they changed it again, now when you click on "watch it in HD" the frame gets bigger...

YouTube - Moon Rising 15th Dec 08

EDIT: too bad youtube is practically USELESS for sharing HD video. Their servers are so bad it takes nearly as long to watch as video as it does to upload one. Even if I use the &fmt=22 code.. My videos take FOREVER to load (when trying to watch one). Over an hour sometimes.

Started playing near instant for me. It seems when the HD was uploaded is not significant
I uploaded this in August.
YouTube - Rebel Diaz - 2 Wars - For Rosa Clemente / Cynthia McKinney

Sorry Craig my computer won't load it. I get about a second of video for every minute of waiting. All the other video sites load super fast BTW.. only youtube is slow and if you do a search for "why is youtube so slow" on google or youtube you will see that I am not alone...

try one of mine and see how it loads..

YouTube - 40$ Steadicam (home made)

Took about 6 seconds to load and come up. I let it buffer for 15 seconds and then it plays well.

Well me and a apparently loads of others are having serious trouble. I tried it on another computer and the same thing happen.

Aww well, vimeo and exposure room are really quick.

It took 2 seconds to load give or take a second. It took 3:40 for 7:32 video to load so it buffered a little faster than 2x real time for me.

any ideas? I just tested my download speeds for the hell of it and they are just fine. Something stupid is going on since it seems to be completely random as to who can or can not download from youtube fast.

EDIT: exact same video on vimeo fully loaded in 1:39 for me just now.

http://www.vimeo.com/2525899

Your Vimeo version took :44 to buffer for me. It's certainly faster but it's a much smaller frame size than the YouTube version. YouTube is actually using a higher data rate which would take it longer to buffer.

There may well be Internet path issues affecting some areas.

Thanks Craig, you know, on Xbox360 games my lag out here is always worse than my buddies some of whom are in the same city! Maybe it is a location thing.

EDIT: oh and I forgot to mention, all the standard def videos, no matter how big they are on yuotube, load super fast. Only the HD videos come to a stand still.

Funny thing is, it's not even HD, it's just standard def...

But people are so used to garbage resolutions and bit-rates, this is a big upgrade... enough that Youtube can get away with calling it HD... =/

Don't be fooled by the YouTube playback window. It's HD. Expand to full screen. People who've captured YouTube HD have found it to be 1280x720 VBR encode with an average of 2000kbps and peaks near 4000kbps. Vimeo, btw seems to be CBR at about 1800kbps.

Youtube's HD seems to be even bigger now! :O End of Vimeo?

I don't think people are going to move away from Vimeo, and if they do, it'll be a small amount. I think people that use Vimeo are going to stay loyal simply due to the fact that many members there have established friendships and, in some cases, partnerships. You might see some move to Youtube for quality purposes, or whatever, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that Vimeo is going under.

Vimeo doesn't have a sustainable business model at the moment. They are depending on $60/year subscriptions but the playback quality is worse than YouTube because of their self imposed frame rate issue. They limit uploads to 2GB per week whereas YouTube has no limit. On these two points YouTube is both Free and Better.

Vimeo's target seems to be the creative filmmaker but creative filmmaker shooting at anything other than 24p will have dropped frames. All you have to do is look at some of the very long threads about YouTube.

In short some will not pay $60/year and anybody outside of USA CAN NOT pay $60/year even if they wanted too.

Vimeo has already stated they can't survive on free accounts with ad based revenue.

From "the other end" there's ExposureRoom which is completely free and has no weekly limits too.

You are probably right, however, I believe Vimeo will now see a slow down in NEW users. With YouTube giving folks what they want, they are much less likely to search around for an alternative (which is the only reason I found Vimeo in the first place).