Some great news, Youtube is taking early steps at providing higher quality videos.
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 though not all videos have been converted at this point. About 15% have been converted apparently and new uploads get converted after a few hours. To view the higher quality versions, just add &fmt=6 onto the end of any YouTube URL. Using the skateboarding dog as an example you would take the normal URL: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0 and add the &fmt=6 onto the end: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=6 If the YouTube video just sits there loading then that is a sign that the video has not been converted to the higher resolution yet. To really see the difference you should view the video in full screen mode. Note: Alternatively you can add &fmt=18 and it will play the high-resolution version when available, otherwise it will play the regular version. Here's a Greasemonkey script (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/23366) that will automatically add &fmt=18 onto the end of each YouTube URL. Source: http://cybernetnews.com/2008/02/29/watch-high-resolution-youtube-videos/
