Using current Flash and youtube videos (what about a player not Flash?)

[enticer]

I don't know much about computers please bear with me.

I have a G4 Power PC, that's pre-intell

OSX 10.4.11
733 Mhz
512 SDRam


I used to be able to play youtube videos but now I can't.
I had Flash 9.
A year ago I had no problem playing youtube videos.
But recently youtube seems to have updated.
The other day with my Flash some youtube videos play ( but with slow loading) and others won't play at all or even show the controls.

I don't have the requirements to download thae latest Flash,
I can only go to Flash 10.1.

I had checked what I had it was Flash 9.
I downloaded the Flash uninstaller and removed that and also a Flash 8 that was there.
Then I installed Flash 10.1
It came form a zip file from the Adobe Flash archive
I assume that it works because if I click on it's icon appears in the dock and above the menu bar says:
Flashplayer File Edit View Control

I'm not sure how to test it.
I notice under Control the play, rewind etc are all gray options I assume because that's just because I am not looking at a website with videos that can be played on this older player.

My first question is if I previously had Flash 9 and it was playing some youtube videos and not others why why I changed to an even newer version 10.1 none play?
I was thinking it would have at least been as good as Flash 9 (which was not so good for recent videos anyway)
The video screens are all black, some but not all say "missing plug in" in the middle of this black screen. None have the controls showing, not the slide that moves when you play a video or play button etc.
Now none play

But this stuff between 9 and 10 not the main issue they are well into 11 now. Of course I need that latest Flash so that all videos play well.
Since I don't have the system requirements for that is there any other alternative, maybe a different player for youtube videos that I can download and such a player will download and install on this old PowerMac G4 OS X10.4.11 ?

[enticer]

I couldn't get HTML5 to work either (the new youtube player alternate to Flash described below.
I was also looking at youtube download Apps on Cnet but assume they still work with Flash, tried one didn't work.

Oddly I was on a random website. There was a youtube music video on there, the youtube logo was there at the bottom of the screen. The video played no problem.
yet wehn I went directly to youtube I couldn't play the same video. I even set up a new google/youtube account but the videos still won't play

____________________________

YouTube HTML5 Video Player

http://www.youtube.com/html5

You are in a trial for HTML5 video on YouTube. Some users of supported browsers are automatically entered in to the trial. If you wish to leave the trial, use the link at the bottom. HTML5 is a new browser technology that allows us to show videos without the Flash plugin.
Your comments will help us improve and perfect the mixtures we're working on. So jump in, play around, and send your feedback directly to the brains behind the scenes.
Supported Browsers
We support browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and either the h.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec). These include:
Firefox 4 (WebM, Available here)
Google Chrome (WebM)
Opera 10.6+ (WebM, Available here)
Apple Safari (h.264, version 4+)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (h.264, Available here, WebM support avaliable here)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 with Google Chrome Frame installed (Get Google

[sojourner]

I've been using youtube-dl to download youtube videos in non-Flash formats. (I doubt this is the ideal solution for you, as it sounds like you'd like to watch them online.)

[trevor]

From memory, Flash 10 worked very badly on PPC Macs--I'd advise going back to Flash 9 for your particular computer. (Although I hadn't heard of cases where it didn't work at all on G4 Macs--still, I think you'll be better off with Flash 9.)

Upgrading to Leopard OS X 10.5.x is possible on your computer with an easy hack, but I'm not sure whether that's a great idea. On your computer, Leopard will run slower than Tiger, so while you will gain some compatibility with newer software, you'll lose some speed. Probably better to stick with OS X 10.4.x until you can upgrade your computer hardware.

I don't see where you mention what exact browser version you're using, but that will make all the difference for HTML5. Update to the newest version of Firefox supported on your hardware--does that help with HTML5?

Trevor

[agentx]

Problem is many sires require flash 10.1 and above now and basically you are left in the lurch with a PPC machine now. you can use HTML 5 in Safari but not all video will work on youtube.

