Why YouTube's HTML5 Player Sucks | Hacker News Reader

Why YouTube's HTML5 Player Sucks

chrismorris.co

21 pointsChrisMorrisCo28 comments

I have run into all the same problems, also I don't like the loss of full screen video. HTML5 video is simply not an adequate replacement for Flash, end of story.

I've found that many people who believe things work fine joined the HTML5 opt-in trial, but don't realize that HTML5 only works on some videos and Flash is still being used for others. Most videos seem to be only available in Flash even with the trial enabled. Right clicking on the video reveals which it is if there is any doubt.

A YouTube engineer discussed some of the issues a couple years back: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html. At the time Hulu had similar comments about HTML5 video capabilities: http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/. A more recent post from a few months ago by YouTube staff on the subject is here: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes-html5-play...

I agree. They've done such a good job in mimicking the look of the Flash player than many in the HTML5 opt-in probably don't realise half the videos they watch are presented in Flash.

Thanks for the links, very interesting reads. I agree that the HTML5 player has vastly improved, but if the issues I'm experiencing with the player now persist, I don't think that it's nearly ready to replace Flash - or, I don't think they should.

It's not a YouTube issue, but a browser issue. HTML5 video was rushed and poorly implemented by the browser makers. I'm a Chrome user, so I can't speak for the Firefox and IE experience, but this awful user experience is true whenever I watch any HTML 5 video in Chrome. It's extremely frustrating, especially when it's missing simple things like buffering, caching and continuing download on pause. Give me Flash video any day.

You may be right, however, some people haven't experienced the caching issue when using the same browser and version that I was using at the time of this post (Chrome 17 just came out), which makes me wonder if the download limitation was implemented by YouTube to conserve bandwidth should a user click off the video early, thus saving YouTube from sending the entire video to the user when they're not going to watch it.

Interestingly, my caching issue seems to have disappeared since updating to Chrome 17. I need to do some more tests, though.

I think you're right, though, more likely to be browser issues more so than YouTube issues.

Interesting take. I've always experienced caching issues of the video buffer not buffering correctly. This has happened ever since they introduced 1080 content. I generally only go to 720p if I ever want to actually finishing watching the video.

It could be that their servers just cant keep up with the 1080p feed. It would need a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it.

However, there is one great feature with their new player.

I have 3 monitors and when I fullscreen a video on one monitor, I can continue watching it and click away and work on another monitor and it is still maximized.

So you've had that caching issue with Flash as well? I'm wondering if it's YouTube setting a limit to how much video can be downloaded in the case that the user clicks off the video early, thus saving bandwidth. If it is, then I simply won't be able to use YouTube HD anymore.

That's really good, re: multiple monitors. That's one thing that really bugged me about Flash.

I'm not having these particular issues except for the timing one, but I'm definitely not a fan of the HTML5 player (yet). I'd also like to use it but it's just nowhere near as good.

Videos open and pause at 0, and no matter what I do I can't get them to play unless I reload until I get the flash player. Seeking is pretty wonky. As well a couple of weeks ago it used a different sound output than flash (Flash would use what my music did, the headset, but the HTML5 player would try to use my speakers, which were off. Seems to have improved now).

Just hoping it improves significantly in the future.

That's interesting. So you can use 1080p just fine? May I ask what download rate you generally get when browsing YouTube?

I didn't have any issues with the sound, but my computers all have one sound output apart from one which is connected to a sound system. I plug my headset into the sound system, though, so I've never had an issue.

Seems people aren't getting a uniform experience at all =/.

I'd love to hear if anyone else is having these issues, because it's really frustrating me.

I don't have the buffering issues on Firefox 10. Everything else happens though. (The cursor not hiding can be avoided by moving it to the bottom-right corner of the screen, which effectively hides it.)

I haven't tried on Windows, but on my Mac my dock is set on the right-hand side of my screen. This means that if I move the mouse to the bottom-right or top-right corner, the dock sometimes pops up if I'm not careful. I can't move it to the other side either because the mouse hit's the wall, so to speak. I think I just have to get used to it.

I'll try FireFox 10 in a moment, by the way.

