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Vimeo bringing 1080p video streams to iPhone, Android and Pre

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 6:06 PM

vimeo-logoVimeo will soon take their battle against online video giant YouTube to the next level by allowing premium users to not only upload video in full 1080p HD-resolution but also allowing them to stream 1080p video to the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android phones. The new feature will be made available to Vimeo’s premium members, as part of the Vimeo $60 Plus package, which should sweeten the pot for anyone on the fence about the premium service. In comparison, YouTube already offers video playback in 1080p, but they have yet to bring 1080p streaming video to the smartphone space.

Still, streaming 1080p video to smartphones doesn’t come without drawbacks. The bandwidth needed to smoothly stream high-def video might be an issue for some users – stuttering, buffering, and dropped audio tend to be problems associated with too-slow data speeds. To that end, Vimeo believes the content creator should have a say in the viewing options their viewers have – if someone wants higher-quality video at the expense of smooth playback, they should have that choice.

The upgraded Vimeo Plus service is expected to go live by the end of January.

[Via: PRNewsWire]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Peter Forman

    Pretty good trick playing 1080p on a 480 x 320 screen. Come on guys – think about it for a second… I can’t believe you would even post BS like this.

  • raindog469

    Yeah, sounds like Vimeo will be charging people 60 bucks to do what Youtube already does on all those devices for free, which is downscale their existing videos to phone size. Fail.

  • Blake

    Just to clarify, we are going to be offering users the option to transcode their videos in 1080p on Vimeo, not on mobile devices. We are also announcing full mobile support for our Plus members as well. There were two separate announcements. Hope that helps clear things up!

    Blake Whitman
    Director of Community
    Vimeo.com