and even if you download an HD movie, you are not going to get HD quality unless you have a screen with that resolution.
Let me give some examples:
The new and beautiful 20" iMac has a built in resolution of 1680x1050px - and thus is not capable of displaying HD video. It has to scale it down thus affecting the sharpness and clarity of the image. It is still much better than DVD, but it is not HD. You need the bigger 24" iMac before you can watch HD on your computer.
Most corporate laptops have a resolution between 1024x768px and 1400x1050px and thus cannot display HD video either. And because most business people want their laptops to be compact, this not going change for a very long time. You don't really want to use a 14-15" screen with a resolution of 1920x1200px. It would be near impossible to read the text on the screen.
The iPhone has a resolution of 480x320px and is thus not even capable of displaying standard TV quality - HD on the iPhone is currently only a distant dream (if it is ever going to happen on small devices).
Actually, less than 4% of the internet population has a computer with a screen resolution of 1920x1200 or higher. The stats are going up, but not nearly as quickly as I would like (at this rate we are talking 2012 before we reach a 40%).
Bandwidth
The second problem is the bandwidth needed to stream HD video over the internet. HD Quality video files are 30 times larger than those you can see on e.g. YouTube.
To compare you need a 256 Kbit/s DSL connection to watch a YouTube video, but you need a 9 Mbit/s connection to stream Full HD video. Most people do not have such high speeds.
High-speed Broadband penetration is growing strong, but while many people have a broadband connection in Europe and USA, few actually have "high-speed" broadband connections.
But, this is only half the problem. The other half is the server and bandwidth needed for video publishers. If you decide to put a HD video on your blog, and - say - 100 people decides to watch it at the same time you are going to need some serious hardware and a serious hosting plan.
In fact 100 HD quality videos are close to the physical limit that most servers can handle.
- You almost max out the data transfer rate of both your hard disk (a fast one) and your network card (1gbit). If you get more than 100 simultaneous streams you will need to setup multiple servers and start thinking in terms of load balancing.
- You will use 105 MB of bandwidth per second (or 270,000 GB per month)
- You will need a dedicated OC-24 internet connection (1243.68 Mbit/s) between the internet and your server (You can forget about shared hosting).
This is why the few companies that already publish HD quality use dedicated ISPs like Akamai to be able to deliver this much data in a reliable way.
Client Software/hardware
A smaller problem is the software and hardware on the client computer. The software part is generally going to be solved with the new version of Flash 9 Player or technologies like Silverlight. DivX's web player is also entering the HD world, but so far only in the low 720p quality.
You can watch HD using either Quicktime or Windows Media Player, but I wouldn't recommend embedding HD content this way in a browser.
The hardware is a bit trickier. You actually need a pretty good graphic card to be able to display HD quality video fluidly. I have a Mac Mini, and it is sometimes struggling to display HD content. Older laptops and desktop computers will have the same problem.
Newer computers do not have this problem (unless it is one of those you buy insanely cheap).
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So, there are a lot of practical issues about using HD on the Web. It is currently more for show, than for real. Most people will not be able to see HD in HD quality and only the biggest companies can currently afford to publish it.
HD is coming, and I do predict that it is going to come fast, and it is going to be fun for the early adopters. But, it is currently only available for the elites.
One more thing - TV connectivity
One thing I have not yet covered is TV connectivity, and that is really going to be an important element in HD on the Web.
We already see a huge transformation of our living rooms. HD TVs is outselling regular ones and the VCR and DVD players are being replaced by hard disk recorders.
This is going to go a lot further in the future. In a few years from now everyone will have a HD TV, but you will not have a DVD player or a hard disk recorder. You will instead stream TV shows and channels directly from the internet. You will save your videos on your computer, home server or mobile phone.
Not only that, but once the TV world is an integrated part of your computer (and vice versa) a zillion new possibilities emerges. Dynamic TV broadcasts, everything is on-demand, and TV gets mixed with online content.
