I was very surprised yesterday to find out YouTube quietly released 1080p for HD videos.  YouTube previously said that the HD videos would be re-encoding the HD videos which were previously shown at 720p.  My guess is that they are upscaling similar to DVD players boosting a standard DVD to 1080p.  If anyone should have confirmation on how YouTube is accomplishing this, please let me know.  The odd thing is how buried this 1080p option is. Take a look:

1.  1080p is NOT currently available in a Channel view:

If you are used to viewing YouTube videos in a Channel view like my Photoframd Channel above, you will not see the option for 1080p.  It is also not available in any Embedded YouTube video view on blog and non-YouTube webpages.  The 1080p option is only available on the video’s Watch Page (the single video view).  You can access the Watch Page by clicking on the video’s Title (see above).

2.  In Watch Page view, click the Up arrow next to the HD to switch to 1080p:

Once you switch to the Watch Page view, you will see an Up arrow next to the HD button.  Just click it to see the option to switch to 1080p.

Really simple once you know how to find it 😉