Youtube Trick

[Zarcath]

I received an anonymous tip from, go-figure, anonymous. That if you add "&fmt=18" to the end of any youtube url and it's supposed to play in High-Def. I'm at work right now and my laptop can't handle streaming, but the quality certainly looks a lot better. If anyone wants to confirm for me that'd be great.

So

derp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=353uPtu87o4

would be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=353uPtu87o4&fmt=18

for high-def. I wasn't given an explanation as to how/why this drastically changes it. I think it might be a setting only available to corporate/ad sponsors?

[Tarrant220]

There is a difference, I opened up a window for both links and paused the first second on both and one is much more clear then the other.

Also below the "hi def" video there is a link that says "Watch this video in lower quality for faster playback." that you can click so yes, there is a difference in the quality of the videos.

[Abysmal]

i don't see a difference, but i didn't spend much time looking.

[XadionDarkborn]

nice, noticable differance :-) good little trick

[Gauss]

Originally Posted by Abysmal

i don't see a difference, but i didn't spend much time looking.

It's very noticeable to me.

[kcxiv]

Yeah, its very very obvious. it looks tons better.

[Zuuljin]

much much better. Even in full screen mode it doesnt look that bad.

[Groks]

cool trick. looks much better

[PerritoBites]

Thats a pretty neat trick. I wonder how it works

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by PerritoBites

Thats a pretty neat trick. I wonder how it works

I'm a little confused too. I was under the impression the quality is ruined during the compression. This line changes the playback I guess? but how is it the quality is improved? is the compression fine and they just choose to downgrade the playback?

[Korioni]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

I'm a little confused too. I was under the impression the quality is ruined during the compression. This line changes the playback I guess? but how is it the quality is improved? is the compression fine and they just choose to downgrade the playback?

Well, the file will be initially compressed to fit it into a size uploadable by youtube however youtube itself may automatically downgrade any video put on it even further for the sake of streaming.

Which means btw, that this trick does not make the video's "high-def" but simply the original quality of the post-compressed, pre-youtube file.

[Zuuljin]

It does take noticably longer to load the HD vid, so I'm guessing they store your uploaded video in full quality, but reduce the quality on playback so those who have shitty connections can still watch it fairly quickly.

That and it probably uses less bandwidth for them.

[PerritoBites]

Yeah, but wouldn't you need to re-encode it to achieve this?

[Incognitogamer]

It's not a trick, it's a new setting in the options they added last week-ish.

You can enable the option in your account settings on Youtube to "always play high-def version if available" or "always play normal videos".

Obviously, normal-mode is enabled by default or for non-members.

[Blumpster]

Only some videos have it. Nobody knows exactly what's going on as far as what videos will have it, but I think all new videos are being encoded in both formats.