
YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video - derpenxyne
http://youtube-eng.blogspot.com/2015/01/youtube-now-defaults-to-html5_27.html
======
shutupalready
What joy it is to finally uninstall Flash. The last time I was this happy to
uninstall crappy software was when I realized that I no longer needed
RealPlayer.

For those that don't know it, RealPlayer was a very popular proprietary media
player (with its own proprietary formats) circa 2000. The company's stock was
worth $380 a share in 2000; it's now worth $6.

The only explanation for RealPlayer's popularity was its DRM I think; lots of
commercial users wanted the DRM.

But it got more bloated with every release, and I had to go through its
countless option settings every time I updated it to disable all the sneaky
ways they came up with to violate user privacy. I'm relieved that we no longer
need either Flash or RealPlayer.

~~~
guelo
RealPlayer was the coolest thing I'd ever seen when it came out in the mid
90s. It was the first streaming music player, as far as I know. Of course they
later became corrupted by the advertising dark side, like every other internet
company. But they were cool for a time. This was also before everyone decided
that the browser would be the only internet platform.

~~~
vel0city
Not only was it an awesome streaming client, I found it to be pretty sweet
client for ripping/burning CDs at that time. It was sad to see it fall, but
once Winamp got a bit more polished I never looked back.

~~~
agumonkey
I remember at one point Real Player had a redesign, it was sleek, well
integrated and could stream all kinds of content very appropriately.

~~~
walterbell
It also supported SMIL with real-time buffering of content from independent
sources. You could create a small XML file that dynamically and seamlessly
streamed video excerpts from multiple servers, appearing as one stream.

~~~
agumonkey
Hehe, SMIL, the early days of web defined standards. Our university tried to
enforce its usage but it never caught up. Multimedia streaming at that time
was still an oddity. Never be too early.

------
eliben
What I especially like about the HTML5 player is the ability to change the
playback speed. It is extremely useful for watching lectures & talks.

~~~
commandar
I use this constantly when I'm watching tutorials and how-tos. It makes
picking up the info you need so much faster.

I also recently discovered that the Crocodile Hunter at 1/2 speed is freaking
_hilarious_. e.g.,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLIMgXv89VU&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLIMgXv89VU&feature=youtu.be&t=39m55s)

~~~
copperx
The Crocodile Hunter at 1/2 speed is amazing. I would love it if there was a
listing of all videos that are hilarious at 1/2 speed.

~~~
robflynn
NDT sounds completely smashed when at half speed -

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danYFxGnFxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danYFxGnFxQ)

------
zanny
> we can support multiple content protection technologies on different
> platforms with a single set of assets, making YouTube play faster and
> smoother.

Man this line is hilarious. Your DRM to block users from keeping the videos
you are sending them is not making the experience faster _or_ smoother. Don't
try to pass off user-hostile proprietary blobs restricting the data on their
computer as anything but a terrible blow to a free and open Internet.

You can say, "yay drm", but say "yay drm", not "yay drm, bullshit about faster
and smoother". At least own up to the fact you are crippling UX for personal
gain.

~~~
gilgoomesh
He's not being misleading. It's clear from the context of what Richard Leider
was saying that "faster" in this scenario means "faster than the old YouTube +
Adobe Flash" approach. His point of comparison isn't a totally DRM free
scenario.

------
nailer
Excellent. It's always been weird having a mobile device run YouTube more
responsively than an GBP1500 laptop because the latter had to run the Flash
plugin.

~~~
erickhill
Now only if Amazon/Netflix would drop Silverlight all would be right with the
world.

~~~
Alphasite_
Netflix has HTML5 support for Safari and iirc IE.

~~~
pornel
The "HTML5" support requires proprietary binary blob that has no standard API
(besides an API to launch it with opaque data from a proprietary server) and
is licensed only to selected companies.

Basically it's as much HTML5 as <object data="swf"> was HTML4.

It's supported only by DRM vendors: Google (WideVine), Safari (FairPlay) and
Microsoft (PlayReady) and doesn't work in open-source browsers (not even in
Chromium or custom WebKit builds).

~~~
chambo622
Netflix works fine in Chrome on Linux. What do you mean by "licensed only to
selected companies?"

