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YouTube Live Streams Now Support HTML5 Playback and 60fps Video

Posted by samzenpus on from the easy-on-the-eyes dept.

An anonymous reader writes: YouTube today announced that it is rolling out HTML5 playback and has added 60fps live streaming to allow users to broadcast in real time. "When you start a live stream on YouTube at 60fps, we'll transcode your stream into 720p60 and 1080p60, which means silky smooth playback for gaming and other fast-action videos," YouTube said in a statement. "We'll also make your stream available in 30fps on devices where high frame rate viewing is not yet available, while we work to expand support in the coming weeks."

60 comments

  1. can't wait to see the game by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    or whatever's on Pay-Per-View

    1. Re:can't wait to see the game by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      I can't wait to hear even more people bitching about YouTube being "broken" because HTML V5 is still buggy as fuck and on Chrome/Chromium bas when something goes wrong? You get ZERO useful information that you can use to troubleshoot the issue, just a vague "encountered a problem, please try again later" which makes Windows number code errors look like fountains of information by comparison.

      Is it REALLY so impossible to give the USER the choice of whether they want HTML V5 or Flash? is it really so damned hard for a company the size of Google to give meaningful error messages? All this rollout, along with the previous playback rollout has done is strengthen my belief that HTML V5 is a classic "we have to do SOMETHING" approach where you take the first alternative without bothering to ask "is this really better than what we had before, or just different?" as HTML V5 still supports less than half the features that Flash supports and what features it DOES have? It uses more memory and CPU and often works worse than what it was supposed to be the cure of!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:can't wait to see the game by poptix · · Score: 1

      I agree on the error codes, getting the same useless error for all error conditions sucks.

      However, the reason pretty much everyone wants to do away with flash (besides all the exploits) is (mostly) because it doesn't support byte range requests. This sounds trivial but it leads to some huge headaches and inefficiencies that HTML5 cures.

      Seeking videos in flash requires that the web server understand and act on the start=? parameter (where ? = seconds into a video for MP4, bytes for FLV). This means the server has to have the entire file (this is a huge problem for CDN providers), it has to read and understand the metadata (which may be at the END of the file), it has to then use that metadata to seek as far as the client requested into the video (which it may not have yet), then finally append a new header/metadata and start serving those bits to the client.

      With HTML5 the client simply says 'give me this file starting at X bytes' via a HTTP range request. No metadata handling necessary, and no need for massive software infrastructure upgrades to handle new container formats. (For a CDN the range request can be directly passed through and handled by the midtier or origin that actually has the file)

      TLDR; Flash makes web servers do stuff they shouldn't be doing, HTML5 video playing fixes that.

      --
      Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
    3. Re:can't wait to see the game by Crosshair84 · · Score: 1

      Try "Magic Actions for YouTube" It gives you the option to force flash player as well as a bunch of other options, like force HD. I have never had it break youtube for me, but your mileage may vary.

  2. Xsplit or OBS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to streaming clients, on the other hand.

  3. Silky smooth? Hah by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    which means silky smooth playback

    Not on my bloody computer it doesn't. Might be because I have an Optimus system (switches between Intel for most things, Nvidia when required). Oh well.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Silky smooth? Hah by agoodm · · Score: 2

      1080p 60fps works fine on ubuntu with sandy bridge era built in graphics on a lenovo x220 which has such inadequate cooling...... So its not Intels fault...

    2. Re:Silky smooth? Hah by TheGavster · · Score: 1

      I'll second this; I can do 1080p30 all day, but 720p60 brings my machine to its knees. I wish there was a way to snag the 30fps stream for "unsupported devices", but it looks like from a PC I have to drop down to 480p to get lower framerate.

      --
      "Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
    3. Re:Silky smooth? Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't 30 vs 60 fps, it's h.264 vs VP9 and the lack of HW decode offload for the latter.

    4. Re:Silky smooth? Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Enable hw acceleration in your browser settings.(I have it off in Firefox, flash uses its own thing, but HTML5 lags without hw accel.)

  4. 1080p Playback by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can't say I've had the desire to sort it out, but using Chrome (haven't checked with other browsers), since I first saw the 1080p60 playback on YouTube, after a period of time (few seconds) the frame buffer doesn't clear correctly. I keep getting previous frames in the video, and the occurrence of it only increases as I view more. The buffer is cleared if I pause and restart, but it starts up again with only a frame here and there and then more and more. I find myself forcing 720p60 to fix the issue instead of the 1080p I could obviously support.

