How to watch youtube videos in better quality!

Hell no, I converted the screenshot cuz it's s o big already. But I guess it's not a good idea when trying to prove something that would depend on the appearance of the pic..

So I uploaded screenshots again, now with the real colors.. But the videos are no different from each other.
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That's weird. If it's not your codec, you might want to check your settings with your youtube account. Click your name hero3bash>account>Video Playback Quality> Make sure it's NOT ticked at "I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video."

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Aten

#25 April 09, 2008, 11:51:04 am

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I just played that same video with "&fmt=18" and it didn't show any difference AT ALL. however, I used "&fmt=6" and the resulting quality was much MUCH better.

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hero_bash

#26 April 09, 2008, 11:51:09 am

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nope.. I even have the option that I have a fast internet conection

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big ass skelly

#27 April 09, 2008, 12:23:04 pm

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hey yeah fmt=6 is nice.

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Calvin

#28 April 09, 2008, 12:32:07 pm

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Quote from: Aten on April 09, 2008, 11:51:04 am

I just played that same video with "&fmt=18" and it didn't show any difference AT ALL. however, I used "&fmt=6" and the resulting quality was much MUCH better.

For me "&fmt=18" shows the video in slightly better quality than "&fmt=6". I don't really know why the results are so inconsistent from user to user at the moment.

Last Edit: April 09, 2008, 01:18:13 pm by Calvin

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Lord Kamina

#29 April 09, 2008, 02:52:04 pm

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Quote from: goat on April 09, 2008, 01:51:35 am

Wow thats awesome, thanks for the tip. Didn't know about the video quality setting in account options, either!

BTW for people who can't tell the diff, the grass, trees, and character's faces are most noticably sharper in the "higher quality" vid.
It's not like HD or anything, but it is noticably sharper. No doubt from using less compression.

Only reason I would think they'd hide this is so people who have computers/mobile devices that barely run youtube vids now, would choke under the extra CPU load.

And hey, this looks like a fun game. I'm definitely going to keep my eye on it.

I did think atleast I had seen a difference.
Now: Think of this, goat... Are you sure those are the exact same frames? Perhaps one is a keyframe and the other is just a regular one.

And... Why would youtube keep several copies of each video in increasing qualities, at the same resolution, even?

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dada

#30 April 09, 2008, 06:34:43 pm

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Quote from: Lord Kamina on April 09, 2008, 02:52:04 pm

Now: Think of this, goat... Are you sure those are the exact same frames? Perhaps one is a keyframe and the other is just a regular one.

Well, they're identical, aren't they? Besides, with modern video codecs, it doesn't matter whether you're looking at a keyframe or a b-frame. They should look identical in quality.

Quote from: Lord Kamina on April 09, 2008, 02:52:04 pm

And... Why would youtube keep several copies of each video in increasing qualities, at the same resolution, even?

In case they decide they want to show higher quality videos, of course. So they at least need to save the original file. Them keeping several versions of the file would be purely for practical reasons: if they decide that they want to display higher quality videos someday, it'd be a lot easier to just say "stream the higher quality videos we made earlier" than "let's re-encode every single video we have on our site". About 10 hours of video gets uploaded to YouTube every second; you can see why the latter is impractical.

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goat

#31 April 10, 2008, 12:05:34 am

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Quote from: Lord Kamina on April 09, 2008, 02:52:04 pm

I did think atleast I had seen a difference.
Now: Think of this, goat... Are you sure those are the exact same frames? Perhaps one is a keyframe and the other is just a regular one.

And... Why would youtube keep several copies of each video in increasing qualities, at the same resolution, even?

It's consistent throughout the whole video. If you play them side by side and look at the same spot in both, you'll notice the difference (if your system is able to show it, which it appears some cannot). The grass and grid look very blurry throughout the whole standard video. The high quality video looks sharper throughout, and the movement grid has much more definition. On the videos I posted, you can immediately tell the difference in audio quality from 22khz to 44khz.

I'm guessing the reason it doesn't work on everyone's system is why it is still in the testing phase.

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dada

#32 April 10, 2008, 05:53:06 am

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Quote from: goat on April 10, 2008, 12:05:34 am

I'm guessing the reason it doesn't work on everyone's system is why it is still in the testing phase.