~~~
pornel
Works, because Google is a DRM vendor (WideVine).

You can't make a web browser that plays Netflix without signing contract with
one of the DRM vendors that Netflix supports, or rolling your own DRM and
convincing Netflix (and distributors that pull their strings) to adopt it.

For example if you compile Chromium from source it won't work (at best Netflix
will send you encrypted blobs that you won't know how to decrypt and there is
no public spec for it anywhere).

From video publisher's perspective it's locked-up as well. To have your own
video DRM-protected with the same tech as Netflix you'd have to get a license
from Google (for Chrome WideVine DRM support), Apple (for Safari FairPlay) and
Microsoft (for IE PlayReady DRM).

Netflix's playback without "without plugins" is achieved not by removing
plugins and having open standards, but merely by convincing browser vendors to
bundle closed DRM code with their browsers. Technically it's more like Chrome
shipping bundled Flash, but fortunately nobody calls that a "HTML5 native
Flash without plugins!"

~~~
giovannibajo1
Where do you cut the line? It's a plugin because it uses the plugin api? And
were it integrated in the main binary, would you call it a "plugin-less
proprietary HTML extension"? I think the main differentiation point is that
it's made by the browser authors, shipped with the browser, updated with the
browser. That, to me, means that it's not a "plugin", even though it uses the
plugin interface; it's an implementation detail.

~~~
pornel
"Plug-in" in the web browser context also had a wider meaning of "3rd party
proprietary binary blob, that has limited portability, and adds functionality
and APIs that are not part of Web standards."

You're right, technically EME's integration and distribution are different, so
it's not a plug-in in that sense. However, the other downsides that were
associated with plug-ins have remained the same in the built-in ex-plugins.

Browser plug-ins get so much hate not only because they're pain to
install/upgrade, but also because they're usually not as open and portable as
the rest of the platform.

(a bit meta, but term for this conflation of meanings is _disguised query_ :
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_insid...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside)
)

------
tatterdemalion
Hooray! I delete all cookies on session end and I don't have flash installed.
Having to remember to go to youtube.com/html5 every time I start a new session
has been frustrating.

Also, the HTML5 player has a nice feature to change the rate at which the
video plays, which makes watching long talks a lot easier.

~~~
dmunoz
I much prefer to have the option exposed in the UI, but you can do this with
any HTML5 video element by setting the video element's playbackRate. Often,
it's as easy as 'document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0].playbackRate =
1.5'. I have a bookmarklet that does exactly this, so I love to see HTML5
video being the default more and more.

------
DigitalSea
The HTML5 player is fantastic and I have been using it for as long as I can
remember (since it became an option). My favourite feature is the playback
speed controls, when trying to learn a song on guitar, I can follow along with
the live performance or tutorial to learn how to play, absolutely invaluable.

Every day the number of reasons to keep Flash installed gets lower and lower.
I still keep it installed on my machine for the occasional site that still
uses it, but Flash's days are definitely numbered. When a site as big as
Youtube stops using it, that is when you know there isn't long left.
Fortunately Adobe realised HTML5 is the future a while ago and have been
creating some great tools.

~~~
notdan
Since you are using youtube to learn songs on guitar, you might try this out
(I made it):

[http://tunetranscriber.com](http://tunetranscriber.com)

Let's you do marks and loops as well as using the playback controls.

~~~
tim333
That's cool. What did you use to slow the music/vid?

~~~
notdan
The YouTube slowdown is just using the YouTube API. For mp3, it is using the
html5 file and audio Apis, and a JavaScript port of the sound touch library.
Everything is done in client side javascript, there is currently no
application server, just a static site.

~~~
tim333
Thanks for the info. I was thinking of building something doing somewhat
similar stuff but I think it'd have to be sever side in my case.

------
shenoyroopesh
Wait - so youtube is behind the porn industry by only 4.5 years?

[http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/flash_takes_a_blow_as...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/flash_takes_a_blow_as_porn_industry_backs_html_5)

~~~
marvin
This actually makes sense; the porn industry has much higher earnings per user
and hence a much greater loss due to lower conversion for those who don't have
Flash installed. So for them, it's a "my hair is on fire" kind of thing.
Whereas for Youtube et al., it's a nice-to-have.

~~~
shenoyroopesh
But won't it be same if you look at percentages?

Unless you hypothise that porn users not having flash installed is somehow a
larger percentage compared to average web user not having flash installed?!

