Watch higher-resolution YouTube videos with this hack

Any YouTube fans out there tired of its low-resolution videos? Personally, I'm still waiting for that high-resolution player the company promised some time ago. Many YouTube competitors, such as Blip.tv, have been offering high-definition content for some time so I'm puzzled by YouTube's late entrance into the HD arena, since the company is already talking about streaming live video.

Back in November Steven Chen said the company was testing a player that detects a viewer's connection in order to serve up high-quality videos, but if you can't wait until that's launched, there are a few things you can do.

Apparently YouTube stores videos in their native resolution, so by appending a few extra characters to the end of the URL, you can access high-quality videos instantly. I tested it, and it worked, so here it goes:

• By adding &fmt=6 to the end of the URL, you'll get a video at a 448 x 336 resolution, and audio at a 44100 Hz sample rate. The video still loaded fast for me, and I was able to see a better video immediately.
• If you want even better quality change the 6 to 18 and append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This changes the resolution to 480x360.

Example:

Regular video (320x240): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBfZ0WvZxF0

High-quality video (448x336): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBfZ0WvZxF0&fmt=6

Higher-quality video (480x360): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBfZ0WvZxF0&fmt=18

I'm not sure if this will work for all the videos on YouTube, but it works fine with newer videos. If you don't think you can remember those characters, you can download a Firefox script that automatically does this for you. Give it a try.

Related:

YouTube to Stream High-Quality Videos Soon
YouTube to stream video this year, maybe