Redefining the online video world
Video website Vimeo may not match YouTube in users, but it's promising viewers something its rival doesn't have on the menu: high-definition content. Jill Barshay reports.
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Scott Jagow: High definition is coming to the Internet. A website that's trying to compete with YouTube plans to announce today that people can upload, share and watch high-def videos on their website. More now from Jill Barshay.
Jill Barshay: YouTube has 200 million users. Vimeo has fewer than a million.
But Vimeo's founder, Jakob Lodwick, says his site has an edge. Vimeo can now distribute videos at four times the resolution that YouTube can. That's as good as high-def TV.
Jakob Lodwick: With online video, we haven't seen anything yet. I think that the future of video is going to be on the web, not through television. And adopting high quality is the next big step.
That quality doesn't come cheap. But Vimeo has deep pockets. It's owned by Barry Diller's Interactive Corp.
Whether the U.S. is ready for high definition is another matter. Connections here aren't fast enough to handle high-def files well. And on your computer screen, it doesn't look much different than a regular video.
YouTube doesn't plan to go high def yet. It says it's focusing on making regular video faster and better.
In New York, I'm Jill Barshay for Marketplace.