    1. Re:1080p Playback by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ohhh, so that's the reason! It happened with Iceweasel as well.

  5. Twitch is still better... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, last thing you want is a copyright strike from happening while you're streaming.

    1. Re: Twitch is still better... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah muted streams are so cool.

  6. Bring Back Background Play by SoVi3t · · Score: 2

    Perhaps now they can bring back background play for mobile devices, so I don't have to stay on the youtube app to listen to music/podcasts/etc posted there.

    --
    Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
    1. Re:Bring Back Background Play by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Perhaps now they can bring back background play for mobile devices, so I don't have to stay on the youtube app to listen to music/podcasts/etc posted there.

      This was the #1 most-requested feature on the YouTube app since it first appeared. Google *finally* released it - and it's the most expensive in-app purchase ever - you have to pay $120/yr to get it.

      At the same time they changed the YouTube ToS to forbid third-party apps from providing the same functionality and aggressively started pursuing legal claims against the developers.

      "Don't be Evil", 2015 skin.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Bring Back Background Play by cciechad · · Score: 1

      I must be missing something. This is in the you tube app for the S6. I don't see any requirement for an in app purchase.

      --
      https://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom
    3. Re:Bring Back Background Play by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Some other things they could also add, temporary download cache for latter viewing rather than streaming (for connections crippled by government and incumbent telecoms corruption) and blocking of annoying crap uploaders so they never again appear in search results (all to often search results spew the same asshats because at one stage the got ahead in the numbers and simply stayed there as a result pissing everyone off with crap content).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:Bring Back Background Play by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

      use LinkBubble or Flynx to load the mobile youtube page and play from there. you can open playlists too, and disable a setting in the LinkBubble app, which permits continuous background javascript/page loading/activity, so it just goes to the next on the playlist

    5. Re:Bring Back Background Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your definition of "evil" intrigues me. Tell me more about all the things you are entitled to!

    6. Re:Bring Back Background Play by FriendlyStatistician · · Score: 1

      I think he's suggesting that you need to buy a Google Play music subscription ($9.99/month).

    7. Re:Bring Back Background Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tell me. Would a pay subscription toilet be considered evil? A toilet that refuses to flush if your monthly subscription has ran out.

    8. Re: Bring Back Background Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like, say, if you refused to pay the water bill, and the toilet had no water, so your stuff just sat there all day even when you pushed the lever?

      Entitled much?

  7. So they didn't work with OBS? by Hohlraum · · Score: 2

    OBS being easily THE most popular streaming software around, which is open source and free. That's awesome Google, way to blow it.

    1. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      Obviously Google is getting a kickback from Elgato and XSplit for any new customers they can attract with the YouTube-support, OBS can't give them a kickback so they're ignored.

    2. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by NJRoadfan · · Score: 1

      More like Google doesn't appear to support RTMP like everyone else. Someone could add support though as its open source.

    3. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      More like Google doesn't appear to support RTMP like everyone else.

      That's not a reason for them not to add support for YouTube live-streaming in OBS, but then working with Elgato and XSplit on adding it. It's not like Elgato or XSplit can use RTMP with it, either.

    4. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by rrp · · Score: 1

      I've used OBS to live stream on Youtube, no problem. I would assume all you would have to do is just change the settings in OBS to 60 fps and it should work.

    5. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

      never heard of that one. the three I've heard of are not open source. afaik

    6. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't surprise me. The streaming business seems pretty shady. Amazons streaming service (Twitch) have been abusing their dominant position for years. They aren't even trying to hide their anti-competitive behavior with exclusive deals and rules against streaming on competing platforms.
      YouTube is the only service with a user base large enough to be able to support a streamer without them having to be locked into twitch.

    7. Re:So they didn't work with OBS? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      RTMP is a Flash thing, not a W3C/HTML5 thing. The HTML5 thing that's being standardized (possibly defacto, I'm not sure) is HLS, but as of now only one desktop browser supports it. I'm not away of any desktop browsers that support RTMP.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  8. Codec? by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    What in and out codec are? You do not transcode into HTML5, it is just a container format. You transcode H264 in VP8 or Ogg for instance.

    1. Re:Codec? by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      Much about the video, but what about sound? Still just stereo sound on most YouTube videos.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Codec? by YA_Python_dev · · Score: 1

      WebM with VP9 video and Opus audio.

