November 20, 2008

YouTube Tests Even Higher Quality Videos

YouTube already provides an option to view higher quality versions for some videos and you can also append "&fmt=18" to the URLs for the other videos. If you add "&fmt=22", some YouTube videos are now available at an even higher quality, which makes the full screen view a very useful option. Compare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY (standard format - mono, resolution: 320x180)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&fmt=18 (stereo, resolution: 480x270)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&fmt=22 (new format - stereo, resolution: 1280x720)

To embed a higher quality version of a video, replace "http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO_ID" with "http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO_ID&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" or "http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO_ID&ap=%2526fmt%3D22" in YouTube's embeddable code.



Unfortunately, the new format (fmt=22) is not available for too many videos, probably because it's still experimental and most people upload compressed videos.

{ via Wired }
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14 comments:

  1. Federico CáceresNovember 20, 2008 at 8:44 PM

    Wow... This makes the fullscreen option useful indeed! Too bad my integrated graphics card is so... cheap... that it cannot handle the video quality.
    One thing, the youtube guys should really add an option to the GUI, allowing the user to switch between the different video qualities available for the video. Nice nice nice.

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  2. GergőNovember 20, 2008 at 10:55 PM

    Nice. But first I have to upgrade my 128Kbyte/sec connection to enjoy theese videos.

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  3. AnonymousNovember 21, 2008 at 1:06 AM

    Nice !!

    Now edit the Youtube mp4 download bookmarklet(http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/04/download-youtube-videos-as-mp4-files.html) with fmt=22 instead of fmt=18 and you can download the HD file!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JeffNovember 21, 2008 at 9:20 AM

    So I'm curious now what is the ideal video resolution to upload. If we use a 1080p clip for the source will that become available sometime in the next 4 years?

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  5. Jason DunnNovember 21, 2008 at 12:20 PM

    Better video quality = awesome

    Same 4:3 aspect ratio player with black bars on top and bottom = sucks

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousNovember 21, 2008 at 1:51 PM

    SERIOUSLY - WOW...in HD...

    ReplyDelete
  7. FamfNovember 21, 2008 at 1:55 PM

    Another video (that I uploaded) that you can watch in HD.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIg3w8-J4H4&fmt=22

    ReplyDelete
  8. hiNovember 21, 2008 at 4:03 PM

    I'm loving the improvements! Nice quality starting to show up on youtube now! w00t!

    ReplyDelete
  9. RottNovember 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM

    Good to know...thanks for the post!

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  10. AnonymousNovember 21, 2008 at 10:09 PM

    this is the best news i've heard about youtube in a while. and that video was AMAZING!

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  11. zapaNovember 23, 2008 at 11:59 AM

    More HD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP1Q6sxNJoY&fmt=22

    ReplyDelete
  12. RexelNovember 23, 2008 at 3:00 PM

    Excellent quality, now to get some decent broadband in Australia working to stream them in a reasonable time frame. I guess it works well inside google labs huh ;-P

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  13. AnonymousNovember 24, 2008 at 11:15 PM

    I'm getting this this huge youtube player window on all my videos. See for yourself
    http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8673/youtubehqplayerlt3.jpg
    http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/6352/youtubehqplayer2pk9.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  14. nancyJuly 13, 2009 at 2:15 AM

    great google is the best.i love google because it make Better video quality.

    ReplyDelete

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