It could be because YouTube does not show the high quality option when the connection is not fast enough. Sorry but as mentioned before, options for online video sharing aren't plenty, and YouTube pretty much becomes the best for good reasons, such as unlimited and fast uploads and downloads.
If you want a high quality video, the best bet is to find me some file sharing site where I can upload gigabytes of data fast. A lot of these sites are very inconvenient and often slow, even for downloading, so to show your friends they may have to wait a long time to download.
The Sandisk V-mate is the device I use to record the videos. Link posted by Killer above. Basically you just need to have TV-out from your computer, and it can record it to memory cards, altho at limited visual quality.