Unexplained quality degrade of You-tube embeds

Is anyone else having a problem with older posts with you-tube embeds? I have a youtube video embeded in my header and it’s always looked fine (yes, I’m using “HD=1”) but for the past two days I’ve had an unexplained degredation in quality. I see they’ve changed the format a little with the title overlays (which suck…) and wondering if anyone else is experiencing this and if anyone has come across a solution.

I’m using Youtube so the video is “cross device friendly” but if anyone has a plugin suggestion that will loop or have a poster image option, that is multi device compatable, I’m all ears! (Not JW though, it conflicts with shadowbox.js)