Streaming High Def Coming at ABC

On ABC's development team blog they recently released two screen shot from Lost as shown via their new HD streaming videos. Filling the screen at 1280x720, the new feed, would the highest quality video of any of the big four networks' players.

ABC plans to first release only a few of their top shows in the HD format when the new 2007-08 season starts in September. As the kinks are worked, out the full online lineup will also be made available in HD.

Since rolling out streaming Flash video last May, ABC has kept on the leading edge with the sharpest quality of any of the networks.

However, the viewers was plagued by bandwidth issues causing jumps and pauses often requiring episodes and the viewer to be entirely restarted.

When ABC launched their newest version during the 2006-07 mid-season, most of their bandwidth issues were corrected. Issues do still arise however, though the viewer no longer require restarting to correct them.

While the current 700x394 full screen mode pulls 1.5-megabits per second, when going to HD in September, their full screen 720i will require 2-megabits.

Powered by New York based On2 Technologies, ABC is able to compress the HD video to a usable size for streaming. The data stream is considerably less than required for HD cable signal, ranging from 15- to 20-megabits, yet reportedly will still provide far superior quality to other current offerings.

More detailed technical information can be found at MultiChannel News.