I've been complaining for a long time that youtube uses such a prehistoric codec as Sorensen, causing IMO vomit inducing image quality.

Apparently they have in fact kept the original versions of the uploaded videos on their servers and are currently converting them to the avc/h264 codec. All you have to do to load the new versions is add &fmt=18 to the end of the url when you open a video. Not all videos work and the quality still isn't anything special, but it is at least acceptable now.

Video links and screenshots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo&fmt=18
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=18

Quote from J.B. :

...

Great find, now I just need a new PC cause my old one is broken and the my laptop hasn't got enough power so show any youtube video

400 Mhz ftl

Aww.. doesn't work with my lfs vids - they've been experimenting with HD res vid as well <- very nice

Yeah. YouTube is currently trying to transition to a high-def video host. There was a sample somewhere on their site of super-high def video that they were also going to host, but last I heard they were still trying to compress the video enough to allow it to play instantly instead of buffering for like a minute. The bitrate was through the roof.

Good news, I might be able to use my youtube account for my better videos now. Currently I use livevideo, because the quality is much better.

WOW! What a difference that actually made on my video, thanks for the info!

Are file size and movie length maximums unchanged? Looks good now!

Thanks for the tip, the difference is really visible!

That's is pretty big difference when you do a compare (with the actual video). I wonder does this transformation has anything to do with Stage6 quitting?

Also some time ago Youtube changed it's "recommended uploading settings". Previously it was 320x240, now it's 640x480 (meant for future?).

We recommend the following settings:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 640x480 resolution (* most updated recommendation)
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second

and on other page on the FAQ it says:

Our recommended file format is MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, or SVQ3 rather than h.264) at 640x480 resolution with MP3 audio (64k mono).

Looks like with that new mode it doesn't automatically add letterbox bars if the video has been uploaded in widescreen aspect ratio Hope that gets fixed, nothing is more annoying than watching a video in wrong aspect ratio.

Daily Motion is also experimenting HD:

http://www.dailymotion.com/hd/

Flash v9.0.115.0 required.

Woo! Very noticeable improvement.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Are file size and movie length maximums unchanged? Looks good now!

No idea, I don't even have an account, yet.

Quote from Lotesdelere :

Daily Motion is also experimenting HD:

http://www.dailymotion.com/hd/

Flash v9.0.115.0 required.

I hate it when HD labels are slapped on anything that looks slightly better than an average porn site trailer. The video I clicked on at that site was certainly not as good as DVD.

Quote from deggis :

That's is pretty big difference when you do a compare (with the actual video). I wonder does this transformation has anything to do with Stage6 quitting?

Also some time ago Youtube changed it's "recommended uploading settings". Previously it was 320x240, now it's 640x480 (meant for future?).

We recommend the following settings:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 640x480 resolution (* most updated recommendation)
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second

and on other page on the FAQ it says:

Our recommended file format is MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, or SVQ3 rather than h.264) at 640x480 resolution with MP3 audio (64k mono).

Looks like with that new mode it doesn't automatically add letterbox bars if the video has been uploaded in widescreen aspect ratio Hope that gets fixed, nothing is more annoying than watching a video in wrong aspect ratio.

Interesting. I wonder why they don't recommend AVC. Why don't they just tell you the specs to create clips that won't need to be reencoded?

64k mono? Why sort the video out and leave the audio aweful?

Waow, that's actually really cool, it works on one of mine too!

The differnce is huge! :O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9QgJRUgP_E&&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9QgJRUgP_E&

Old videos load straight away these new high res ones just sit there trying to load

I noticed no real improvement when I tired it (probably a bad source) and it now gets the aspect ratio wrong on 4:3 videos.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8ZOltYjYk4E
vs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8ZOltYjYk4E&fmt=18

Interestingly, &fmt=17 plays audio only.

Quote from J.B. :

I hate it when HD labels are slapped on anything that looks slightly better than an average porn site trailer. The video I clicked on at that site was certainly not as good as DVD.

I think this quality is nearing DVD quality, at least it's better than most older films/series on DVD and better quality than standard TV in the UK


Having said that several videos clearly weren't from an HD source so look crap.

The difference is quite amazing, but some of the better videos don't load for me, some load only very slowly, some stop and some don't load at all. So, I guess they're indeed still experimenting with it.

But I've been using mostly sevenload so far, as the quality has been a little better there, not much, but a little.

Which upload site do you guys recommend for fairly good quality vids?

anyone know where i can find the vid of a 747 taking off that airport?... when ppl fly?

OT:
looks very cool

This is how you make the HD quality for youtube! its a great tutorial i think,some1 should try out here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08NI4cy4zik

My guess is YouTube will probably branch out some High Quality stuff seeing as Stage6 is now dead and gone.

Lets hope!

Quote from Rooble :

My guess is YouTube will probably branch out some High Quality stuff seeing as Stage6 is now dead and gone.

Lets hope!

That'd be awesome! It definitely can't hurt for them to try it out.

Apparently people got Dolby 5.1 to work on YouTube too, I haven't bothered trying it out in my living room to see if its actually 5.1 though. Video quality is pretty ridiculously good too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYJ2PbLGvU