      --
      There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
  9. Ya but HD is gone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whether live streams or not, if you upload HD video all you get is 360p. It appears that HD is reserved for paying customers only now.

    1. Re:Ya but HD is gone by Bensonhurst · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? Anyone can upload up to 4K video.

  10. Why no high motion LD/ED? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Why is 60fps available only for 720p and up, and not for the 240p of classic game consoles or the 480p of the original Xbox and Wii?

    1. Re:Why no high motion LD/ED? by LocalH · · Score: 1

      Pretty much, because Youtube sucks. They haven't rolled out 60fps to the mobile apps yet, even though many mobile devices can easily handle 60fps (I know for a fact that the iPad Air supports up to 1080p60).

      --
      FC Closer
    2. Re:Why no high motion LD/ED? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Classic game consoles uses NTSC or PAL. It doesn't translate to 240p neatly, especially since there isn't a fixed pixel width.
      NES for example is 256x224 (Black borders above and below to get the full 240 pixels in the NTSC region, but those aren't displayed, and the NES video DMA doesn't match that anyway.)
      The horizontal resolution alone is enough to not want to stream at 240p. 480p is so-so, at least you have a full video pixel for each original, but the edges doesn't align so it's a bit jittery/blurry.
      People capturing classic game consoles and computers have been using 720p since it became available. 480p is only sufficient for platforms that were made with VGA resolution support.
      There is of course a similar problem with MSX.

      With Amiga it becomes even trickier. For things running at low resolution 720p is enough. With the high resolution modes and overscan you aren't guaranteed to get clear pixels even at 1080p. At that moment it might be better to crop the video to a specific width/height just to get it aligned.
      Luckily there aren't any games for the Amiga that requires any of the more obscure video modes it supports. The video chipset in the later models has a pretty flexible control of horizontal and vertical frequencies.

    3. Re:Why no high motion LD/ED? by tepples · · Score: 1

      NES for example is 256x224

      I have programmed games for the NES, and I can assure you that the NTSC NES picture is 256x240. The Super NES is most commonly 256x224 with the black borders you mentioned, and the Sega Genesis is 256x224 or 320x224. On these systems, the size in pixels of the part of the signal that fills the 4:3 frame is 280x240 (or 350x240 in the case of 320px mode on the Genesis), including some borders at the sides that most TVs cut off. The borders would be included in the video uploaded to YouTube, and these borders would still be smaller than the top and bottom borders on letterboxed videos that I see so often on the service.

      480p is so-so, at least you have a full video pixel for each original, but the edges doesn't align so it's a bit jittery/blurry.

      The nominal bandwidth of a composite signal is 4.2 MHz. The Nyquist rate for a 640-pixel-wide sampling of a 480i component signal is 135/22 = 6.136 MHz. So ideally, one would sample the NTSC signal at 640x240, line-double it to 480p, and let the encoder sort it out. But YouTube punted on this and allowed 60 fps only for high definition, causing flicker transparency effects in these classic games to be rendered incorrectly: either fully opaque or fully invisible.

    4. Re:Why no high motion LD/ED? by Trogre · · Score: 1

      You should have been modded +5 for that post.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  11. Video blocker? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

    Will I be able to get an HTML5 video blocker to do what the Flashblock plugin currently does? I'd hate to go back to the days when multiple YouTube browser tabs all started playing as soon as the pages loaded. My DVD player doesn't start playing a disc when I turn the power on - why should a web page start playing the video as soon as it loads?

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Video blocker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NoScript does this for all objects, including flash and HTML5 video. There's probably a more specialized add-on as well.

    2. Re:Video blocker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate that shit.

      I absolutely hate people that put videos in their profiles as well. GO AWAY.

      I'm considering user-script blocking the profile from my view and just going straight to their video page from clicking their name anywhere on the site.

      God, why can't we go back to the nice, customizable profiles from the early days?
      It even had PAGES, such a foreign concept these days, pages to browse through. Dynamic pages, but still pages.
      These days it is all about infinite scroll bullshit. GEE I SURE LOVE GOING THROUGH 50 NOT-PAGES TO FIND THAT ONE VIDEO I CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF.
      You'd think they would have learned something from the Gmail team that stored page-state in the URL.

    3. Re:Video blocker? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

      The problem with NoScript is that, once I've enabled video on a tab, it stays enabled; when I reload the page, the video plays automagically. I don't want video permissions to survive a page reload. Flashblock does exactly what I want, and I haven't found anything else works the same way.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  12. I have been streaming events for 4 years by stimpleton · · Score: 1

    I am not a production company. I am an IT geek, and 4 years ago I started streaming our businesses annual event. In summary I found:

    Bottlenecks:
    - Outbound bandwidth
    - Underpowered hardware to transcode and send a realistic stream size.

    Reflection Servers:
    - Best: Niche providers. 7 Second delay average. Good transcode.
    - Worst: "Big name providers", You Tube. 1 minute delays. Transcode quality poor.
    Risk:
    - With You Tube, we run our promos and hosted vod. You Tube and potential Copyright claims makes this at .risk
    - You Tube ads can introduce bizzare experiences for the user. If your users are in the conservative bracket(many of ours are), this can be catastrophic.

    --

    In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
  13. Seamless transition caught happening live by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    during This Week in Science episode 515

  14. Meanwhile Sky Go still uses silverlight by oobayly · · Score: 1

    I had a guy in our office asking why his Sky Go account wasn't working in Chrome - apparently they've no plans in ditching silverlight even though MS discontinued development three years ago - and since NPAPI has been disabled in Chrome (and will be removed in September). It also broke another colleague's Java cribbage game.

    So, Google can do 60fps HD using HTML5 video and Sky need still need silverlight. I'm guessing it's a DRM issue, but if Netflix can do it then you'd have to imagine that News International can too.

  15. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twitch.TV sucks, but Youtube for game streaming is going to be far worse.

    Twitch.TV's primary rules are:

    1. Your content must be game or creativity related (making music, art, coding, etc).
    2. You can not stream games before release date.
    3. You can not stream games whose primary content is sexual, though it is okay if the game contains some sexual scenes or events.

    What do they not do? They don't send you DMCAs for playing games. They don't make you share your subscription fees or "donations" from viewers with Nintendo or other publishers. Youtube will absolutely end up doing that. At which point, who the fuck would ever stream their content through them?

    1. Re: Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet.

  16. HTML5 is still largely broken by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    I was so happy when I found that HTML5 player finally can auto-switch to high-def mode when going to full-screen.

    Sadly, the happy moment was short, as I have realized that Google has "fixed" the caching issue: now part of the video which was loaded in SD mode (for smaller videos on fast connection - the whole video) stays in SD mode and switch to HD mode has no effect.

    So yes, HD full-screen mode now works - but is useless.

    The QA track record of the Google is as appalling as it ever was. Goes to reinforce the old wisdom that the "star" developers are useless when it comes to dealing with the mundane, real world problems.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    1. Re:HTML5 is still largely broken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      now part of the video which was loaded in SD mode (for smaller videos on fast connection - the whole video) stays in SD mode and switch to HD mode has no effect.

      Cannot reproduce with Chrome on Windows.

    2. Re:HTML5 is still largely broken by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      Weird. Works like that 100% of time in Chrome on Win7/x64.

      (Which is basically why I keep IE around: the Flash player is by far the least buggy player. I also get least video tearing with the IE.)

      Are you sure you can tell the difference between SD and HD video?

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  17. 360p by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So if they are playing back at such high resolutions, why does my FIOS always default to 360p? Shouldn't Youtube be serving videos in high resolution by default?

    1. Re: 360p by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your viewport is likely not 1080p, and so why would a streaming app send you more pixels than you can display unless you ask for it?

  18. Finally by Twinbee · · Score: 1

    Amazing to think that we're finally catching on to the 60fps standard that we had decades ago.

    It's only a matter of time before 120fps+ (which can look a lot better than 60fps) itself becomes the norm. Having a black screen inserted between every 1/120th frame (to make a pseudo 240fps) would help blurriness etc. even more.

    --
    Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
  19. Am I the only one to notice ... by ProzakLord · · Score: 1

    that they may be using inside out compression?

  20. Any news about RSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like youtube dropped rss support at their old gdatasomething urls and now has moved to a different path, but not all users/channels seem to have the rss active yet. So part of my feeds is not updating despite new content being available. Also, to be on topic, now I'm seeing more morons uploading 24fps media as 60fps where they duplicate (and sometimes you get three the same, woohoo for 60fps!).

  21. Can't tell the difference? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's a handy side-by-side comparison of 30 vs 60 fps on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8m8jaDIrGU

    It's only a valid comparison if your player supports 60fps of course...