YouTube now defaults to HTML5 <video>

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by ronjor, Jan 27, 2015.

  1. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    http://youtube-eng.blogspot.com/2015/01/youtube-now-defaults-to-html5_27.html
     
  2. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    They must be crazy, I still prefer Adobe Flash. Some things need to be fixed with HTML 5 video.
     
  3. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    I may be wrong but I believe HTML5 is free whereas Google has to pay a fee to Adobe to use Flash. So they are not crazy, just practical.

    However, I just ran a same 720p video in HTML5 and Adobe Flash and the Flash video ran a lot smoother for me. So I will be keeping Flash as my default Youtube player for now, until they remove all the kinks from HTML5 playback.
     
  4. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Indeed, thankfully there are tools like an extension Disable Youtube™ HTML5 Player. :thumb:
     
  5. DOSawaits

    DOSawaits Registered Member

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    I almost always get system "Out Of Memory" type messages when playing bigger Youtube content (1hour+) in HTML5, never happens when I play them using Flash.
     
  6. allizomeniz

    allizomeniz Registered Member

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    How do you know if you're watching HTML5 or Flash in Firefox? I'm woefully ignorant on this subject.

    ***UPDATE***

    I disabled my Flash plugin and opened a YouTube video and it tried to load Flash, then went to HTML5. Then I enabled Flash again and it went to it by default. Using FF31.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2015
  7. SpousalMilk

    SpousalMilk Registered Member

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    On YouTube, right click on the video and at the bottom of the menu, it reads "About the HTML5 player."
     
  8. allizomeniz

    allizomeniz Registered Member

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    Appreciate it. I did finally figure that out, but it's not using HTML5 by default, at least not the videos I'm trying. May not be 100% implemented.
     
  9. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    HTML5 is the default player only for IE 11, Chrome, Safari 8 and Firefox beta. Regular Firefox still defaults to Flash.
     
  10. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    Raza0007, perhaps you want to review these 2 pages for HTML5 <video> Browser Support: W3Schools.com and Wikipedia.
     
  11. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    For those with Firefox, just go https://www.youtube.com/html5 and enable it. That still works. If youtube is one of the very few sites you even use Flash for, you could even go into plugins and set Flash to "Ask to Activate".
     
  12. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    Yes, I know that Firefox can play HTML5 video. I was just pointing out that Youtube defaults to HTML5 only on IE 11, Chrome, Safari 8 and Firefox betas right now, as per the announcement of Jan 27th. The stable official Firefox will default to Flash on Youtube right now.
     
  13. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    OK, thanks for the YouTube clarification!
     
  14. vojta

    vojta Registered Member

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    I have a funny issue everytime that I watch Youtube HTML5 videos on Chrome and XP32, the Windows clock accelerates and I have to sync it manually every day to keep it right.
     
  15. DOSawaits

    DOSawaits Registered Member

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    That's why I have the UAControl installed in FF nightly. No more problems with being forced to HTML5.
     
  16. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    Didn't think of that, but like you said yourself, HTML 5 is not ready yet. I also noticed that it will download whole movies, that's a complete waste of bandwidth. I do think it's strange that on each browsers it seems to work differently, on Firefox I get HTML5 video, but on Chrome and Opera 12, I get Flash.
     
  17. FOXP2

    FOXP2 Guest

    About ten years ago I dumped Adobe Reader and I’ve been waiting about that long to toss Adobe Flash into the garbage pit of history and remove the port 1935 block in my firewall. And did so, 10-12 months back, I forget. Since then, there hasn’t been one yootoob video that hasn’t played. (Off thread: Many news, media and commerce sites have stepped up, too.) HTML5 is the best not-ready-yet thing ever on teh webbuhnetz.

    Browsers “on my system” since I uninstalled Flash have been Firefox, Pale Moon64 and current (probably forever) fav, Cyberfox64 and some flavors of Chrome. Works really great in IE, too.

    If for some reason I am forced at gunpoint to view some archaic backwater site’s low life video, I’ll run Google Chrome 64 portable with Pepper Flash enabled.

    FYI: Flash Control is the best I’ve found so far Mozilla extension for controlling HTML5 content.

    Enter the 21st Century and join the TRASH FLASH movement.

    Any yes, it's been me wasting all that bandwidth. :D

    Cheers.
     
  18. Banzi

    Banzi Registered Member

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    I have noticed one slight glitch with HTML5, I have chrome set to click to play & if I go to youtube & click to play the video & then try to change it to HD before I can do that it goes back to the click to play grey screen.
     
  19. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    HTML5 isn't a plugin, you shouldn't be seeing "click to play" in the first place. It should just play.
     
  20. guest

    guest Guest

    I would still opt for HTML5 over Flash nonetheless. Flash brings a lot of problems along with it.
     
  21. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    http://readwrite.com/2015/01/30/youtube-flash-html5-online-videos
     
  22. Banzi

    Banzi Registered Member

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    Just reporting what happened, have tried a few youtube videos today & it no longer does it.
     
  23. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    I'm using Firefox here, but anyone else noticing being capped at around 720p for resolution with HTML5, but if watched in Flash then you get the higher resolutions like 1080, 4k, etc?
     
  24. guest

    guest Guest

    Yep. I bet you also don't have 480p with HTML5. :cool:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 31, 2015
  25. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    Exactly. Firefox too I take it? Like I'm wondering if it's one of the reasons they don't default to HTML5 with Firefox yet.

    Even with Flash, I think Chrome is still the only browser that can play 60fps vids still.
     
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