YouTube Updates Video Uploader, Increases Size Limit To 1GB
Sep 29th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Video, Video Software 
YouTube has announced an updated video uploader and bumped up the maximum file size for uploads.
A random sample of YouTube users have already been using the beta version.
YouTube is opening up the streamlined uploader to everyone; just login to your YouTube account and click this link to opt in.
The new video upload tool includes these cool features:
- You can enter in your video’s metadata (title, description, tags, etc.) while the upload is processing.
- Upload multiple files at once, without downloading a plugin (separate progress bars will display for each file).
- The file-size limit for uploads has been raised from 100MB to 1GB.
The updates help keep YouTube competitive with other video sites.
I was using the beta since July. It works nice. 1g or 10 minutes is the parameter for my account. In fact, two new video went up this afternoon http://youtube.com/johnpemble
1 GB is what one of those Flip cameras can hold, isn’t it?
Pretty amazing deal that YouTube will host that for free.
A problem is that the maximum allowed video duration is still only 10 minutes. Then what good is that 1 GB? That’s 100 megabytes per minute. Surely folks can compress better than 13 mbps, a little under commercial HDTV MPEG2 quality. It would be more useful to allow longer video duration, with a lower data size limit.
Yeah, doesn’t make much sense to me either. If the time limit went up that would be worwhile, then I could put my short story podcasts on there at 20 minutes each. Otherwise, it’s still the same.
Basil + Frank
Longer videos have to be coming – but it will probably be phased in as YouTube figures out how to monetize them.