~~~
coldpie
Don't forget Flash doesn't work on mobile ;)

~~~
LLWM
This is by far the largest reason for the delay. If you watch some youtube
videos on your work computer, no big deal. But if you need to jack off at
work, you had better use your own phone if you care about keeping your job at
all.

------
toddsiegel
I've kept Flash around for the oddball site here and there that still requires
it, but this week I decided to uninstall rather than patch it[1].

[1] - [https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-
player/apsa1...](https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-
player/apsa15-01.html)

~~~
SeanDav
I like to unwind occasionally with browser based flash games so this is not an
option for me.

~~~
rev_bird
Glad I'm not the only one. The most relaxing way I know of to open up strange,
frequent security vulnerabilities.

~~~
gnrlbzik
haha : )

------
Grazester
HTML 5 videos on youtube take forever to start for me and would just stay at a
buffering screen when I use the seekbar. This is in Chrome. I haven't tried
another browser but it has made my youtube experience terrible compared to
what is use to be with Flash.

~~~
agumonkey
The only regular issue I have with html5 player is buffering with seeking,
some times things get stuck. I often resort to youtube-dl `xsel` | dmenu | mpv
to help both cpu usage and streaming quality.

~~~
pdkl95
That seems to be a problem with youtube in general. I see that behavior all
the time. Several local friend of mine also have these seeking problems, too,
so it may depend on the particular cache servers you end up seeing.

I think the problems started when they changed to the "adaptive" rate stuff;
the players don't don't download the entire video file anymore, and instead
they buffer in segments. Not only does this remove the ability to pre-buffer
the entire video, the client seems to get out of sync with the server. The
client ends up waiting forever, but the server isn't sending anything.

Fortunately, I was able to switch many of my friends over to youtbe-dl, and
that fixed everything. Unfortunately, the article mentions the idiotic
"encrypted medfia extensions" a one of the reasons for the changes to youtube;
I wonder what additional useless hoops youtube-dl will end up having to have
to jump through.

~~~
agumonkey
No I meant another kind of issue. The "smart" adaptive buffering was a
problem, but 90% of the time you could force seek youtube flash player and
wait for the stream to accumulate enough for the video to continue.

With HTML5 (under firefox nightly) sometimes it's really stuck and no
acceptable amount of seek and/or wait had any effect on it, so I believe it's
another kind of bug.

------
jcastro
Click to play now doesn't work in Chrome, anyone have a workaround or a known-
working extensions for click-to-play for html5 youtube?

~~~
porsupah
If you're fine with downloading YouTube videos for playing locally, I've found
4K Video Downloader works well, at least under OS X. You'll wind up with plain
H.264/AAC MPEG-4 files.

[https://www.4kdownload.com/download](https://www.4kdownload.com/download)

~~~
psychometry
How does that solve the problem of videos autoplaying when you access the
page?

------
peterwwillis
Now I have to figure out how to fix HTML5 audio. For some reason it always
uses the wrong alsa sound device, even though Flash and all my other apps use
the right one. This is how I fixed it for all the other media:

    
    
      ~$ cat .asoundrc
     pcm.!default {
         type hw
         card 1
     }
     ctl.!default {
         type hw           
         card 1
     }
    

Also, I just checked the site and it's still using Flash for me in Firefox
35.0 (???) _edit_ Ah, they do it for Beta versions of Firefox.

~~~
M2Ys4U
Almost all YouTube videos work in HTML5 mode on Firefox and have for a while,
it just wasn't HTML5 by default.

------
josteink
Make that HTML with DRM and non standard & non-portable extensions.

I think I actually prefer a working, portable Flash-based solution to that.

