YouTube - Playback With Various Clients

[mnewman]

I'm not a big YouTube fan, but I recently started uploading videos to share with my far-flung friends and family. Here's an example:

http://youtu.be/rp_9ZWsXSQ4

I cannot watch that video in Safari (6.0.2); even though it is downloading a low res (360p) version. It starts and stops so often that it is unwatchable.

It plays just fine in Chrome (23.0.1271.95), which is also downloading the same low res version. Chrome does stutter if I try to watch the 420p version.

On the iPad, the official YouTube app downloads an unwatchable, very low res version. However, the Jasmine iPad YouTube client fetches the 360p version which downloads very quickly and plays just fine. It also downloads and plays, without a hitch, the 420p version.

Both the Mac (wired) and the iPad (WiFi) are on the same network with an Airport Extreme as the router.

Any idea what's going on here? Why such different playback experience with different clients on the same video?

[acme.mail.order]

How good is your internet connection? I have no YouTube problems with any of the above.

[mnewman]

My Internet connection sucks:



But that doesn't explain the huge difference in streaming performance between Chrome and Safari on the Mac and YouTube and Jasmine on the iPad. They all use the same Internet connection.

[NaOH]

Chrome and Safari are not using the same setup in terms of Flash. Chrome has the plugin embedded in the application and Safari uses the system-wide plugin. So not only is the way the browsers connect to Flash different, the Flash versions may be different.

Over on the iPad, the Jasmine app requires iOS 6, and the YouTube app is only on devices using pre-iOS 6 versions of the OS, so there are likely significantly different underlying systems in place for those apps to use.

[mnewman]

The YouTube app I have is the one that Google released after the original YouTube app was dropped from iOS 6. Its performance is dismal.

Also, I'm in the YouTube HTML5 trial. Doesn't that mean that Flash is not involved with Safari and Chrome?

[NaOH]

I forgot there's a Google-made YouTube app now. So it could be tied to the app, whether how well it's made or the sandboxing limitations of iOS. Have you tried viewing the video in iPad Safari?

Over on the Mac, I assume being in the HTML5 trial has Chrome using that format instead of Flash, but I don't use Chrome. I assume you'd be able to tell from how the video appears (e.g., the controls or what happens you see when you right-click on the video). Assuming it is, they're essentially using different versions of WebKit, the underlying web renderer. That could explain the different performances.

[mnewman]

Both 360p and 480p stream beautifully in iPad Safari. Interesting.

Back to the Mac: You know how when you watch a YouTube video you get a dual purpose progress indicator; one showing where you are in the video and the other showing how much has been downloaded?

In Mac Safari, the downloaded progress barely keeps ahead of the video played progress; almost nothing is buffered. Chrome manages to buffer quite a bit ahead of the playback. In fact, on the 11 minute video I posted Chrome has downloaded the entire video before it has played back the first half.

Another difference: Safari offers playback at 240/360/720p while Chrome offers 360/480/720p

[NaOH]

Quote: Originally Posted by mnewman Another difference: Safari offers playback at 240/360/720p while Chrome offers 360/480/720p

I set Safari to use the Chrome user agent (Develop menu > User Agent), and the same 240/360/720p is what I was offered. Note, it's IDing itself as Chrome 19, and the actual version of Chrome is well beyond that.

Sort of related, you may want to see if any of the Develop > User Agent options helps you when using Mac Safari. I don't have a system-wide Flash plugin available to Safari, so I often encounter pages which think I need to install Flash to show me content. I have a keyboard shortcut set to change the user agent for the current page to iPad Safari, and that works as long as the site has a non-Flash option for multimedia. I've set that with Keyboard Maestro, but I've read others who do similar using System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.

Maybe something like that will help you with Mac Safari and the YouTube site. Maybe. It could be a Safari issue.

[mnewman]

Quote: Originally Posted by NaOH Maybe something like that will help you with Mac Safari and the YouTube site. Maybe. It could be a Safari issue.

As you may recall I have had and continue to have issues with Safari since version 5.1. I still get the "Web pages are not responding" message at least two or three times per day. This used to be a commonly reported problem. It seems that I'm one of the few still experiencing it....

[NaOH]

I'd forgotten you had those problems. Like acme.mail.order, the video showed fine for me, at any of the resolutions offered to Safari.

You may want to try in a brand-new user account, just to try to determine if your Safari woes with this video are Safari or something with your user account.

[mnewman]

Quote: Originally Posted by NaOH You may want to try in a brand-new user account, just to try to determine if your Safari woes with this video are Safari or something with your user account.

Here's my plan:

1. Buy a new MacMini for myself
2. Wipe the hard drive on this one and reinstall Mountain Lion
3. Give it to my wife for her office.

And, yes, I have tried with a fresh user account. None of the Safari woes show up in a new user account. But I have no idea what might be going wrong with my account. But, frankly, I'm tired of screwing with it.

[mnewman]

Mr Lye: What you said about not having the system-wide Flash plugin intrigued me. So, I uninstalled it. It's only been a few hours, but no Safari problems so far.

Plus, on YouTube Safari managed to download entire videos long before they finished playing.

Maybe this is just an Internet bandwidth oddity, but so far....

[jsalmi]

I've got no comments on your video playback issues, but I did very much enjoy the video! May we come visit?

[mnewman]

Quote: Originally Posted by jsalmi I've got no comments on your video playback issues, but I did very much enjoy the video! May we come visit?

That made me burst out in laughter!

Sure, any time. The kid is off to university soon, so we'll have a spare room.

Warning: I live about six hours by car from the beach....

[NaOH]

Quote: Originally Posted by mnewman Mr Lye: What you said about not having the system-wide Flash plugin intrigued me. So, I uninstalled it. It's only been a few hours, but no Safari problems so far.

You've also got Chrome, which has Flash embedded in it. I have a similar setup using iCab. There will be times when a site has Flash-only content. For those situations, you may want to use System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts to set a shortcut so that from within Safari you can quickly access Develop > Open Page With > Chrome (as always with keyboard shortcuts, you'll need to be certain the shortcut name matches exactly what's shown in Safari).

Combining this with my similar comment from before, yes, I do have one shortcut for having Safari use the iPad user agent and another for opening a page in my Flash-enabled iCab.