We already see the start of this with products like Windows Vista Media Center, Apple TV, the iPhone (and iPod Touch) and the storage solutions like Windows Home Server. At the moment only Windows Media Center supports Full HD, but it is only a matter of time before the rest will follow.
HD Video is going to be a very important part of a digital-living-room, where the content will come from sources online.
We are talking Rich Media HD Experience.
Comments
Thomas Baekdal - Oct. 15, 2007
Hi Gilles,
Thank you for your feedback.
I do not agree with what you say because the difference between progressive and interlace does not refer to the quality of the image, but instead the refresh rate.
The image quality for 720p is 1280x720px, whereas 1080i is 1920x1050px. 720p is about twice the pixel quality of DVD, but 1080i is four times the quality.
The difference in refresh rates between progressive and interlaced scans is: 720p has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, whereas
1080i has a refresh rate of 50 hz/2 (25 Hz).
Making the screen refresh rate of 1080i the same as what DVDs is today - but again at 4 times the pixel quality.
I would rather use 1080i than 720p - especially if I am going hook it up to my computers. Of course, I am going to buy a 1080p TV - probably this one... :)
Thomas Baekdal - Oct. 15, 2007
Update:
I have updated the comparisson to include 720p HD. This allows you to see the difference in quality between Full HD and 720p HD.
Tomas - Oct. 15, 2007
On a typical computer screen uncapable of displaying Full HD, what obvious advantage does Full HD have against what you refer to as "crap" HD? Nothing?
If so, is the difference between "great" and "crap"... nothing?
Thomas Baekdal - Oct. 15, 2007
First of all... my mention of "crap HD" was a mere footnote to the article. I am suprised that one word can have so much impact. The difference between 720p HD and Full HD is not the topic of this article :)
But if your computer is running with a resolution of 1280x1050, then it will effectively only be able to display 720p quality video.
buy-hd - Oct. 15, 2007
Oh, I think that most people are HD ready for the internet, or at least the people who are wanting to view it. However, I think the market will demand a separate site for it's use, because typical YouTube viewers could probably care less.
That is...just as long as someone got hurt in the video. But for the people who care about quality, yes, they have the connection as long as the business's have the servers.
Gilles Ruppert - Oct. 16, 2007
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for your response.
The difference between progressive and interlaced is not merely the refresh rate. In very simplified terms, interlaced draws all the odd lines and then all the even lines on the screen, producing minor artefacts in the image.
Some articles regarding this:
Looking at the screenshots you added really hard, I have trouble seeing a difference between the 2 formats, but that probably comes down to the small size.
Also: Apple is adding a new feature to DVD Player in Leopard: progressive scan.
1080p is obviously the very best there is right now, but I think the difference between 1080i & 720p is really only minor and can only be seen on very big screens.
I guess we will see what the future holds for us ;-)
Gilles
Blake - Oct. 16, 2007
I run a streaming music site that I am going to expand to video. Bandwidth is not as much of a concern as you make it out to be. About 5 cents per gigabyte. Considering a "Crap HD" movie compressed using mpeg4 is about a 1 GB or 5 cents per performance. 100 Users would be roughly $5 in bandwidth which is not that bad if you charged these users.
Ovi Demetrian Jr - Oct. 17, 2007
Content publishers don't care as much about computer specs since they're looking into taking web video directly to the TV with some kind of set top box. Microsoft is already on its way with the XBox 360. Its the bandwidth and user's internet connectivity that there are still issues with.
Thomas Baekdal - Oct. 18, 2007
Let me give you all another example that shows the difference in pixel quality when you compare DVD, 720p HD and Full HD.
This is what a 100% sharp line would look like if it was displaying on a TV with Full HD capabilities (which is the only kind of TV I would ever buy).
A sharp line coming from a DVD disc would look very bad, the edges simple cannot handle being scaled to Full HD.
