YouTube has apparently been quietly upgrading the quality of its video clips, while improving the compression methods to get the size of files down. Which is good news on at least two counts, particularly as it doesn't take long to chew up your download package if you watch too many of them. If you want to watch better quality than what initially comes up when you push the play button, though, there are several options.
Firstly, there is an "HQ" button at the bottom right of the play bar, which will play the video in higher quality.
Secondly, you can add a little bit of code to the address bar at the top of your browser which will also improve things, particularly for older videos, which have been heavily reduced in quality from what was uploaded to YouTube by the video maker. Try adding one of the following codes: &fmt=5, &fmt=18, &fmt=22, or &fmt=35. These represent increasingly higher degrees of quality (the last one is HD or high-definition). Not every video will show an improvement, but many will.
Incidentally, rather than watch the same popular video over again on YouTube, download it to your computer with a utility such as DownloadHelper (a Firefox add-on), and then you can view as many times as you want without costing yourself bandwidth. Windows Media Player might not play some of them, but there are good free alternatives in FLV Player and GOM Media Player.
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