Rupert of Twittervlog.tv writes on the Yahoo! videoblogging list the other day:
There are a number of reasons I’ve never loved YouTube:
- that intrusive watermark
- the inability to download videos without doing a workaround
- the site’s refusal to allow Creative Commons licenses
- generally crappy transcoding
Hmm. Rupert and I have a lot in common.
Rupert goes on:
Well, there’s now a workaround to that last shortcoming:
I’ve created a tool that generates the right HTML code to embed high-quality YouTube videos. …
If you play the two versions of Epic FU I’ve embedded on http://twittervlog.tumblr.com/ together, you can see that difference for yourselves, especially in shots of Zadi in the studio.
The colors and resolution are better than you get with a Blip Flash player. And you get to use YouTube without sacrificing quality.
For anybody who does see the difference and wants it, my embed code generator is here.
I just tried it with Because It’s Ourmedia (original below and new version above), which I uploaded a year ago. (Note: This requires no re-encoding and no new uploading; it just spits out new code that instructs the player to play the video at a higher quality.) As the response on the videoblogging list indicated, Rupert’s onto something.
Here’s an article from Gixar on how to get stereo sound and high-quality video on YouTube.
Adds Rupert:
The most useful thing I discovered was how to link to and embed the high-quality MPEG-4 versions that you can toggle to watch on the site. If you’re posting/linking to a YouTube video, add &fmt=18 to the end of the URL and it’ll play in HQ.
Doesn’t work for embeds, but I found a way to cheat it: add &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 to the end of both URLs in the embed code and it’ll embed as a high-quality MPEG-4 video.
Why can’t YouTube/Google offer higher quality instead of users having to create work-arounds?
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Why can’t YouTube/Google offer higher quality instead of users having to create work-arounds?
I’m guessing because it’s “free.” Does pushing better quality videos impact bandwidth? Maybe they couldn’t handle putting out higher quality output given the size of their user base?
The inability to download, though, is frustrating. I hate embedding something in a post with no assurance that it’ll still be working an hour, let alone a year, later.