Nothing ruins the experience of watching an awesome European YouTube video like Heroes more than seeing the dreaded buffering wheel, which is why we're always working to make videos play smoothly in the best quality possible. And when you can't see what you want, when you want, it’s helpful to know why.

Starting today, if you’re in Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, or Iceland, you can use the Google Video Quality Report to see how well YouTube performs for you.

If you’re regularly seeing videos buffer, this report can give you a better idea of why, as well as tips to make YouTube play better. You can also see the video quality in your area, based on these levels:

• HD Verified: If your provider can consistently deliver HD video, a resolution of at least 720p, without buffering or interruptions--it’s HD Verified.
• Standard Definition: If you can watch videos at a resolution of at least 360p, your provider is delivering Standard Definition.
• Lower Definition: If videos load slowly or frequently buffer, even at resolutions lower than 360p, your provider is delivering Lower Definition performance.

The Google Video Quality Report is already available in Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and Canada, and we will continue to roll it out to more countries in partnership with ISPs.

Want to see our methodology? Check out the geeky details, and learn how videos get from us to you with this video:



Finally, making sure you can watch YouTube in HD from anywhere, anytime is a shared effort between us, your Internet service provider and even you. So, to make sure you're getting the best video quality possible, check out these seven tips you can use right now:


Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube