&fmt=18

Apparently YouTube is experimenting with playback in higher resolution, and the excitement is driving me bananas. If you add &fmt=18 to the end of an existing YouTube video URL, the quality is much improved (although it does vary depending on the original source file).

For an example, compare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDibWPJgLPU

to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDibWPJgLPU&fmt=18

These improvements, once officially rolled out, should allow YouTube to keep up with the superior technology found on video sites like Veoh.com and Vimeo.com. I will be linking to these higher quality versions for all of my work from now on.