Recently YouTube Videos have been rolled out to high Quality Video toggle option which shows 480×260 videos. Now, a simple hack to watch HD videos with video resolution 1280×720 also known as 720p is available. This new format is h264 encoded mp4 file with a size above 80mb and seems like real HD 720p video and looks clean and professional in the widescreen format.

The hack is similar to the one that was first used to toggle on the “high quality” mode by adding “&fmt=18″ to the end of a YouTube video’s url. For 720p, It is done simply by adding “&fmt=22” to the end of the video URL.

If you are uploading an video, the HD version is not available as soon as the regular one but it may take about 15-20 minutes to appear. It means YouTube might be re-encoding the same video to High resolution again. At the moment, there is only this way to watch these videos but in future, YouTube will give this option by default as “HD toggle” option.

Credits : Wired

Update : Youtube officially launched 720p HD video toggle option so no need to perform this trick. Click to know more…