How to embed (and link direct to) High Quality YouTube videos

Posted by Rupert on June 25, 2008 at 3:19am in The Web / Tech / Gadgets

I want my FU in HQ!

I spent the last couple of hours reading up about how to make YouTube flash video look like this ridiculously high quality Ultraviolet trailer on YouTube. There's a good article here, and a screencast here. Between the two of them, you'll start to get the picture.

But then I learnt two MUCH cooler things that bypass the need for all that.

This is the most useful hack I've learnt all year: If you're posting/linking direct to a YouTube URL, add &fmt=18 to the end of the URL and it'll play in the HQ MP4 version rather than the shitty Flash version.

I tried mucking about with embedding videos using this code, but it's not that simple. They don't want you to know this: to embed a High Quality MP4 Youtube video, you need to add the following code onto the end of both URLs in the embed code:
&ap=%2526fmt%3D18

So now Zadi actually looks like she's in LA :

instead of Kazakhstan :

PS - to do this in Tumblr, don't use the Post Video option - it'll just embed the normal quality version. Post Text, and then click the HTML button above the Body box so that you can paste in your embed HTML.

Tags: embed, hacks, high quality, ruperthowe, twittervlog, video, youtube

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rupert on June 25, 2008 at 12:15pm: Golly, the response is overwhelming :)

I just created a little tool that makes it super easy to embed High Quality MP4 versions of YouTube videos without having to muck about altering the standard Flash embed code.

You can use it at:
http://www.twittervlog.tv/high-quality-youtube-embed-generator.html

After three horrible years, finally an easy alternative to shitty YouTube Flash embeds.

Bookmark it to open in your sidebar, so you can use it without leaving YouTube.

No excuses, no exceptions: if I find you embedding YouTube Flash, there’ll be trouble.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rick Rey on June 26, 2008 at 12:02am: This is awesome... AND you created a tool, too? Bookmarked. Rupert you da man!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by LVS on June 26, 2008 at 2:28am: Thanks Rupert. Thats magic to my eyes :o); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Annie on June 26, 2008 at 11:38am: Rupert, this is so awesome! I LOL'ed at your "Zadi looks like she's in LA.... instead of Kazakhstan" :)

Thanks for making a great tool. This will come in super handy!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steve Woolf on June 26, 2008 at 12:24pm: this is so great, thanks for this!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Leadpipe on June 26, 2008 at 12:29pm: bookmarked, though i may embed some the wrong way in the future to get goats.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Zadi on June 26, 2008 at 1:35pm: This is soo freakin' awesome Rupert. Great post!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by bboylefty08 on July 4, 2008 at 10:45pm: excellent tip
im trying to figure out how to upload high quality vids; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Primitive Dude on July 6, 2008 at 3:03pm: Nice. Thanks!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Logan on August 21, 2008 at 9:34am: Awesome!
Hey, do you know if the high-def version still collects "views" associated with the video?

In other words. If I have 10k views on a "standard-def" and then I change all my embeds to "high-def" and 10k more people watch the embeds, will I have 20k views visible to the public on that video?
thanks!; ▶ Reply to This