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Filed under: Video, Web services, Google, web 2.0

How to embed high quality YouTube videos

A lot of people don't know that YouTube has high quality videos, as well as the generally poor-quality standard versions. The links to the better (not HD, but still pretty good) versions are easy to miss, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure you're watching (and even embedding) the good stuff. Jason Kottke ran through a few of them recently on kottke.org.

First, make high-quality your default setting. You can do this in the Account menu, under "Playback Setup." That takes care of playback, but what if you want to link to the high-quality version of a video? Just paste "&fmt=18" or "&fmt=22" at the end of the URL. 18 is the 480x360 version, and 22 is the 720p version. Some videos will have one, but not the other, so try both if you need to.

When it comes to embedding, you can make a quick change to the embed code to get better video quality. Just add "&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" to the end of the URLs in your embed code. Here's an example:


[via Kottke]

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Video, Microsoft

Microsoft's HD video clip library

Microsoft HD clips
Microsoft has a collection of HD video clips, many in both 720p and 1080p to showcase their WMV 9 format and why it is better. I know what you're thinking, "Microsoft does HD?" I can hear the jokes now. Anyway, there are several clips for you to download to play on your PC, if you feel so inclined. Most are hefty downloads, which of course makes me smile. These clips also serve an audio purpose, and because they are HD video, the audio is also very good, so they make a great way to test out that new surround sound system you just got for your PC as well. Either way, if you are looking for a conversation starter for New Year's or just something to wow the kids, this might be a fun idea to try. There's a good chance these videos are something they haven't seen. You'll also need to crack out that new computer you just got too, cause these videos require a bit of muscle to run the videos, but wait, what am I saying, your machine is probably armed to the hilt with HD-everything and like 18GB of RAM right? Oh well.

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