YouTube finally moving to HD?

YouTube has been providing the world with videos of just about everything for so long that it has just about become its own verb like Google.

But the videos have never really been high quality but more of the "webcam" style shots heavy on the pixels with an extra side of grain.

Now it looks like YouTube might finally be taking the wrapper off of its long awaited HD Video selection. According to an article over at Techcrunch.com the words "Watch in HD" are starting to appear below some videos.

Read the more here.

There is nothing on the YouTube Blog yet, but people are starting to notice the new feature on Twitter this morning. You can find a bunch of HD videos on YouTube by searching for "HD." For videos uploaded in HD, in the lower right hand corner there is no a link that says "watch in HD" instead of "watch in higher quality," which is what it used to say. The screenshot above is from a video uploaded eight months ago making fun of the fact that the higher quality link wasn't really HD, but it is funnier now because that link has been changed to "watch in HD." The HD option only appears on videos on YouTube itself, not in embedded videos.

I have not tested to see whether it is true HD, but the difference is noticeable. Below are two screenshots of the same video from Nicolas Charbonnier, a reader who tipped us off to the change. The top is the regular low-res YouTube video we've all grumblingly accepted as the norm on the Web. The bottom screenshot is of the same frame in HD.