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Higher-Resolution YouTube Videos Currently In Testing
jason writes "YouTube has never really been known for streaming videos at a high resolution, but it appears that they are taking early steps at providing higher quality videos. The project was announced last year by the site's co-founder Steve Chen, and now appears to be in the earliest stages of deployment. By adding a parameter onto the end of a video's URL you're able to watch it in a higher quality (in terms of audio and video) that is actually quite noticeable. Not all videos have been converted at this point, but they do have millions upon millions of videos that they need to do."
How will they handle the higher bandwidth needs???
Cause dammit, I want crisp, clear flames when I'm watching a 15 year old set himself on fire!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
they do have millions upon millions of videos that they need to do.
Really? I would argue that of the millions of videos on the net that I think need to be at a higher quality, very few of them are on YouTube.
I'd noticed that using the iPhone to view videos on WiFi, gave a notable better picture than the web version. I think the flag is accessing the same video the iPhone makes use of.
AppleTV also makes use of this higher level of quality I believe.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At the moment the quality is ropey at times, you can say that it's no substitute for a real DVD (When there's a copyrighted file on the site, not that that's allowed).
Once it approaches DVD quality the lawyers will argue it's like DVD on demand.
iPhone users have been enjoying H.264-encoded YouTube for many months already.
To be frank, I've not been on YouTube.com ever since I've gotten the iPhone. The video quality is SO much better on H.264 than crap^H^H^H^H flash players that it's worth wasting time with it. Plus, you can actually pause, fast-forward, rewind and skip to any point without it failing like flash players always do.
What about Google Video? Would that work too?
They just have to add more Tubes!
By piggy backing on the networks of those poor, overworked ISP's that aren't getting paid by youtube. It's like youtube is stealing that bandwidth by exploiting this loophole.
I hope H.264 will be available in flash soon. Stage6 had to close because of the expenses in delivering HQ videos, which is bad news.
I'm not insane! My mother had me tested.
When Youtube upgrades the quality of their VIDEOS and not the quality of the video FILES ... then I'll be interested. For now, as so many others have said ... Youtube is adequate for watching 15 year olds set themselves on fire ;)
YouTube has never really been known for streaming videos at a high resolution,
The problem isn't necessarily resolution- it's the unbelievably low bitrates, and the fact that they insist on re-encoding everything that's uploaded to them. It's apparently possible to upload FLV in a very precise way such that they don't re-encode, but they could make it a lot easier (and it's to their advantage- every video given to them ready-to-go is a video they don't have to waste incoming bandwidth, temporary disk storage, and bandwidth on.)
What youtube *should* be doing is offering paid accounts which allow for higher bitrate videos; say, a low-end for the camwhores who want better pixels for their whining, a mid-level for guys like Will It Blend, and a top-end account for big companies that want to push their ads out on Youtube. Will It Blend, for example, would probably plunk down $20/month to get better videos.
Sadly, though- companies like blip.tv have already filled the niche of high-quality videos, and they're getting attacked left and right by other sites like metafilter which already does revenue sharing...and there are a billion and one embedded FLV hosting sites...
Please help metamoderate.
What do you think they are converting you lamebrain? They kept the originals, so no upsampling needed (doesn't really work anyway), they just RE-encode the original.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If I delete a video from YouTube, do they delete the source file?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It already is.
Some guy in the comments on the blog downloaded both formats and they came out in exactly the same size. People here are also commenting that they only changed to support H.264. This means that they do not have higher bandwidth needs, but higher processing needs due to a smarter codec (H.264).
Personally I've played around with x264 and the improvements in quality are pretty impressive with enough encoding time and the right encoding parameters thrown at the encoding process.
Obviously, when I say market, I mean enormous money hole...
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Looks like I found the answer:
...by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license ... The above licenses granted by you in User Videos terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your User Videos from the YouTube Service. You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted.
http://www.youtube.com/t/terms
6. Your User Submissions and Conduct
C.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I was checking out anime OP/ED videos a while back for a series I had started watching and came across someone that has somehow tricked youtube into letting ultra-high resolution videos on the site.
Here's an example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Vtrmpol390
Notice that the "clock" on the player says its 9:59 long. Note that the streaming hiccups and stutters because the actual video is only 1:30 long -- just like any other anime OP. The time-code computation appears to be totally off for this video, but the quality is fantastic. Listen with good headphones -- the audio and video quality are both fantastic in this video.
Now compare to a "normal" youtube version: http://youtube.com/watch?v=B5PoF34qM0o
This person's other movies are all other anime OP/ED sections that all say they are around 10 minutes long, but in reality are all 1:30 or so.
So it seems this person has figured out how to exploit something in youtubes video analysis/recoder to get ultra-high quality audio/video, at the expense of breaking the media-length calculations.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
That guy was using a third party downloader, which doesn't account for the high quality video. He unknowingly downloaded the same video twice. While the regular youtube video is indeed 3.4 MB, the high quality one is 9.5 MB. Here's a picture showing the filesize
.flv files were being loaded no matter what parameter I set. Does anyone have any examples of high quality videos besides the dog?
One other interesting thing is that I haven't been able to find another high-quality video on youtube. I tried the &fmt=6 parameter on several videos, both popular and new. Two of these videos (a Fall Out Boy video and an NBA recap) loaded with the parameter, but didn't look any better. A quick check showed that the same
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
What
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Now I can get rickrolled with more pixels than before.
Perfume - Polyrhythm (Japanese music video): http://youtube.com/watch?v=qjL_FM23FzU&fmt=6
Touhou 8 - Final Boss (Japanese video game): http://youtube.com/watch?v=UOWR1_uMdW8&fmt=6
CNN/Univision Debate: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_BGyWYtee18&fmt=6
These are the only ones I found (the skate dog shows up too) in a google search for site:youtube.com "fmt=6"
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site:youtube.com+%22fmt%3D6%22&num=100&hl=en&safe=off&filter=0
My guess at this point is they are reencoding the original uploads iff they are higher bitrate than the old codec youtube was using.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
d'oh
Would that be YourTubes, MyTubes, or TheirTubes?
Cheers! Verified.. I downloaded the video files for each format from youtube.. they are as follows:
;)
:)
:-)
Presumably anything that's available on the iphone will be available in fmt 18 and/or fmt 17. 18 looks good
Here's a screenshot that compares the formats: http://g.appleguru.org/youtubeformats.png
And here are download links and details on each of them
No format tag (standard):
320x240 @ 29.97 fps
Flash video (Sorenson h.263)
MP3 Audio (22.05KHz, mono)
FLV container
3.28MB
http://g.appleguru.org/nofmt.flv
Format 6 tag:
448x298 @ 29.98fps
Flash video (Sorenson h.263)
MP3 Audio (44.1KHz, mono)
FLV Conatiner
9.44MB
http://g.appleguru.org/fmt6.flv
Format 17 tag:
176x144 @ 12fps
MPEG-4 Video (simple profile)
MPEG-4 (AAC) audio (22.05KHz, mono)
3gp container
832KB
http://g.appleguru.org/fmt17.3gp
Format 18 tag:
480x320 @ 29.97fps
MPEG-4 Video (H.264)
MPEG-4 (AAC) audio (44.1KHz, STEREO!)
mp4 container
6.28MB
http://g.appleguru.org/fmt18.mp4
Coolness
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