BF2S Forums Improve YouTube quality/loading times with this trick

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU&fmt=18


doesnt work

_j5689_ wrote:

Not sure if this has been posted before but I found a little trick for YouTube that gives the video higher quality video and sound, and in some cases even makes the video load faster.

Type &fmt=18 at the end of any YouTube URL

Try it out here:

Main Battle Theme for Final Fantasy VIII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyxDEK9sjKg

With the high quality URL added:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyxDEK9sjKg&fmt=18


It works especially good for headphones.  See for yourself.

Silly billy.

&fmt=18 is the format for testing the video on Youtubes BETA High Definition test. &fmt=6 is another. The HD Test only appears to work on videos uploaded at 640x480.

Normal Youtube videos are in FLV format (Low quality), with a bitrate around 250/260kbps, about 56/64kb/s audio.

&fmt=18 files are MP4 format around 500kbps bitrate, 112kb/s audio.

The &fmt=6 are back in FLV format, bitrate around 700kbps, audio of 96kb/s but the video resolution is 480 x 360 pixels.

Last edited by Zombie_Affair (2008-05-28 19:35:13)

Big difference here...very fuzzy in regular quality, clear with the &fmt=18. I've heard of it before though.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ULEflF0oJM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ULEflF0oJM&fmt=18

Not sure if it works when you embed so I just posted the links.

aimless wrote:

I read somewhere that fmt=18 plays the quality of the original clip.

That's exactly what it's doing to a degree.

NateWiese wrote:

I can see a difference, but the loading times are still bad.

I've been having a problem lately with youtube taking longer to load a video than to watch it.

Watching them in HD will take longer to load due to the quality. Youtube recieves a lot of traffic in peak times, so it slows down.

Few statistics are publicly available regarding the number of videos on YouTube. However, in July 2006, the company revealed that more than 100 million videos were being watched every day, and 2.5 billion videos were watched in June 2006. 50,000 videos were being added per day in May 2006, and this increased to 65,000 by July.[3] In January 2008 alone, nearly 79 million users watched over 3 billion videos on YouTube. [source]

Yeah, the last week its been getting slower and slower. If it keeps going like this it will reach wipido speeds

Its just a new feature youtube has when newer clips are uploaded. You can watch them in SD or HD. It's old news. There was a post on bf2s about this in January.

Zombie_Affair wrote:

commandochristian wrote:

imo, Youtube needs to step up the upgrading of their servers, the long wait is getting annoying, esp. when you have decent high speed cable internet and the video loads like you're using dial-up :S

Do you know how much money that would involve?

"YouTube is currently not profitable, with its revenues being noted as "immaterial" by Google in a regulatory filing. Its bandwidth costs are estimated at approximately $1 million a day. It is estimated that in 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000, and that around ten hours of video are uploaded every minute."

Be thankfull a company generating no profit is actually allowing you to watch/upload video's.

Tell that to Steve Chen.  He's only 1.6 billion dollars richer.

Funny story, one of my best friend's older brother went to University of Illinois and majored in Electrical Engineering.  He had a couple classes with Steve Chen.  I remember one day he came home and told us about how Steve had offered him a chance to buy into his new idea, Youtube.  But my friend's brother is a pessimist, and at the time, internet speed couldn't possibly meet the expectations of hosting videos, so he said no.   

LMFAO