InfoHole

Whilst Youtube offers a "view this video in high quality" link below most videos on their site now, when you embed the videos they are still low quality. I have found a way to embed the high quality videos, detailed here: http://www.microscopics.co.uk/blog/2008/how-to-embed-high-quality-youtube-videos/

Although instead of using the fmt=18 as suggested in that article, I would suggest using fmt=6. Format 18 is a mp4 quality file at 512kbps, 128kbps stereo. And format 6 is a flv at 900kbps, 96kbps mono. As detailed here: http://blog.jimmyr.com/High_Quality_on_Youtube_11_2008.php

If you click play on both of the videos at the same time you should notice that the standard quality load progress bar loads more quickly than the high quality video bar. You will also be able to see the difference in quality by comparing the videos.

High quality:


Standard quality:

gordonrp computing