Testing YouTube's 720p HD Encoding

[admin]

Briefly, to have your video encoded in HD, all you have to do is upload the video in 720p format. Note that the usual file size (1GB) and duration limits (10 minutes) apply. You can upload in a variety of formats; I used H.264. YouTube first creates a very ugly 320x180 video for normal viewing, then the big enchilada.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11075

Here's the uploaded video the guy made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h3GHOA3fuY

(click on the "Watch in HD" to watch it in 720p)

[drfsupercenter]

This doesn't always work.

I uploaded the 720p trailer from Watchmen, and all it had was "watch in high quality". Whereas I then uploaded the 1080p version and that shows in HD.

Now, the actual video player is only 480p. Despite YouTube bragging about viewing in "true HD", if you measure the player it's still only 480 vertical pixels.
However, if you leech the mp4 file it is 720p like it should be. (And for that matter - my computer isn't even powerful enough to play the HD-mode FLVs, I have to download the mp4 and play it somewhere else for it to work)