Are you only using the embeddable player with all the controls included? I just started using YouTube's HTML5 player as a fallback for users who don't have Flash, but with a chromeless player and using their iFrame API. The iFrame API is definitely rough on the edges, but it is experimental. And as far as I know, the HTML5 player for YouTube is in trial so I'd give them the benefit of the doubt on bugs and that they're working on it.

I haven't seen the bugs you mentioned, but will look out for them now.

Nope, I'm merely browsing the YouTube website. Are you using Chrome 16 as well?

Hey Chris,

I haven't experienced the buffering issues you describe, but I've definitely seen the resizing issues from leaving fullscreen (screenshot here): http://cl.ly/2y3F0B3V0X09013U0710. I've noticed this doesn't happen after full-screen, however; there's resizing issues anytime you toggle between different video sizes.

I should point out that my connection is pretty fast, around 75 Mbps.

I also checked out the caching issue you pointed out: you're dead-on. There's no caching whatsoever with HTML5. In general, the buffering behavior is kind of odd. Doesn't behave at all like the Flash player.

Oh good, so I'm not the only one with the caching issue! Wait, that's bad actually, haha. Were you using Chrome to test the cache? I'm going to try FireFox as well as that apparently hasn't had the buffering issue, so it may not have the caching issue either.

Weird that you don't have that resizing/offset issue when exiting fullscreen, but rather when toggling between video sizes. Everybody seems to be having different experiences.

Oh, maybe I wasn't clear: I do have the resizing issue when exiting fullscreen (not always, just sometimes). I was saying that there are other resizing issues in addition to that.

I was using Chrome 16 to test the cache. For the HD stuff, I must say: I can't find many HD videos to try it on. HD videos are more likely to be supported by big corporate accounts, and they'll opt for ads in their videos, too, which means that the video won't be HTML5-compatible (that's the real distinction). If the video doesn't have Google Ads, then it can be played in HTML5. Otherwise, it has to be Flash.

Ahh, okay. Fair enough.

Yeah, it took me a while to find some HD videos. I noticed it when stumbling across an advert for Breaking Bad which was uploaded by a user, if I remember correctly.

I haven't tested on all of my computers yet, but I've updated to Chrome 17 on my Mac and the caching issue seems to have gone away. I believe I still have Chrome 16 on my Windows machine, so I'll hopefully be able to test them side-by-side.

It is not a YouTube issue, it is a Chrome issue. I have built a fairly sophisticated html5 player, and Chrome's buffering/caching strategy is just irritating relative to Flash/Safari/IE9. Also Chrome is just not as good a seeking as Safari/IE9.

My player is designed for language learning, so the users are constantly seeking: http://bit.ly/z9J8Cc

Your link isn't working for me. I'll test out some other browsers shortly. I'm surprised that Google wouldn't optimise the HTML5 player to fit YouTube considering they own both products.

I think they think they have optimized it. Chrome uses much less bandwidth for a partial play than the other browsers.

You're right, it must be a Chrome issue. I just clicked your link and it worked this time the video is having the same jittery playback I experience on YouTube's HTML5 player.

Is anyone else finding this guy's site lags when scrolling? In Chrome any time the top banner is visible it lags. In Opera the whole page is unusable because to take 3-4 seconds to scroll,

Is there just too much CSS?

Hmm, it might be that I've used two large background images plus transparency on top of them. I may have to re-design. Sorry about that. It's still a work in progress, actually, so if you change your browser width to below around 760px, the CSS should disappear.

It looks like they fixed the bug, but for about 3 days a week ago I couldn't skip to different points in any video I've viewed in full screen without Chrome crashing. It was enough to almost push me back to Firefox...

I'm still having some problems with the player, but I've updated to Chrome 17 and my caching issue seems to have gone away. Not sure what the cause was.

i hadn't noticed any issue other than the cursor not going away, but i'd trade all of your gripes for the significantly decreased CPU usage (and heat output) of the HTML5 player vs the Flash player.

That's a good point. However, the downside to HTML5 is that if your computer freezes for a moment, the video continues playing and you may have to rewind a few moments. Flash tends to pause the video when a computer freezes.

I haven't noticed my computer overheat nearly as much as it did with Flash, though, so that's great.

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