08/05, 9:30am
Google Buys On2
Google on Wednesday morning said it would buy On2 Technologies in a $106.5 million deal that could improve the quality of YouTube videos. The acquisition gives Google access to On2's video compression methods and is expected to directly translate into one or more of Google's video websites, most likely involving YouTube but potentially Google Video as well. While the search engine giant says it can't talk about product plans, it claims to be "committed to innovation" in video quality on the web.
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03/03, 3:00pm
YouTube Resolution
Google's primary video site YouTube is quietly increasing the quality of its videos, viewers have found over the weekend. The Flash-based site has begun re-encoding the web versions of its videos when possible, increasing their resolution from 320x240 to 480x360. Audio quality has also improved to include stereo AAC audio versus the lower bitrate mono sound of before, users note. The improvement primarily applies to newly uploaded videos, which are automatically produced in both the regular and high-quality versions, but is also being applied to older videos. The extra quality currently remains optional and must be activated by adding a tag to the address of the improved videos.
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