October 29, 2007
The HD Web

Akamai, the number one provider of high-end hosting (including HD video hosting) and Verizon FiOS (a high-speed ISP) has launched an HD site to showcase the potentials with HD video.

It is very basic. It is a nice site, where you can choose to download several HD videos - including an episode of C.S.I. But, It is not HD "Web". It does not allow you to watch HD in your browser, nor does it use any of the new HD capable web viewers (Flash and Silverlight).

The interesting thing to notice is the requirements for using the site. I wrote in "Is the Web ready for HD Video" that the requirements would be huge - and Akamai pretty much proofs this.

They want you to have a 7.5mbps connection just to view the site. I got an 8mbps connection but I still wasn't able to meet the requirements. My guess is that you probably need a 12mbps connection to be able to connect with more than 7.5mbps consistently.

But, that isn't all of it. The size of the C.S.I. episode is 2GB of data (for 43 minutes of video). That is a lot.

The videos sure look pretty though... And, I do still think that HD is coming (fast too). The only thing is that it may come too soon - that is before we have the technology to use it.

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