November 12, 2007 3:58 PM
User-Generated Content Gets Bigger
Didn't even know this was possible, but it looks like user-generated content is set to get a whole lot bigger, literally from a bandwidth perspective.
Last week YouTube introduced the YouTube Uploader, a desktop application aimed at making it easier to upload your videos to their site. Their hope is that this will encourage more people to upload more of the videos that make their site valuable.
They simultaneously unveiled the fact that they're raising their 100MB file size limit to 1GB, though they still won't let you upload a video longer than 10 minutes. This means they're preparing to start delivering video that isn't as compressed, meaning higher quality.
Last month, video sharing site Vimeo.com began offering the ability to upload and watch HD video through their site.
It won't be long before user-generated video will break free from the blocky constraints of lower bitrates for the full-screen wonder that is HD, and that'll mean its appetite for bandwidth will begin to grow even more steeply.
There is still a question of whether or not this higher quality video will drive more users to watch or if the bandwidth constraints of many new users will restrict their ability to join in on the fun, but perhaps this will end up being the straw that breaks the camel's back, proving the need and creating the demand for multimegabit broadband.