numerous youtube videos from prior to 2011 are 360p There is a firefox add on that always loads the highest available resolution on all videos, something youtube does not automatically do, perhaps to save bandwidth.

wikipedia notes there is a thing called super resolution (microscan) which is computionally intensive video postprocessing. I have seen programs I haven't tried that say words rather like they generate 4 times higher resolution using "defense" technology algorithms which may be similar.

making a firefox add on that automatically microscans any video under 1080p at streaming time looks like an obviously beneficial product. I hear rumors of 64 core CPUs prior to or near 2014 which sound more than capable of this.

Google Youtube or Realaudio might sponsor the creation of this add on. wikipedia suggests google youtube might have a million servers, a "client side" version of high resolution video thus may save them the upkeep of the equivalent million servers that 1080p would use. That is like a billion $ savings. Like everything I write here this is a public domain idea.
-- beanangel, Dec 02 2011

super resolution http://en.wikipedia...ki/Super-resolution
[beanangel, Dec 02 2011]

automatically view highest resolution at youtube https://addons.mozi...inition/?src=search
[beanangel, Dec 02 2011]

I would buy this in a hot second. [+]
-- Grogster, Dec 03 2011


I would buy the opposite: the laptop doesn't do any better than 240 for full-screen, and the latest Flashplayer predictably degrades the quality of even that.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 03 2011


Wikipedia says google has a million servers, if youtube saves a million servers worth of $ creating a client side 1080p or higher resolution mode that could create the item
-- beanangel, Dec 05 2011



random, halfbakery