BrightRoll brings HD video ads to the Web
If you're among the majority of Americans, you probably aren't watching high-definition on your television yet. But come Monday, you may start to see HD commercials on your PC.
San Francisco-based BrightRoll is offering advertisers the ability to run large-format, high-quality video ads across its network of Web site publishers.
The ads initially appear as banner ads on the page. When a user click on one, a large separate window opens up on top of the Web page.
There are trade-offs for serving up high-definition video in terms of time it takes for them to load, but these ads seem to load pretty fast, according to Bobby Tulsiani, a consumer video analyst at Jupiter Research.
"The critical thing is that it doesn't get in the way of the user experience," he says. "For advertisers, the higher quality matters for the brand recognition, especially ads showing off a car, or travel ads in which the scenery is important."
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
