Apr 20, 2011 13:20 GMT  ·  By

Google is still working on making WebM the most popular video codec used on the web and is using it's greatest assets to make sure it succeeds. With YouTube it has an important ace up it sleeve and Google has now announced that all new videos uploaded to the site are automatically converted to WeM as well, on the spot.

It's also announcing that 99 percent of what people are watching has already been converted to WebM, though that's only 30 of the total catalogue.

"All new videos uploaded to YouTube are now transcoded into WebM. WebM is an open media file format for video and audio on the web. Its openness allows anyone to improve the format and its integrations, resulting in a better experience for you in the long-term," James Zern, Software Engineer at YouTube, announced.

"Transcoding all new video uploads into WebM is an important first step, and we’re also working to transcode our entire video catalog to WebM. Given the massive size of our catalog - nearly 6 years of video is uploaded to YouTube every day - this is quite the undertaking," he explained.

YouTube has been working on getting its catalogue converted to WebM ever since the new format was announced, but, with its size, it has been a lengthy process. This was made even harder because millions of new videos are added every day.

YouTube has reached a point where it can convert videos to WebM as they are uploaded ensuring that all new videos work in HTML5 compatible browsers and devices that support the format.

Along with the announcement, Google also revealed an interesting statistic, less 30 percent of the video content on YouTube makes up 99 percent of all views. While YouTube and Google have been about the 'long tail,' the numbers are a bit extreme. Even so YouTube is working on converting these videos as well, any time it has a few CPU cycles to spare in its data centers.