[enticer]

the system requiremenst for youtube HTML5 are:

Firefox 4 (WebM, Available here)
Google Chrome (WebM)
Opera 10.6+ (WebM, Available here)
Apple Safari (h.264, version 4+)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (h.264, Available here, WebM support avaliable here)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 with Google Chrome Frame installed

>> I have Safrai Version 4.1.3

Isn't that " h.264, version 4+"

however when I go to their trial page:

http://www.youtube.com/html5

^^^it still doesn't work for me, doesn't play vidoes, says"missing plug in"


UPDATE:

However, videos are playing for me no in regular youtube, I'm using Flash 10.
I had played youtube vidoes for years. Than they tried to get me to sign up a again by using gmail.
I said no and continued to play videos fo a while, not signing up for gmail when prompted.
But recently that did not seem to work. I stopped being able to watch videos although I could look at the youtube page it was on.
Finally the other day I did it, I signed up to gmail/youtube.
Videos did not play immediatly after I did it.
However a day or two later they do play, videos which I couldn't watch earlier. I conclude they forced me into a gmail/youtube account and now, although slow loading sometimes, the videos play.

I realized it wasn't so much the technology because I went to websites that hosted youtbube videos with the player controls and they did play for me when on those websites but not the same video did not play when going directly to youtube.

It's not a matter of technology. I theorize they block your access so they can force you to update to the latest Flash or sign up to gmail.

[DeltaMac]

Your theory doesn't hold water - and is not the reason for videos working (or not)
It's simply that flash, and most other means of displaying videos on PPC Macs is deprecated.

You may get better performance (don't expect it to be great) by adding a couple of 512MB memory sticks to your PowerMac. You could also try to find a higher performance graphics card (although that's even more of challenge to find a Mac-compatible graphics card now that will work in an older Mac)
Another help would be the h.264-compatible Webkit for Leopard.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/43456/leopard-webkit
and (of course) that would mean upgrading your Mac to Leopard - which isn't directly supported (your 733 MHz is too slow, the standard Leopard installer won't allow it)
My main home Mac is a 1.25GHz G4 eMac, and I find more and more videos that don't run acceptably.
The present generation of video players just barely supports the G4.
That situation is just not going to get better as technology continues to move forward.

[sojourner]

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer ... It's not a matter of technology. I theorize they block your access so they can force you to update to the latest Flash or sign up to gmail.

That's why I started downloading the videos instead of watching them online.

[enticer]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeltaMac Your theory doesn't hold water - and is not the reason for videos working (or not) It's simply that flash, and most other means of displaying videos on PPC Macs is deprecated. You may get better performance (don't expect it to be great) by adding a couple of 512MB memory sticks to your PowerMac. You could also try to find a higher performance graphics card (although that's even more of challenge to find a Mac-compatible graphics card now that will work in an older Mac) Another help would be the h.264-compatible Webkit for Leopard. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/43456/leopard-webkit and (of course) that would mean upgrading your Mac to Leopard - which isn't directly supported (your 733 MHz is too slow, the standard Leopard installer won't allow it) My main home Mac is a 1.25GHz G4 eMac, and I find more and more videos that don't run acceptably. The present generation of video players just barely supports the G4. That situation is just not going to get better as technology continues to move forward.

thanks for your info. Did you not upgrade to a new Mac due to cost? That's my reason
As for Leopard the upgrade, unofficial means slower running that's why i don't want to try it on a G4.

look at this silly video:

http://allhiphop.com/videos/devin-th...z-we-get-high/

(it may take one minute or so to buffer)

now click on the small youtube logo to go directly to youtube where the same video is.
On my system, looking at the video posted on youtube, there is now a big red bar over the black screen that says get the latest Flash. It's not playable.

As I said before due to my G4 being a power PC I only have the highest Flash
avialable for it 10.1

I can play some videos on youtube but increasingly many have this red bar or a smaller gray bar saying "missing plug in"

YET > the youtube video I just indicated plays fine for me on a different website. It just takes about one minute to buffer. You can see the player controls at the bottom, it's the youtube player but on a website that is not youtube.
Yet when I click on the youtube logo and see the same video posted in it's original youtube location it is a black screen that won't play at all. Why is that?

All this music site did was take the same video off of youtube and post it on their site. They don't have a different version of it that is more compatible with older Flash players. It plays on their site but if you have an older Flash player it does not play on youtube.

[DeltaMac]

I looked at your sample vid, and both play OK. Ok means that I can watch it, but not in higher quality. That web site player shows that it is playing as an html5 video for me, not flash.
When I view that vid at Youtube, it plays as a Flash vid, but is unwatchable at anything higher than 360p - certainly not watchable at 720HD.
I am running Flash 10.1.102.64 - thats also the highest I can go on this eMac.

