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We all know that YouTube it’s not the best video sharing site out there, regarding video quality. So, inspired by some articles at YouTubeHQ.info I decided to write a compilation of some tips to help you get better quality videos from YouTube.

I’m sure you already have seen an option bellow some videos that allow you to switch to a higher quality version of the video. In the table bellow you can see the difference between the standard and the high quality video options.

Standard Quality

High Quality

Screen Resolution

320 x 240

480 x 360

Aspect Ratio

4:3

4:3 or 16:9

Video Bit Rate

≈ 200 kbps

≈ 512 kbps

Frame Rate

30 fps

24 fps

Video Codec

Flash Sorenson (flv)

h.264 (mp4)

Audio

22KHz 64 kbps Mono ABR

44.1KHz 128 kbps Stereo ACC

Audio Codec

MP3

MP3

As you can see the high quality video version has more than 2x the quality of the standard one.

“Why the videos I upload don’t show the high quality option?“

It’s usually because you have not selected the right exporting settings that youtube requires to show it.

Encode your videos for YouTube.

Of course you need to start with a high quality video source. If the quality of the video is bad to begin with, then there’s little you can do.

When exporting from your editor or converter you can pick these settings:

Frame Size: 480X360 (4:3 Square-Pixel) or 640×360 (16:9 Square-Pixel) size.

Frame Rate: When encoding your video you must select 30FPS, or youtube will not recognise your video as high quality.

Compression: mp4 with H.264 or X264 codec (open source free version of the H264 codec, but essentially the same)

Bit Rate: overall video bitrate above 1000Kb/s. Higher values can help prevent blockiness or dips in quality.

Watch Higher-Quality Youtube Videos

Url Hack: Add &fmt=18 to the end of a normal YouTube URL. If there’s a high quality version available, that extra string will cause it to load.

Using fmt=18, you get a mp4 video with stereo sound transcoded from the original clip the user uploaded. The h.264 codec has better looking videos even at lower bitrates, when compared with flv video! Also if the original video was 16/9 it will keep the widescreen format.

Play High Quality Videos by Default: If you’re logged in to YouTube, you can set this automatically:

1. Go to your Account page.

2. Under “Account” click the “Video Playback Quality” link.

3. Select the option: “I have a fast connection. Always play higher quality video when it’s available.”

4. Click the “Save Settings” button and it’s done.

Embedding High Quality Youtube Videos on your Site

You can also embed high quality videos on your blog/site, but just adding the fmt=18 bit to the URLs won’t work.Here are the changes to make :

Append &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 at the end of the URL, like this:

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/GQj26rtABNo&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18 “></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/GQj26rtABNo&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18 ” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

And this is how it looks:

Standard Embed Code:

Modified Embed Code with custom dimensions:

As you can see the player respects de 16:9 proportions of the original video.

Downloading the MP4 High Quality Videos

There are several sites like keepvid and FlashLoad.net that allow you to download videos by: entering the url, clicking download, then selecting the “Download (video.mp4 - High Quality)”. You don’t even need to add the &fmt=18 bit at the end. It automatically detects if there is a High quality version available.

Using a Firefox Extension: Lifehacker created an easy to use firefox extension that will put a download link under each video. Very neat, and works by automatically using the services of FlashLoad.net

Do you know any other cool tips?