So Youtube has had some HTML5 "beta" forever now and they have claimed that they were transitioning their library over to support Flash-less video serving. Some videos however have never worked. And lately I've been finding an absurdly high number of videos requiring Flash. Too many new videos in fact. It's extremely doubtful to me that the uploaders pre-wrap their videos as FLV, so it's still YouTube pushing Flash.

Here's a perfect example - a youtube embed in HTML5:

http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/06/we-can-laugh-at-ourselves-right/

Click over to view the same video in youtube using the link within the player and it will require Flash, even if you're signed into the HTML5 beta - and even if you don't have Flash installed.

WTF.

Is it because they can only guarantee working ad pop-ups in the flash-based player?

It plays fine on the iPad, so is clearly available in non flash format.

Since Flash is no longer available for new Google Android based systems (Jelly Bean +), it seems rather unlikely that Google would be requiring it for their own sites.

.

That link doesn't point at YouTube. Here's a more direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew

Edit: Plays fine in Chrome on my Galaxy Nexus --> no flashplayer in Chrome.

Cheers

So is this the root of the problem?



Personally, though, I keep running into videos on YouTube that refuse to play on mobile devices. I get an error saying the content provider has not made this video available on mobile. Is *that* because of flash-based advertising?

Mark, I provided a link to the video embedded in a blog using HTML5 to show that it's available without Flash. However, clicking the YouTube link within the video player will take you to the link you posted, which does require Flash in Safari on a Mac.

This is the big WTF.

Likely unrelated, but also a PITA, is I don't get any audio on the embedded clip I linked. I notice that my ISP, Cogeco, has a YouTube cache service running which gets hit when the video is played - my firewall pops up a notice. If I disallow the connection to my ISP's cache, the video comes up as "unavailable"

On tablets, YouTube will serve H.264 files, hence why it works on iOS and Chrome on Android 4.1.

On the desktop, they will block the HTML 5 player which serves H.264 or WebM if the video has ads enabled. This is a preference the uploader has, to generate revenue off the playback. The uploader can also block mobile (phones/tablets), or embeds if they want, as those environments may not have ads.

For a while they outright lied and said "This video is unavailable". Now they have been saying Flash is required.

I got tired of the song and dance of their HTML 5 perpetual beta, and instead installed the Youtube5 extension (http://www.verticalforest.com/youtube5-extension/). Their player tends to also just work better then the Google HTML 5 one.

It's rumored that the iOS YouTube app went away because the existing contract ran out, and Google would only renew if Apple allowed ads in.

Geez, Bruno, did Adobe eat your baby or something?

We all know you've got a bug up your ass about Flash, that you don't like it and have excised it from your computer.

But since you knowingly removed Flash, stop complaining when you can't play Flash videos.

tanstaafl.

Theory: Flash works. HTML5 doesn't work as well.

If that's actually true, then YouTube's primary mission in life is serving video. They have platforms that are top tier debugged. They have platforms that are less so. HTML5 video, in desktop browsers, is presumably in the second tier.

Google is probably just pushing you to use the most stable platform they offer. I don't think it's a conspiracy.

Does that go away if you use Google's DNS instead of your ISP's?

I'm already not using my ISP's DNS I'm using OpenDNS.

Doug, I'm not complaining about not being able to view Flash, I'm trying to figure out why an otherwise plain h.264 video which is being served by YouTube through a blog embed with HTML5 suddenly requires Flash when I click the attached link to instead display it from the YouTube site.

Interestingly, the message telling me that I need Flash is inside an HTML5 video container.

Tom, thanks for the suggestion for the YouTube5 plugin - installed and working well. If I check the video with that plugin, I get sound on the embedded version too. Also, curiously, checking the info shows all the available sizes and only the smallest 240 version is listed as FLV.

If there were ads requiring Flash, wouldn't that also prevent an HTML5 external embed?

It's simply that Google hasn't reached a feature parity point with their Flash video player compared to their HTML 5 one. They could get there, but it's going to take some more work on their part. The team is not only responsible for the website, but also the various YouTube apps across a number of platforms. Mobile, consoles, etc. Years of development effort exist in the Flash player they use, not as much time has been spent on the HTML 5 or mobile side.

Once they can support the ads, and other features in HTML 5, it will work just fine. I don't know an ETA, but had the situation explained to me by an engineer friend on the YouTube side of the house.

Google remains an advertising company, so it makes sense that they are pushing more of their content creators to enable ads on their videos. Interestingly, if you upload a video with copyrighted music, most of the rights holders will allow you to keep it on Youtube, as long as you turn on ads and direct a cut of the revenue to the rights holder.

Shortly after I posted the above, I saw my first ad on a YouTube mobile video. Looks like the full skip able ones rolled out 8/22, not sure if this also works on the desktop HTML5 side.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/22/youtube-trueview-skippable-ads-mobile/

Also, the new YouTube app for iOS is also out, with the same ad support.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/youtube-iphone-app-ads-exclamation-point/

Youtube5 stopped working for me sometime in the past week. Maybe having to do with a recent Flash update. Going to uninstall Flash later today to see if it makes a difference.

EDIT: Deleting flash plug-in and restarting fixed the issue. Bonus, Flash was also crashing 1-5 times per day, even when not being used.