Are you sure you're actually using the HTML5 player? I am being 100% serious when I say I've never met someone before who thinks YouTube's HTML5 player is good.
Among the various issues I've seen:
* Sometimes refuses to play anything, without showing any errors, requiring a reload of the page.
* Occasional poor performance.
* Audio/video desynchronization
* Scrubbing the video often causes it to get stuck, refusing to play, until I scrub it again
* Videos often take longer to start playing than with the flash player.
* Fullscreen is sometimes broken
* Switching from regular mode to "theater" mode sometimes leaves the video playing in its original size, anchored to the corner of the now-larger black area that it should be playing in.
I think it's gotten a little better recently (i.e. I see issues less often), but it's still far from great.
And before you ask, I've seen these issues in both Safari and Chrome.
Yes, I'm using the HTML5 player. This is easily verified by clicking the right mouse button on the video and seeing the HTML5 context menu. I have no problems with it at all and it's easily superior to the Flash player in performance and resource usage. It also seamlessly plays 1080p 60FPS video without any issues.
As for the issues you're experiencing - are you sure you have GPU acceleration turned on?
I'm using Chrome and CPU usage is only 45-50% for perfect 1080p 60FPS playback.
All such comments about not working flash player on youtube make me think of some kind of adobe shills maybe? Or PEBCK. Unless you have some super lame vidoe card I do not see how one can not make HTML5 player work. My experience:
HTML5 player works really well on youtube, been using it for at least a year (well possibly +- couple months) exclusively. No problems after configuration, machine is quite old q6600 cpu that is 5-6 years old and GF220, which is also quite old now. Full hd video ON Linux (!), Firefox no problems (though possibly just 30fps, not sure if I ever try 60fps). And people complain all over the place about HTML5 youtube on Linux.
Fine. I cannot argue about _your_ experience. _My_ experience is different. One of my computers is really old Pentium M laptop (9y old) and HTML5 barely works at 240p. Not only that, it has limited set of resolutions at the first place. Flash works just fine 480p resolution. It looks also much better at lower bitrates (to _my_ taste) than HTML5 in Firefox
> make me think of some kind of adobe shills maybe
It was far less personal than that, I generaly only lurk on HN, but your post one that struck a nerve finaly, after many similar posts here and in /..
Also 9 year old is quite a frac cry from your initial post of "(3y+) machines", 9 year old machine almost guaranteed has absolutely no support in hardware for modern codecs. So no wonder has strong limitations on resolution. Still flash working better than HTML5 players is still suspicious to me, I still believe with correct configuration reverse should be true, as flash is basically just another layer in between screen and bits on the net. Though possibly not applicable in all cases.
9y old machines is what many people (not gamers, enthusiasts etc.) have; 3+ y old include underpowered Celeron 847, AMDs (way weaker than your monstrous Q6600) and even on these machines Flash works better. _My_ _actual_ observations.
> Still flash working better than HTML5 players is still suspicious to me,
Do you write programs for life or what? It is not a problem with HTML5 players, it a problem the way they are written. Flash is an older product, with better support of legacy or underpowered products.
> I still believe with correct configuration reverse should be true
Yes, the correct configuration is "more powerful CPU".
I am not the person you are replying to but I do not have flash installed on my system. I have to do an occasional reload but I've never had to do anything else you have mentioned.
For reference, I use chromium (not chrome) on Linux (which does not come with flash bundled).
Among the various issues I've seen:
* Sometimes refuses to play anything, without showing any errors, requiring a reload of the page.
* Occasional poor performance.
* Audio/video desynchronization
* Scrubbing the video often causes it to get stuck, refusing to play, until I scrub it again
* Videos often take longer to start playing than with the flash player.
* Fullscreen is sometimes broken
* Switching from regular mode to "theater" mode sometimes leaves the video playing in its original size, anchored to the corner of the now-larger black area that it should be playing in.
I think it's gotten a little better recently (i.e. I see issues less often), but it's still far from great.
And before you ask, I've seen these issues in both Safari and Chrome.