YouTube is upgrading the quality of its videos. There are many ways to see the high res videos. However, the following shortcuts are the quickest and easiest way to view youtube videos at the current highest possible resolution.
Usually youtube videos are 320×240. By adding &fmt=18 to the end of the youtube URL, the videos will be played in the highest possible resolution.
By using bookmarklets, this process gets way easy. Just drag the bookmarklet below into your toolbar.
Visit a youtube video page and click the bookmarklet in your toolbar. The page will reload and the youtube video will be in the highest possible resolution.
Here is a picture example of dragging the link above into the bookmark toolbar in your browser.
After you drag and drop it into your bookmarks toolbar, it should appear there for now on.
When you click on it, it will add the high resolution code to the end of your youtube URL.
Here is a still from the typical low resolution video…
Here is a still from the resulting high resolution video. Notice the high resolution notification link at the bottom of the video…