How to download 720p high definition videos from YouTube
Lately, YouTube has been experimenting with a number of different video formats. First they began providing higher resolution videos starting from 480p and then upping it to 720p. Recently, they even started introducing widescreen videos.
There are a few URL hacks to download these high quality videos from YouTube. To view videos in higher quality append "&fmt=18" to the end of the URL. This will play the videos in 480p with stereo sound, if available. If you add "&fmt=22" you can watch the videos in 720p. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO-ID&fmt=18 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO-ID&fmt=22Chris Pirillo has revealed an even better trick which uses a bookmarklet to download videos in MP4 format right from YouTube. No need for any third party services or browser plug-in to download YouTube videos.
To begin, first visit your Video Playback Quality page and enable the “I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it’s available” option. This is a cookie-based setting rather than a preference setting on your account and so you will have to re-enable it on every computer you use. Now drag this navigator.userAgent.indexOf(’Safari’)!=-1)?’(control-click%20and%20select%20%3Ci%3EDownload%20linked%20file%20as%3C/i%3E)’:(’(right-click%20and%20select%20%3Ci%3ESave%20′+%20(navigator.appName==’Microsoft%20Internet%20Explorer’?'target’:'link’)%20+’%20as)%3C/i%3E’))+’%3C/span%3E’;%7Dvoid(0);" target=_blank>bookmarklet to your browser toolbar.
Once this in your bookmarks, you simply have to click it whenever you want to download the 720p version of a YouTube video. If the higher quality video exist, a new link “Download as 720p HD MP4″ will appear in the right sidebar of the YouTube page.
If you want to download any regular videos from YouTube, then use another bookmarklet – Download YouTube as MP4. Once you click on this bookmarklet it automatically starts downloading the video to your hard disk as MP4.
