This has been a long time in the works, and I'm really excited to see it live. Our new player allows much higher-definition video. It also auto-adjusts for people's bandwidth to minimize any buffering issues.
Here's a screenshot from the old player at full-screen. (From Reggie Watts' hilarious "talk".)
And here's the same scene in the new player. (Click to full-screen to really see the difference.)
I'm currently at a hotel in Edinburgh on limited bandwidth. Last week, I would probably have had the dreaded buffering wheel. Today, not seeing it. Just Reggie in HD.
There's a lot more innovation coming on TED.com. Exciting days...