In not sure which are worst: Netflix and Google for pushing this bullshit into
the browser & standard or uneducated users for swallowing it whole.

------
pantulis
Sorry dudes. This is not killing Flash. Last time I checked, porn sites were
still using it.

~~~
totony
Pornhub has switched to HTML5

~~~
pantulis
I stand corrected, then. Should watch more porn it seems :P

~~~
Houshalter
I tried it and they are still using flash, as is every other site I know of.
Perhaps they mean there is an html5 option somewhere, but I don't see it.

~~~
totony
Works for me (just tried it, was fun)

Try disabling adblock, it seems to break their html5 streaming.

------
jacquesm
That's great. Now for HTML5 support in all the streaming platforms for live
streams. That's going to be another nail in the flash coffin. And it will do
wonders for integrating the delivery to both web and mobile clients from the
same sources.

~~~
ThreeAs
As soon as there's an alternative for games, flash will finally be dead.

~~~
jacquesm
That alternative is already here, javascript. I think that flash is being kept
alive now for two reasons only: live video and flash components used for
corporate bits & pieces.

------
Ellipsis753
Am I the only one that noticed: "<h2> Moving to <iframe> embeds</h2>" I'm not
entirely sure if it's a little joke or genuine mistake?

Regardless, this is absolutely great. I haven't had flash for a while now and
so it makes me happy to feel that HTML5 really is a valid replacement for most
things.

~~~
Igglyboo
I noticed it, I thought it might have been a mistake but all of the other
paragraph headers are <a> tags and not <h2> so I think it's a joke.

------
akrymski
Now if only Facebook did the same, I could finally use Safari without
switching to iPad mode!

------
mukundmr
Uninstalled Flash Player with an evil laugh on my home iMac only to reinstall
it when my kid's games needed it. What is the alternative to flash for games
that run on PBS Kids, etc. ?

~~~
mojuba
Google Chrome comes packaged with a Flash player (at least on OS X), so here
is what I do, very simple: no Flash, use Safari most of the time, use Chrome
as a fall back.

------
addisonj
This is really interesting news and I think signals what will be a really
large change in digital video in the next few years.

Moving from flash to HTML5 adaptive bitrate is not trivial task and if you are
familiar with MSE/EME, it shows how powerful the browser has become in
delivering rich video content, either pre-recorded or live streaming.

With this, it seems to me there is a big gap now for encoding to new adaptive
codecs, like MPEG-DASH and tooling to make something like livestreaming easy
to do without flash.

~~~
shmerl
EME is really garbage (it's all about DRM), while MSE is actually useful. They
shouldn't be mixed together.

Do you know by the way, is MPEG-DASH patent encumbered or not?

------
jfb
Well, now I can delete Chrome.

~~~
simlevesque
I fail to see the relation between the OP and your message.

~~~
jfb
The only reason I kept Chrome around is because I occasionally wanted to watch
Youtube videos that were Flash only. I wasn't going to install Flash system-
wide, so I was grateful for Google's approach of maintaining a private Flash
instance. Now, that usecase is become less of a problem, so I can ditch
Chrome, which I never used otherwise.

~~~
delsalk
>I occasionally wanted to watch Youtube videos that were Flash only

Are there any examples of flash only video? I used to use a 3rd party
extension that would show videos in html5 and i never came accross any video
that required me to load it in flash. I'm curious how Youtube tries to deliver
those videos now.

~~~
jfb
There used to be many. I haven't encountered one in a while, however.

------
deanclatworthy
> Encrypted Media Extensions and Common Encryption - In the past, the choice
> of delivery platform (Flash, Silverlight, etc) and content protection
> technology (Access, PlayReady) were tightly linked, as content protection
> was deeply integrated into the delivery platform and even the file format.
> Encrypted Media Extensions separate the work of content protection from
> delivery, enabling content providers like YouTube to use a single HTML5
> video player across a wide range of platforms. Combined with Common
> Encryption, we can support multiple content protection technologies on
> different platforms with a single set of assets, making YouTube play faster
> and smoother.

Has any streaming platform actually rolled out an implementation of this? And
has anyone found a way to break it?