The 720p image looks a lot better, but not nearly as good as the Full HD line.
I would much rather see a 1080i picture because then I am going to see the Full HD quality line - instead of the more pixilated line coming from a 720p picture.
The difference between interlaced and progressive is not going to change the quality of that line. It is how the picture is updated - not the quality. And, even a 1080i video will have a full screen update 25 times per second - 50Hz / 2 = 25 Hz.
As I wrote earlier, HD interlaces refresh rates is as fast as what you got from DVD's today. You are not going to notice the difference between 25Hz and 50-60Hz anyway.
The difference between 720 and 1080 is in the quality of the pixels (illustrated in the lines above, and in my comparison). The difference between "i" and "p" is in the refresh rate. You can see the difference in pixel quality, but you cannot see the difference in the refresh rate. I think 720 is crap because you only got half the pixel quality.
But, I am not going to buy a 1080i TV - or HD equipment using either 720p or 1080i. HD is for my always 1080p - nothing else.
Thomas Baekdal - Oct. 18, 2007
Ovi, You may be right about that. It is going to be some time before the computers catch up (and we probably need to see a change in how interfaces are rendered. Today they are renderes using a fixed pixel size, I hope this will change to real PPI scaling in the future.
Luke - Oct. 22, 2007
I am just about to start using 1080p movies for our websites, i'm not sure why you don't mention the H.26 codec, which apple uses for their trailers.
This is the same codec i'll be using and it displays HD wonderfully, my 2.66 dual core laptop does go up to 50% cpu load when i play a HD movie with that codec, but most new laptops and especially new desktops, will be able to handle it a lot better. I will be looking into the flash codec as well now.
Very informative article though. I also wont bother with a 720p TV, i think its a little misleading calling it HD, sure most people wont notice; but its a little dishonest, as most consumers do not realise they are not buying a fully compatible HD tv.
Luke - Oct. 22, 2007
I just looked at the flash site, the new Flash 9 update is using the H.264 codec.
Gilles Ruppert - Oct. 26, 2007
Hi Thomas,
when displaying still pictures, you are absolutely right, but don't forget that the artefacts introduced with interlaced scanning are most noticeable in fast moving pictures.
Video SEO - Oct. 27, 2007
What a great post. I would like to know if I could repost this with full credit and links back onto http://reelseo.com Please let me know. Thanks for the great info.
Dale - Jan. 5, 2008
There's a lot of speculation about the end of disc based media (DVD / Blu-Ray / HD-DVD). A lot of people are thinking that this 'new' format war is pointless and that soon, all media will be streamed over IP.
Nice idea, but no. And not just for the obvious reasons such as Bandwitth and Client / Server issues. I'm going nowhere near the technicalities of that disaster area :)
The thing is that, quite simply, people like the feel of a Disc in their hand. It's theirs, they own it. they like to look at the 'Lord of The Rings' super extended edition box set and paw all over the nice box art. They like to look at a shelf full of DVD cases and enjoy the visual aspect of a DVD collection, and of course, you can't give a streamed movie for xmas or for birthdays either.
I have a fairly small DVD collection (about 200 movies) and I'm not sure that I could fit all of that onto a 'HDD based set-top-box' at DVD quality (let alone high-def). Espcially since I've started buy them on a more regular basis.
And of course there's the reliability factor. HDD's are not %100 reliable. OK, a DVD can get scratched, but it's not your entire collection down the pan. You'd need some sort of RAID device to allow for redundancy.
Channel 4 (here in the UK) has a free service called 4 On-Demand. It's ok, but the quality is fairly poor and at best only compares to a decent you-tube video (with a slightly higher frame rate and resolution). Watchable, but not great.
Anyway Discs are gonna be sticking around for a while. although I heard HD-DVD is on the slide now since Warner has opted for Blu-Ray.
Anyway Thomas this is my first visit to your site and I like it. I think I'll be back... :)
PS. Good post.
