Video Streaming in HD

With my recent purchase of an HD camcorder, the Sanyo VPC-FH1A, I’ve been looking for video sharing sites that support 720p playback. After recording stuff in 720p, it’s really hard going back to 480p/standard def. Recording in 720p captures so much more details.
Browsing through bing, google, and wikipedia (by the way, Wikipedia has a really nice table comparing all the video sharing sites) I tried Viddler. Wikipedia says it supports 720p. Well, apparently HD is only supported under business/paid accounts.
Next is Vimeo. Vimeo does support HD on free accounts, albeit with some limitation (ie. only 1 HD video upload per week, etc). The problem is, during playback, the video player is still sized for low-res video, even with HD turned on. There’s no option for a larger player size other than full-screen. 😦

Now, I hate Google, and I hate Youtube, mainly because they deleted my account overnight without warnings. However, Youtube seems to have the best implementation for 720p videos. First, they don’t have as much limitations as Vimeo (assuming Google didn’t delete your video/account). Second, Youtube allows a larger video player where you can appreciate 720p content without having to go full-screen. So, yeah, the devil gives you the best solutions. *sigh The catch is processing your 720p video can take a while. A 5+ minute 720p video may take Youtube overnight to fully process for HD streaming. In the meantime, a lower-res version of the video is made available fairly quickly.

Streaming HD video takes a lot of bandwidth, and obviously Youtube (Google) is the only one with enough cash to support such services with the least catch and most features, for free. *sigh