One of the things that I don’t like about youtube sometimes is the quality of the video when it is encoded.   I have a HD camera and the quality is pretty good for the most part.  However when its encoded on youtube the quality goes south. 

The other day I was told about this trick you can do to watch your videos in higher resolution. I don’t know if this is a new feature coming soon and they don’t want to release it yet but it does work.

For example this video of mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7y0Zt3X-zo
 
The titles are distored and hard to read.

however look at this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7y0Zt3X-zo&fmt=18

The quality is much better!

So append to the url &fmt=18 and you get the better resolution. I’m not sure how far back this will work on the videos but I have some video from May of 2007 that it works on.

You’ll also notice that there is a new icon that allows you to switch back and forth on the player. It only shows up when you add the &fmt=18