real easy youtube video quality tip

frozenwalkway · Post by **frozenwalkway** » 12 Mar 2008 18:26

i found this web site that said if you add this "&fmt=18" with no quotes to the end of youtube urls that it would increase quality.

but many of you will probably say BUT HOW!?

the page i found is here http://surarticle.com/how-to-tips/how-t ... itted.html

and it says "The trick is to append &fmt=18 at the end of URL of the YouTube video you are watching. This will make YouTube download a high-quality video version of that particular video. The high quality video version will of course be bigger in size and therefore will take more time to load. It shall be encoded at 480Ã—360 with an MP4 format. This trick will not work on all videos but for some it works like a charm."

i will show u a less annoying example than the example in the original article.

this is a parkour video and the original is already pretty high quality already.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVsa1SFgfU

and now u add &fmt=18 to the end and you get
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVsa1SFgfU&fmt=18

you can notice that the black bars have gone and that the image is much sharper, perhaps a tad too sharp, but in my opinion that is better than blur.

as the article said it doesnt work for older videos. the ones ive tried that are past 2 years dont work. and some of the videos ive tried made it look worse.

i thought that this would be helpfull for people who upload video frequently to youtube and want better quality.

Holliday · Post by **Holliday** » 12 Mar 2008 18:54

I can vouch for this little trick

When I was making paintball marker-modification videos, I was told about this, and it helped a ton with the close up videos. I did find that the darker tones benefited most from "&fmt=18"

maybe this could be used for a close up stitching tutorial?

Good trick to have up your sleeve.

quadgun · Post by **quadgun** » 12 Mar 2008 22:21

The only reason the black bars are gone, is because it stretched the image.
But I do see the "slight" quality increase in the images.

However, I don't think i'll remember to do this when watching any videos on youtube.

frozenwalkway · Post by **frozenwalkway** » 13 Mar 2008 11:02

yes it is impractical for you to do it every time. but i was thinking more of video posters to put it in the forum link already. like i did with the second link

Benzilla · Post by **Benzilla** » 13 Mar 2008 11:41

i see no difference

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 13 Mar 2008 11:43

Thank you for this tip, I think it's really cool.

I definitely noticed a quality difference. I changed the link in my sig to have the higher quality version. And when I send videos to friends or post on facebook, I will do the same. I think for footbag vids in particular it makes a big difference.

Thank you for sharing.

gMoney · Post by **gMoney** » 13 Mar 2008 19:17

Benzilla wrote:i see no difference

chris- · Post by **chris-** » 13 Mar 2008 22:38

hm no effect to me.. but maybe my eyes are so bad to see the difference

btw its really funny that you put that parkour video for example, because the music label and the guy which made the music for the video life in my city and I know them

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 15 Mar 2008 06:41

I got nothin, not working for me.

footbagi · Post by **footbagi** » 15 Mar 2008 08:04

Yeah the difference is evident. By watching the sample I provided you might notice that the one with the suffix "&fmt=18" has a much crisper sound quality. From my perspective there is a compromise of picture resolution for fps (frames per second). The vid with the added suffix shows to be clearer although his arm strumming the guitar shows to be blurrier.

I can do this with the my nVidia graphics card on my comp as well. You basically trade one quality for another.

That's just my guess. It's interesting that the sound quality changes so much. I can't account for that.

Good Picture Quality: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WYxlUkZBgbQ&fmt=18

Faster fps: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WYxlUkZBgbQ

EDIT: if you can't notice it, pause both at the exact same section then go back and forth to examine. you will notice the lines around object is much finer and exact with the added sufix. The other videos edges are rounded off. or just forget about it and go shred