You can tell what is being used to play a video by right-clicking on the video area. A menu should drop down, and you can click an "about" box to show what player is in use.


I have a newer MacBook, running Lion, but my family uses the older eMac. It's only a couple of years newer than yours, but much faster.

I do need to help you understand that your situation will NOT improve. Those various services that provide streaming video will slowly drop support for older browsers, and older versions of various plugins will slowly be less useful. You are already very limited, because you can't view any videos that are HD quality - as you can on intel Macs.
Here's what I do - download videos from youtube, at the quality that I know the G4 will handle. Copy those to your hard drive. Most videos can be simply converted to play through your QuickTime player, or through iTunes.
Unfortunately, even the apps that are youtube downloaders probably will need an intel Mac, or at least Leopard.

See where this is going? Technology does move on. Even if you are comfortable with what you have - at some point, you will discover that something that you want to do is no longer easy - or maybe not even possible without upgrading somehow.
Right now, Leopard is still a good choice - but not for long, I think. Go to eBay, and search for an intel Mac mini. If you can find one thats about 3 or 4 years old, you get one that is pretty current, and will do pretty much all of what you do now. And - you should be able to continue to use the same display and keyboard that you have now - or look for inexpensive LCD displays (there's lots for close to $100 for 20 to 22-inch screens, which is a really useful size, I think.
Anyway, there's lots of choices. If you really like to try various online services, then there's just a certain amount of "keeping up" that you may need to do, and it's easier to do smaller steps every 2 or 3 years, than having to make great leaps after 9 or 10 years.

[enticer]

thanks Delta, good advice.

but still:
You have Flash 10.1.102.64
I have Version 10.1.53.64
mine is higher yet I can't play the video on youtube and you can.

You said "unwatchable at anything higher than 360p - certainly not watchable at 720HD"

The video I mentioned that I could see on the music website but when I go to youtube the video screen is black box with the red bar about updating to the latest Flash.
The tool bar is not even showing so I can't even change the quality to 360p.
I went into the acct settings and changed to slow connection as a preference and that didn't help either. Why can't I do what you can do?

Another question I have. If I am playing one of the youtube videos I can play in youtube does that mean my Flash is necessarily playing them? I don't see it in the dock while playing the video. Am I to assume that the Flash player is playing the video?
if i look in Utilites>Activity Monitor Flash is not on the list of running programs while said video is playing.
I only rcently deinstalled Flash 9 and then installed 10.1.53.64.
But is it working I don't know how to check? or maybe it's working but not what is playing the youtube videos I can play. Is that possible?

screen shot of my programs open while playing a video:



I recently deinstalled Flash 9 and then installed 10.1.53
If I click on the hardrive in applications I see Quicktime I see Realplayer but I don't see Flash (is that normal ?)
In the Finder>Applications I also don't see "Flash" or even "Adobe Flash"
However if I go to the Finder and type in the search field "Flash" the Flash player is showing in the window showing applications. Why does it only show up that way not in the regular applicatiosn list?
Anyway if I go to the if I click on it from there it's icon appears in the dock then it shows up in the activity monitor as actively running.
If I click on this Flash icon while it's in the dock the menu bar at top changes from Safari to the Flash menu bar so it seems to be operational.
It doesn't have a pop up player like realplayer. I assume that it's not supposed to. correct?
I don't really understand it. Are the videos on youtube I can play really being played by the Flash I have?

Also what about HTML5 ? Does that not bypass this whole Flash thing? even the HDs ?
That has system requirements for browser also

__________________________

We support browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and either the h.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec). These include:
Firefox 4 (WebM, Available here)
Google Chrome (WebM)
Opera 10.6+ (WebM, Available here)
Apple Safari (h.264, version 4+)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (h.264, Available here, WebM support avaliable here)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 with Google Chrome Frame installed (Get Google

____________________________________________

I have Safari 4.1.3 the highest I can go with this OSX 10.4.11 if I'm not mistaken
but they say the browser must support h264 format.
But I tried youtube's HTML5 link and it didn't work. I guess Safari 4.1.3 does not support h264 format maybe some other browser but one that would still accomodate my OSX 10.4.11 ? yes I realize I will have to get a new computer but I think in the meantime there could be some minor improvments if I have a better understanding of how my system is operating and if my Flash is working and some settings that could be changed.