~~~
mikeryan
_Has any streaming platform actually rolled out an implementation of this? And
has anyone found a way to break it?_

Note EME isn't "DRM" per-se. Its an interface to enable custom DRM
implementations. There's not "one thing" to break. I'd assume Youtube would
use Widevine (another google company) which supports EME.

------
SCdF
Next up (I hope): Twitch.

Then I think I'm done with that extension.

~~~
calebegg
Twitch streams in HTML5 for me on Safari, if Flash isn't installed. No
comments, though.

~~~
SCdF
That's so weird, why would the comments of all things require flash!?

~~~
calebegg
Probably because it's easier than long polling and more widely supported than
web sockets.

------
shurcooL
I've disabled Flash since the beginning of this year, an idea inspired by
someone else [1]. So far it's been working out great and I was pleasantly
surprised I've had very little need to turn it back on.

Some notable issues I've run into:

\- play.spotify.com, I used to use the web player on my computer, it requires
flash sadly. I've started using their OS X app.

\- twitch.tv if I occasionally watch a stream, also needs flash. I tend to
turn it on for the duration.

It's pretty great and I'm enjoying better battery life, more efficient use of
cpu.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/shurcool/status/550804694793060354](https://twitter.com/shurcool/status/550804694793060354)

------
orbitur
Now if they only defaulted to theatre mode. I don't care about the related
videos as much as they think I do, and there's still room for a few once they
get shifted underneath the larger player.

~~~
heri0n
There's browser extensions to do this

------
free2rhyme214
Steve Jobs predicted this in 2010 - [https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-
on-flash/](https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)

~~~
tosseraccount
Steve may have been a tad unrepresentative that "open video" issue.

Remember, this is the guy that controlled QuickTime and never opened it up.
That was a bit of problem for open video supporters.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company)

~~~
tosseraccount
From Apple itself ...

"proprietary acceleration techniques"

[http://web.archive.org/web/20010605082836/www.pa.msu.edu/~ha...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010605082836/www.pa.msu.edu/~hamlin/facts/1stltr.html)

~~~
tosseraccount
[https://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-
VR/2004/Jul/msg00...](https://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-
VR/2004/Jul/msg00113.html)

<i>More than 250 million copies of QuickTime 6 have been downloaded in > less
than two years since its release. According to Frost & Sullivans > 2004
Global Media Streaming Platform Report, between 2002 and 2003 > Microsofts
and Real Networks worldwide market share percentages were > either stable or
declining while QuickTimes market share increased to > 36.8 percent, a close
second to Microsoft. Real Networks came in third > place with less than 25
percent of the worldwide streaming market > share.</i>

Apple was never an "open source/open technology" white knight in video.

------
Houshalter
I have flash set to "click to play" so flash videos only load when I click on
them. I dislike the HTML5 because it means videos always autoplay. I hate
autoplaying video.

~~~
maxerickson
It might be a step backwards at the moment, but it's pretty much a sure thing
that browsers (or at least extensions) will have support for HTML5 click to
play.

A whitelist + click for sound would be pretty much exactly what I want.

------
Aoyagi
Hah, the player is the least of my issues with the service. And I hope this
means they won't get rid of the Flash option altogether.

------
TheRealDunkirk
People are pointing out how every site will now (optionally) need its own DRM
module. So how is this not a worse situation for users than Flash? Now there
will be several popular modules that will all have their own vulnerabilities,
and need patching, with the added disadvantage that they don't all have the
same set of eyes watching them, as Flash does now.

