So, HD has been around for a while. Microsoft launched their WMV HD Video site 5 years ago called, Atom Films – http://www.atom.com. At the time, it wasn’t much to look at in terms of the user interface compared to video sharing sites today. But, it has evolved to sick looking site, cool interface and is home to a loyal user base.

Maybe because its Microsoft that kinda left it in the past. Maybe because YouTube took off a lot faster and left Atom in the shadows – I’ve actually never heard anyone speak of “Atom” to this date.

Beyond Atom, there is today a large number of Video sharing platforms out there that do exactly what YouTube does except isnt under the billion dollar Google umbrella. For instance, Break.com, CollegeHumor.com, Myspace Video and AOL Video.

Last November 2008, YouTube altered their video players to fit the wider 16:9 video formats. If you have ever embeded or seen embeded YouTube video on blog or other website, you would have noticed that some of the related videos that scroll over the video frame are in wide format and some are not. That is because some people have been uploading their videos in 16:9 format, its just that YouTube and the other Video Sharing websites didn’t create the facility to display them in the wider format.

My only guess would be that more than 50% of the videos uploaded to YouTube were in 16:9 and that people are looking to other places to upload and watch their HD videos such as…

VIMEO.com
– that’s “video” with a “m” :P

I do have a profile setup, but because I havent bought my new Canon HG20 HD Hard Disk Camcorder yet, its empty :( – Who cares haha!

Why should you use Vimeo?

– You can actually embed your 16:9 videos without configuring code like with YouTube
– Embed your HD Videos on your website ($59/year)
– The videos you’ll see are sick!
– You have the option to view videos in HD mode or with HD off
– Vimeo has been around for about a year now

Wanna see some kick ass HD Video?

Here’s a music video a former collegue at Rare Method Ian Flaig did:
http://vimeo.com/1813140

I believe he used a $6,000 Panasonic HD camcorder for the job; and it is wicked.

The Canon HG20 HD Hard Drive Camcorder I want to buy costs anywhere from $800 to $1000. Sure a pretty penny, but if you’re looking to get some HD video online without spending $6000, the videos look pretty great: