View higher quality videos on YouTube

Mar 21, '08 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: marriott

Many people are using a trick to view any YouTube video in high-quality -- simply append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This is a job for AppleScript! Here are two simple versions; the first, for for OmniWeb:

tell application "OmniWeb"
  set current_url to the address of active tab of browser 1
  set current_url to current_url & "&fmt=18"
  set the address of active tab of browser 1 to current_url
end tell
...and the second, for Safari:
tell application "Safari"
  set current_url to the URL of current tab of window 1
  set current_url to current_url & "&fmt=18"
  set URL of current tab of window 1 to current_url
end tell
These can be placed in ~/Library » Scripts » Applications » AppName for easy access via the Script menu.

[robg adds: Queue user fds suggests that a JavaScript bookmarklet may work better, and it will work in any browser. Create a new bookmark for any site (or a blank bookmark), then change its URL to this: javascript:window.location+="&fmt=18";. Choose that bookmark while viewing a YouTube video, and you should get the high quality version.]

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