youtube trick

by Sainted • 25 Mar 2008, 21:19 • Journals
QuoteSeems like a fair amount of people don't know about this yet so might aswell share it.

" Apparently YouTube stores videos in their native resolution, so by appending a few extra characters to the end of the URL, you can access high-quality videos instantly. I tested it, and it worked, so here it goes:

By adding &fmt=6 to the end of the URL, you'll get a video at a 448 x 336 resolution, and audio at a 44100 Hz sample rate. The video still loaded fast for me, and I was able to see a better video immediately.
If you want even better quality change the 6 to 18 and append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This changes the resolution to 480x360.

Example:

Regular video (320x240): http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzxa0SLWMnc
High-quality video (448x336): http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzxa0SLWMnc&fmt=6

Higher-quality video (480x360): http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzxa0SLWMnc&fmt=18

I'm not sure if this will work for all the videos on YouTube, but it works fine with newer videos. If you don't think you can remember those characters, you can download a Firefox script that automatically does this for you. Give it a try.

Might be old news, but still useful for anyone who doesn't know.

Here's the difference:

Lo-Res:
http://www.awooga.org/a/53lowuw1.jpg

Hi-Res:
http://www.awooga.org/a/29medbw7.jpg

Just to add:

* By adding &fmt=6 to the end of the URL, you'll get a video at a 448 x 336 resolution, and audio at a 44100 Hz sample rate. The video still loaded fast for me, and I was able to see a better video immediately.

* If you want even better quality change the 6 to 18 and append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This changes the resolution to 480x360.

Here is the firefox script URL aswell: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6460 "

EDIT: for people who like uploading clips to cadred here's another guide for having the max quality for your clips:

"Youtube High Quality Hack

There is also a hack using total video converter where if you make an flv with certain settings, you can upload a video of very high quality and have youtube keep the screen resolution and bitrate.

Youtube High Quality Hack Settings Howto

Select what you want to encode into an flv in total video converter with these settings.
Sample Rate: 44100 Hz
audio bit rate: 320.000 kbit/s
Audio codec: mp3
Custom video bit rate: any
Resolution: any

Cons

It messes up the time on the video. A 30 second video can read as 9 minutes. The way it tells how long the video is seems very random but it constantly says the video is much longer than it really is. Having the resolution or bitrate too high causes it to not stream well and get stuck. "

quoted from http://www.cadred.org/Forums/Thread/27326/
Comments
13
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Digitalnick 25 Mar 2008, 21:21
seems nice :) thanks!
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Klapp 25 Mar 2008, 21:21
youtube sucks!
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foonr 25 Mar 2008, 21:27
higher quality takes ages to load for me
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Spree 25 Mar 2008, 21:30
oooohoooohooooooold
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darthmob 25 Mar 2008, 21:35
thanks, didn't know that!
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