Generally it's H.264, but here's a chart for everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecsThe_TEKnician wrote:What codec does youtube even use to stream their videos? Lets say they use h264, if I encode to h264, shouldn't that mean they are speaking the same language? Im just curious as to how they would reduce quality if the source is the same.
You used to be able to encode your videos within certain parameters to avoid a re-encode. You could also hex edit files to trick YouTube in allowing higher quality videos. However, now they just re-encode everything regardless. There might be new tricks you can try, but it is always changing. Either find somewhere better to put streaming videos or just leave a link for a HQ download for those who care about quality.