That should not be the reason (unless the higher quality videos use H.264, which is only available in the most recent versions of the Adobe Flash player). If someone's not seeing the difference, it must be because their browser is caching the old version of the video.

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goat

#33 April 10, 2008, 07:00:35 am

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From wiki:

Quote

In March 2008, YouTube launched 'High Quality' versions of its videos. The new version offers a better video definition (480x360) in the AVC format for any video uploaded after this date. YouTube will decide which videos are capable of this improved quality based on the standard of the original upload. Users can choose "always show me higher quality when available" in their Account pages to switch automatically to the better quality.

AVC is based on H.264, and I think their old flash used H.263. I set that account setting but it doesn't seem to always pick the best version for me. Maybe it's a safeguard so that mobile devices that can barely play standard size video don't have issues.

Edit: I was looking for a way to automate it, and I think this may help:
http://macenstein.com/default/archives/1246

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This tip is all well and good, but the boys over at macosxhints.com managed to come up with a couple easy ways to automate the process. First they created some AppleScripts to do the job, but then a reader came up with an even easier solution – just make a JavaScript bookmarklet!

To do this, just go into Safari (or Firefox) and make a blank bookmark, name it something like “High-Res” or something, and add the following to the “address” field:

javascript:window.location+=”&fmt=18″;

Now, all you have to do to watch a higher res version of any YouTube video is hit that button in your bookmarks bar. Sweet!

And even more details on what they changed: http://surarticle.com/how-to-tips/high-quality-on-youtube-videos-part-2.html

lazy? (Click to reveal)

Code:[Select]

                                   Standard     /      &fmt=6 HQ FLV       /        &fmt=18 MP4
Screen Resolution                  320 x 240             480 x 360                     480 x 270
Bitrate                         ≅ 200 kbps≅              512 kbps≅                    900 kbps
Audio	                 22KHz 64 kbps Mono ABR    44.1KHz 96 kbps Mono CBR    44.1KHz 128 kbps Stereo
Frame Rate                            30                      24                          30
Video Codec                   Flash Sorenson            Flash Sorenson                  h.264
Audio Codec                          Mp3                     AAC                         Mp3

Last Edit: April 10, 2008, 07:57:34 am by goat

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HL

#34 April 10, 2008, 07:43:22 am

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cVCcncKuH4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cVCcncKuH4&fmt=18

this one shows the differences more obvious theres less blurring in the background of terry's stage, butt is way more clearer, etc.

Last Edit: April 10, 2008, 07:48:59 am by handsome lamb

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theHunter

#35 April 10, 2008, 08:24:12 am

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Erm guys... why not just use the icon in the bottom right corner of the vid to change the quality?

Yay! Random words!

"Hey don't hotlink images for your avatar. Upload it in GW Uploader or imageshack or something"

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goat

#36 April 10, 2008, 08:39:02 am

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That's the maximize icon. It increases video size but doesn't change the quality since it's the exact same video, but stretched. The maximum video size of these high quality modes we're talking about is 480x360, the full size of the youtube video window, so any higher than that and you could actually have image quality loss with the stretch.

Last Edit: April 10, 2008, 08:51:10 am by goat

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theHunter

#37 April 10, 2008, 09:02:28 am

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Quote from: goat on April 10, 2008, 08:39:02 am

That's the maximize icon. It increases video size but doesn't change the quality since it's the exact same video, but stretched. The maximum video size of these high quality modes we're talking about is 480x360, the full size of the youtube video window, so any higher than that and you could actually have image quality loss with the stretch.

I was talking about something else but its not on every vid:

Yay! Random words!

"Hey don't hotlink images for your avatar. Upload it in GW Uploader or imageshack or something"

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goat

#38 April 10, 2008, 09:15:46 am

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Too bad that's not on every icon that supports higher quality mode, and there's no telling it which one to choose (&fmt=6 or &fmt=18).

Last Edit: April 10, 2008, 09:18:20 am by goat

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HL

#39 April 10, 2008, 04:48:09 pm

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Quote from: theHunter on April 10, 2008, 08:24:12 am

Erm guys... why not just use the icon in the bottom right corner of the vid to change the quality?

Because it only appears on certain vids, and doing &fmt=18/16/6 does the exact same thing. You'll notice if you do &fmt=18 on any vid without it, it appears.

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Absynthe

#40 April 10, 2008, 06:10:06 pm

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this is pretty cool. thanks for this!

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