The thing that put YouTube on the map was easy file sharing — quick uploads and fast Flash-based streaming. Lately YouTube is experimenting with high definition, which is a slight improvement from the typical squished Flash format.
Here are the key things you need to know:
- It’s in testing, and it’s not perfect. The audio sometimes fails to synch, and not all videos work in high definition.
- This isn’t HDTV. It’s just a higher resolution version of Flash.
- You can add the code: &fmt=18 to the end of a video’s URL to see if it makes it better.
- You’ll see some text below videos that allow you to toggle between high and low resolution.
- You can update your account preferences so you have the ability to default to high definition if you don’t mind the potential loss of speed.
- I’m not aware of any discrimination on this feature between “Partners” and everyone else.
Charles Trippy posted a video on this yesterday and SMPFilms in (“YouTube Hack”) announced the news as well. This perhaps prompted YouTube’s Blog to post” YouTube Videos in High Definition.”
Mike Abundo (Inside Online Video), of course, identified the hack on March 4, and provided this recent update. I saw the post, but found the improvement to be of nominal visual distinction.
Charles Trippy provided this nice post for Mac users to help them export their videos to take advantage of this higher definition.
I’m working on a video that explains this, and demos some of the before/after. It will also show people how to turn on high definition as a default via their account preferences. I’ll show the step-by-step for exporting better quality (the limit is now 1 gig for all).
Another source: Wired Wiki explains formatting in great detail