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I have not seen any official announcements yet, but YouTube looks to be venturing into High-Definition territory, a place where its competitors are already residing. Meghan Keane at Wired writes:

The new format seems like real HD 720p video and looks clean and professional in the widescreen format. As we've noted in our Watch Higher Quality YouTube Videos wiki, it is possible to make YouTube's high quality video the default on the site, but formerly it was only possible to watch at a 480x360 resolution.

Formerly, viewers who wanted to watch 480x260 videos could do so by adding "&fmt=18" to the end of a YouTube video's url. To access the 720p format, the new appendage is "&fmt=22." 

Here is a look at the difference in picture quality. HD:



Non-HD:

It is a bit surprising that this did not come about sooner, considering success Hulu has enjoyed this year. That success just might be the catalyst for getting this (not to mention many of the other moves from YouTube in recent memory) kicked into gear. YouTube also recently decided to start looking to offer feature length films, and live programming, and after sitting on the site for a couple years, Google suddenly seems very interested in the monetization of the site.

Is this all because of Hulu? Perhaps not, but Hulu is a big player in the rise of the online video revolution that is taking the web by storm. It only makes sense for YouTube, the most recognizable brand in online video to get their act together and stay on top of the game.