[NaOH]

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer >> I have Safrai Version 4.1.3 Isn't that " h.264, version 4+" however when I go to their trial page: http://www.youtube.com/html5 ^^^it still doesn't work for me, doesn't play vidoes, says"missing plug in"

At the bottom of that YouTube page is a link that says "Join The HTML5 Trial." Did you click that? I ask because I just went there on my G3 PowerBook which has 10.4.11 and Safari 4.1.3 and I was able to select it and then play the video you linked.

[DeltaMac]

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer ... You have Flash 10.1.102.64 I have Version 10.1.53.64 mine is higher yet I can't play the video on youtube and you can. I only rcently deinstalled Flash 9 and then installed 10.1.53.64. But is it working I don't know how to check? or maybe it's working but not what is playing the youtube videos I can play. Is that possible? If I click on the hardrive in applications I see Quicktime I see Realplayer but I don't see Flash (is that normal ?) ... It doesn't have a pop up player like realplayer. I assume that it's not supposed to. correct? ...

I have Flash version 10.1.102.64
That's the last version that will work on your system, and is newer than the 10.1.53.64 that you mentioned.
You can find that (slightly) more up-to-date version here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/...-versions.html

You can see what is playing a streaming video by right-clicking on the video while it is playing. The drop-down menu will give you a clue about that. Or, your Mac will show the app that is playing, next to the Apple menu.
Plug-ins, such as the Flashplayer plugin, may not show a running app in the Dock. But, it WILL show as an active service in the list in your Activity Monitor.

FlashPlayer does not ordinarily show in the Applications folder - it's an internet plugin.

[enticer]

Quote: Originally Posted by NaOH At the bottom of that YouTube page is a link that says "Join The HTML5 Trial." Did you click that? I ask because I just went there on my G3 PowerBook which has 10.4.11 and Safari 4.1.3 and I was able to select it and then play the video you linked.

thanks,

when I go there the page looks like I am already in the trial.
Without selecting, there lareday is a checked icon at the bottom of the screen that says:
"You are currently in the HTML5 trial"

I found out I can play this HD video there but only the version posted by w7thebest
not the version of the same video posted by natursoundmusic
-his version says I need to update the Flash

question , can you play any video there generally?

[NaOH]

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer when I go there the page looks like I am already in the trial. Without selecting, there lareday is a checked icon at the bottom of the screen that says: "You are currently in the HTML5 trial"

Okay, then at one point you did click the link. You never directly mentioned doing that, so I figured we best check.

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer I found out I can play this HD video there but only the version posted by w7thebest not the version of the same video posted by natursoundmusic -his version says I need to update the Flash

I wonder if the YouTube version is giving you troubles with Flash v. 10 because of the ad embedded at the beginning of the video (on the YouTube version). I have v. 9 of Flash on my 10.4-running Mac.

Quote: Originally Posted by enticer question , can you play any video there generally?

It looks that way. I don't use this computer for browsing, but I just went and played a couple videos from the Sagan Series without problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oXFWKpJiA

[enticer]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeltaMac I have Flash version 10.1.102.64 That's the last version that will work on your system, and is newer than the 10.1.53.64 that you mentioned. You can find that (slightly) more up-to-date version here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/...-versions.html You can see what is playing a streaming video by right-clicking on the video while it is playing. The drop-down menu will give you a clue about that. Or, your Mac will show the app that is playing, next to the Apple menu. Plug-ins, such as the Flashplayer plugin, may not show a running app in the Dock. But, it WILL show as an active service in the list in your Activity Monitor. FlashPlayer does not ordinarily show in the Applications folder - it's an internet plugin.

thanks


It's hard to tell what's what on the link.

I assume you mean at the bottom of the page, this list, I picked the one under the title "Older Archive"




.




^^^^ I downloaded the zip file but haven't installed yet. You can't see the see version on the list so I picked the first one under "Older Archives" but the
I didn't pick the version above that is marked Android because it was marked Android

The result below:

-so it turns out it's 10.1.53 what I already had. Should I redo this and pick that other version marked "Android" I can't tell if that's the 10.1.102.64 ?.

[DeltaMac]

The android version can't possibly help you, as it's for, well, devices that run Android, like smartphones, eh?
Why reinstall that older version of Flash that you already have? Here's another place to download the latest Flash that you can use - version 10.1.102.64: http://mac.oldapps.com/flash_player....lash_player=13