Kick YouTube in the pants.

November 21, 2008 6:08 PM

Psst. Hey, wanna know secret? YouTube is offering 720p HD streaming on select videos.

Also you can watch them in widescreen. To modify cookies on Firefox, you can use this plugin.

Higher quality videos will require more bandwidth and a better computer, but the results are pretty good. For example: normal, better, best.

posted by tracert (19 comments total)

How long before they turn this off, re-obscure it or charge for it?
posted by DU at 6:16 PM on November 21, 2008

SLYTHD
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:40 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Is this gonna clog up the tubes and delay my internets?
posted by rokusan at 6:42 PM on November 21, 2008

Is this the Kottke hack? i.e. append &fmt=18 onto the end of the YouTube URL.
//Edit/ Ah. now you append &fmt=22
posted by acro at 6:52 PM on November 21, 2008

What is the hack for justin.tv?
posted by fixedgear at 7:12 PM on November 21, 2008

Whoa ... Webmonkey is still around? I thought Lycos killed it.
posted by krinklyfig at 7:55 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

What is the hack for justin.tv?

&fmt=handfulofsleepingpills
posted by ryoshu at 7:55 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

If by secret you mean in every single feed in my RSS reader, even the non-technical ones?
posted by odinsdream at 7:56 PM on November 21, 2008

Excellent news!
Also, love the "Dancing" video.
posted by archagon at 7:57 PM on November 21, 2008

Scratch that, the "Dancing" video is amazing. I can't believe I've never seen it before.
posted by archagon at 8:01 PM on November 21, 2008

Sweet. I just finished uploading my hacked blu-ray "WALL-E".
posted by Burhanistan at 8:23 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Love that Dancing video. Seen it before, but not for awhile, and it was really nice to see it again. And it was amazing how MUCH better it was in HD. BUT, it just takes too long to load. Don't think I'd care enough about most videos to want to wait for the longer load time. Also, the motion is jerky. It's probably jerky in regular def online videos too, but I think I notice it more when the picture resolution is so stunning. Or it's just my computer. Thanks for posting this.
posted by marsha56 at 8:23 PM on November 21, 2008

Hahahaha, and people were calling me insane for uploading 1GB 720p files to youtube.
Oh the quality is amazing :D
posted by yeoz at 6:10 AM on November 22, 2008

I'm an idjit. Can someone just explain to me how to do this with, like, just clicking on something?
posted by DenOfSizer at 8:00 AM on November 22, 2008

Incredibly useful, especially when added to the Mozilla "video downloader" plugin. I've been using an entirely different workaround when corporate clients insist on using YouTube content that they "have permission for".

Let's see, now I just need to hope that MontyPython used 720p files, and do a wget across the whole (&22) collection...
posted by lothar at 8:30 AM on November 22, 2008

The Greasemonkey crowd is already on top of it.
posted by box at 10:50 AM on November 22, 2008 [2 favorites]

That dancing video is pretty ace. Nifty about the 720p, but man, that dancing.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:45 PM on November 22, 2008

i have seen the "where the heck is matt" video at least a half dozen times. And every time, I sit through the whole thing with a smile, forlorn eyes, and welling tears.
posted by Merik at 3:55 AM on November 23, 2008

Wow, Vimeo is screwed.
posted by exhilaration at 10:38 AM on November 23, 2008