YouTube adds (some) high quality video switches

Written on March 12, 2008 – 12:27 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

A few days ago, Boris pinged me that YouTube was showing a maintenance sign and that I should keep an eye on it. Turns out he’s right, since I noticed a video on Mahalo showing that YouTube did add higher quality. The guide note says:

Quality refers to video on YouTube that has a higher resolution than the standard YouTube resolution. In November of 2007 YouTube announced that they would feature higher resolution videos in 2008. It has been speculated that YouTube will announce the official launch of this feature in March of 2008, but it has not been confirmed. Higher resolution versions of most of the videos on the popular video sharing site can be seen on the site using an address bar trick that accesses the higher resolution versions.

Simple research show that it actually is true. Check it out yourself by clicking on this image:

YouTube - Amy Sedaris on The Late Show - January 6th, 2006 (Part 2/2)

This blog reports on the recent activities of YouTube to make a higher quality of videos possible. It’s actually going on for two weeks already, says Cybernetnews. I can only agree with the last statement in that post:

I can’t wait for YouTube to start rolling this out to all of their videos, and hopefully they’ll add a button to their site where you can easily switch between the low and high quality versions on a per-video basis.

I hope you like that post!

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high quality, youtube

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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3 comments to “YouTube adds (some) high quality video switches”

By Patrick de Laive on Mar 12, 2008

It was about time.. Every time I upload a video to youtube I think, what a waste of my quality video. I already switched to better quality services like blip.tv.
I’m wondering if this can hurt startups like blip who profited from youtubes lack of quality.

Reply
By maarten midden on Mar 13, 2008

Recently there was a trick posted on lifehacker.com for getting better quality youtube movies. Check this URL: http://lifehacker.com/364731/g.....utube-vids

Reply
By Sjors Timmer on Apr 21, 2008

this morning i saw the interface element for the first time: http://skitch.com/sjors/j7hf/y.....ple-iphone

Reply

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