How to Watch Youtube in HD
Penguin November 22nd, 2008
Update: I’ve created a small javascript page to do this automatically.
Vimeo is no longer the only HD purveyor in town. Youtube has started making available some of their videos in HD as well, as long as the original source was in HD. You may have noticed the “Watch in high quality” link, but how do you access them directly? More importantly, how do you embed them?
Wired has a nice little article.
The basic gist is to tack on a query string to the end of the URL. Just add “&fmt=18” and you’ll get the high quality version.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7fCynJXl3g&fmt=18
But Youtube also offers full 720p! It’s similar to the method above, just add “&fmt=22” instead.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7fCynJXl3g&fmt=22
This trick also works for embeds, but is a little more complicated.
First, you have to change the default player size. Make the width “480″ and the height “397″. Not bad.
The second bit is a little more trickly. At the end of every URL, add “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22”
Ex: (changes highlighted in bold)
<object width="<strong>480</strong>" height="<strong>397</strong>"><param name="movie" value="(VIDEO EMBED URL)<strong>&ap=%2526fmt%3D22</strong>"></param><param name="wmode" value="window"></param><embed src="(VIDEO EMBED URL)<strong>&ap=%2526fmt%3D22</strong>" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="window" width="<strong>480</strong>" height="<strong>397</strong>"></embed></object>
Ex: w/ a video
<object width="480" height="397"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/d7fCynJXl3g&ap=%2526fmt%3D22"></param><param name="wmode" value="window"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/d7fCynJXl3g&ap=%2526fmt%3D22" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="window" width="480" height="397"></embed></object>
Result:
There’s also Greasemonkey script which will automatically load the HD footage if available on Youtube. Of course, you’ll need the Greasemonkey plugin first.
-Penguin
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