Google’s video and chat service called Hangout has slowly started showing HD videos at 720p which is a high quality. Much as the feature isn’t fully available to every user at the moment but some video chats have already started showing in HD. This has been tested on ‘Google Hangouts on Air’ which has received the feature. Google Hangouts on Air is a feature which enables a hangout to be shown live on and shared to the public on your Google +.
That means video chats on Google hangouts will get clearer and come with crisp clear sound. This will help Hang outs evenly compete with Apple’s Facetime which despite being in HD is limited to apple devices.
The HD will be in a format known as VP8 which is an open video compression format owned by Google. Google has been using H.264; however VP8 will lower the bit rate and improve the quality. This was confirmed by Google’s Vice president Chee Chew to GigaOm in an interview.
The switch is happening without the notice of the users, you will just notice that your hangouts have got clearer.