Thomas Baekdal - Jan. 5, 2008
Hi Dale, Thank you for you comment. You make a number very go points!
I personally think that the DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will fail. Not in 2008 or even in 2009 - but within the next 5-10 years. I do not think the current internet video concepts will prevail either - neither really solves the task.
In 5-10 years time, an entirely new concept will be created that transforms eliminates the physical and geographic boundaries of the current market - and it will not happen in a browser.
John Josef - Jan. 22, 2008
The use for the HD capability does actually already have uses. At my workplace I have to develop a localized system for our award show (The Create Awards) and for the Film and Video we accept 2minute submissions that range from TV quality to Full HD and since our judges have a specialized system for them to login to and watch the films to judge having the capability for HD definitely makes a difference there.
I agree though that for standard web sites and video streams... the bandwidth just doesn't exist yet to pull it off on a large scale at Full HD. Soon (5 years) I think it will be pretty standard to have a 10-50Mbps port in every home. And with the optical disc advancements being made (can't think of the web site off the top of my head) data storage is going to be increased about 100x in the next 5-10 years as we come out with pentabyte removable disc drives that are smaller than current hard drives.
Shiv Kumar - Mar. 18, 2008
We've just launched ExposureRoom. We're in beta currently.
However, I did want to mention that the biggest issue with going for increased quality of video is not bandwidth but rather the user's computer. I wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes to an hour or so in order to download an HD quality movie (linke one does today from various sites that make the full HD versions of trailers and the like available.).
From testing we've done before we went into beta we found that there are a lot of users out there whose computers just can't handle bit rates much higher than YouTube.
As a result, we allow for 3 sizes of videos from ExposureRoom to try and cater to the mutitude of people.
Another finding was that the Flash Player though vastly improved from it's previous version, taxes the CPU and other resources far more than Windows Media Player and Sliverlight. We went ahead with Flash anyway due to the anti Microsoft sentiment we find and didn't want to get caught in the cross fire.
But in all honesty Windows Media Player and Silverlight are quite a bit less taxing on the hardware. In favor of Flash video however, we found that the color saturation and contrast were better in Flash Video as compared to Windows Media player and Quicktime. Quicktime appearing very washed out looking.
Anonymous - Jun. 26, 2008
We're experiencing same as Sniv Kumar, the computers simply arent powerfull enough to playback the video.
Published: Oct. 14, 2007 in Technology
Thomas Baekdal is a Writer, Interaction Designer, Change Advocate and Project Manager.
Gilles Ruppert - Oct. 14, 2007
You raise some very valid points in your post. I only have a small comment: One can't really say that 1080i is far superior to 720p. Granted, 1080i has a higher resolution, but it uses interlaced scanning, whereas 720p uses progressive scan which is far superior to interlaced. 1080i might still be superior to 720p, but the difference definitely does not grant for it to be called 'crap HD' and is definitely not half the quality as you suggest.
I know that 1080p is on the market as well, which obviously is the highest possible quality one can get nowadays. However many TVs sold until recently do not even support native 1080i (including my 6 month old Samsung).
I think that we will have to wait another couple of years at least for 1080p to become a mainstream reality in home entertainment, much longer even for it to make it to the internet.
I would definitely prefer 720p now, than 1080i or even 1080p in a few years time: the quality is still amazing and far superior to the DVD quality we are used to. Let's also not forget that storage is an issue not only for hosts, but also for consumers.
We can draw some analogies here with the music industry: for the past 7 years the record industry has tried to push formats like SACD & DVD Audio, but only with very marginal success, to the point where you can call it a failure. CD quality is enough for most people & a lot seem to be even fine with the vastly inferior MP3 & AAC quality. Unless the film industry is showing HD DVD down our throats, I doubt that it will have the same success and adoption rate then DVD.
Just my 2 pennies ;-)
Keep up your great blog: it's in my daily read!