------
shmerl
By the way, is MPEG-DASH* patent encumbered or not? I didn't find clear answer
on that. Youtube is using DASH (on the server side) to implement adaptive
streaming.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_ove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_over_HTTP)

~~~
slederer
MPEG-DASH is completely royality free. Find also more info on www.dash-
player.com

~~~
shmerl
Thanks. Do you know if this is documented anywhere?

~~~
slederer
There was an email at the MPEG-DASH mailing list where the key companies
(Qualcomm, Microsoft, etc.) declared that. maybe you ask the question again on
this mailing list:
[https://lists.aau.at/mailman/listinfo/dash](https://lists.aau.at/mailman/listinfo/dash)

------
ramamark
This leaves the BBC as one of the few major sites still dependent on flash for
desktop users. Ironic considering you'd expect it to be at the forefront of
video delivery technology. I use IE's Developer Tools to request the site as
an iPad, a much better experience.

------
gojomo
Now if only Twitter would eliminate the Flash dependency to show animated GIFs
on Firefox...

------
fugyk
Wow, I almost forgot that I was using HTML5 version of youtube as a preview. I
am using HTML5 preview since day 1 and I don't remember any glitches or bugs.
I wonder why this switch has taken so long given many upsides and no known
downside.

------
RunningWild
I love the trend of "Let's fix technology. With more technology!" The constant
one-up-manship and the preposterous amount of options of all these tech
companies makes me yearn for the days of DOS.

~~~
vnchr
You're sure that's not a reflection of growing user diversity and mainstream
technology adoption rather than over-engineering?

------
known
HTML 5, Flash or Silverlight?

[http://www.xul.fr/en/html5/html5-flash-
silverlight.php](http://www.xul.fr/en/html5/html5-flash-silverlight.php)

------
thisjepisje
I just hope they don't remove flash support anytime soon.

------
Sealy
How does this affect the mobile experience? Is viewing on an iPad / iPhone
HTML5 by default? The article only really mentions the main desktop browsers.

------
spain
Seems like it isn't perfect yet. At least on Firefox I don't get to watch
videos in 1080p anymore on Youtube with the HTML5 player.

~~~
Nexxxeh
I watched a 1080p video using HTML5 on Opera yesterday.

As a test, I just popped open the first interesting looking video on my
signed-in YouTube front page (my account has been set to HTML5 for a while).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmRI3Ew4BvA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmRI3Ew4BvA)

I'm not a fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but the video does have Lily Cole is in
1080p. Opera 27.0.1689.54 on Win 8.1 x64.

~~~
spain
I think it might be an issue with codecs which is why it works with some
browsers and doesn't with others.

------
Nux
The smoother way for me to watch (at least some) youtube videos is youtube-dl
and mplayer; otherwise I get a lot of "buffering".

------
pdknsk
That's fine and well, but maybe Google can tell now why they very quietly
cancelled YouTube Feather. It was the best way to avoid comments. It stopped
working some day, and Google was supposedly working on a fix. A few weeks
later, it was removed completely. Since then, radio silence.

[http://productforums.google.com/d/topic/youtube/Eae53c5AI5U](http://productforums.google.com/d/topic/youtube/Eae53c5AI5U)

------
critiq
I still see its asking for flash if plugin is available, with firefox flash
plugin on ask to activate mode.

------
jokoon
Been using html5 youtube for a while now, it's still pretty damn slow on my
french ISP.

------
shade23
from the same post,what about this I found in the comments?
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=234779](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=234779)

------
axilmar
I just went to YouTube but I get the Flash version.

------
dzhiurgis
Zoom in Safari is still kinda broken:
[http://imgur.com/8pBmWpm](http://imgur.com/8pBmWpm)

Also Google Maps seriously lags on Safari. Do not like it.

------
sdfjkl
Took you long enough. One less Firefox addon, I guess.

------
vansteen
That's a good news!

------
codefylabs
Good.

------
leonardofed
Finally.

------
yellowapple
About damn time.

------
p0nce
Numerous observers have shown that H.265 is better than VP9 on the
quality/efficiency curve. But Google does not like to pay for real research
and prefer to found alternative "free" copy-pasta codecs it controls.

[http://iphome.hhi.de/marpe/download/Performance_HEVC_VP9_X26...](http://iphome.hhi.de/marpe/download/Performance_HEVC_VP9_X264_PCS_2013_preprint.pdf)

[http://fr.slideshare.net/touradj_ebrahimi/spie2014-hev-
cvsvp...](http://fr.slideshare.net/touradj_ebrahimi/spie2014-hev-cvsvp9)

edit: facts will get you downvoted on HN. Nice.

