Go back to YouTube's old buffering to skip without rebuffering
Update: The extension has been removed from the Chrome Web Store. You can try Magic Actions for YouTube instead which offers similar functionality.
Some time ago YouTube switched to the new Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) buffering technology that segments media streams into blocks. Dash supposedly improves video playback for fast connections, and while that is often a great thing, it has one slight drawback that you may have noticed when you are skipping in videos or when you used to hit pause to let the video buffer completely.
The first thing that you may notice is that YouTube is no longer buffering all of the video when you hit the pause button. In fact, when you hit pause the buffering stops right away and will not commence until you hit the play button again.
The second issue that you may have with Dash is related to that. When you skip, you may notice that it takes a moment before the buffering kicks in and the video starts to play. This is more severe on slow Internet connections where it take more than a second or so.
If you prefer the old way of buffering on YouTube, for instance because you are on a slow connection and prefer to hit pause to wait for the video to buffer fully before you hit play to avoid any hiccups during playback, then you can use third party tools for that.
Google Chrome users can install the YePpHa Center for YouTube extension which provides them with the means to do so. It is available as a download on the official Chrome store
When you visit YouTube for the first time after installation, you see a popup informing you about the extension's settings. You can launch them alternatively with a right-click on the icon that it adds to Chrome's main toolbar and the selection of Options from the context menu.
Here you need to switch to Player in the menu and uncheck the Dash Playback option that is presented to you here. Once disabled, you can start using YouTube like before so that you can skip in a video that is playing without waiting for it to buffer first again before it starts to play from the selected position.
Firefox users can check out the official Mozilla Add-ons repository where they may find a comparable extension as well for their browser.
Was looking for these problem solution and I didn’t know what the hell is going on.. Thanks for such a great writeup to explain what was the actual issue and convenient solution for it.
Salute you Martin…
Oh my…
This replaces pretty much every single one of the various youtube userscripts, extensions and custom CSS I had installed.
It also fixes so many annoyances it’s not funny. The dash playback behaviour in particular was driving me up the wall.
Thankyou!
One thing I’ve quickly noticed is that with DASH disabled, the stream comes through at a fraction of the video’s bitrate, so that’s not so useful…
I like the new theme
I found this helpful too.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-options/bdokagampppgbnjfdlkfpphniapiiifn?hl=en
also saying thank you! this is the reason i come here on a almost daily basis, i get solutions to problems i didn’t even look into myself yet :) gonna give this one a try and maybe replace my YAYS userscript.
One thing I absolutely miss now is I used to be able to right click on a video > stop video, which would completely stop the download. Now if I start watching something and then say to my self, this is enough the only way I can stop it is to refresh the entire page. Is there anyway to stop videos again like before. Pausing doesn’t do this because it’s still buffering and using bandwidth.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/173815
This is absolutely wonderful, thank you so much for creating this. You know what’s really sad? There are so many people employed who spend all day creating these kind of garbage “improvements” that people like you go out and fix for free.
Been using Youtube Center userscript for almost a year now…
I can’t watch youtube with out it.
I highly Highly recommend it!
Wow! That’s help- and useful! Thanks, Martin!
BTW: Does yr homepage have a new design or is it me? Looks definitevly clean and nice!
Julia, yes a new theme went live today. I’m still sorting things out though and will monitor its performance before I make a decision whether to keep it or not. It is a live beta test so to speak.
thank you very much for this.
Thanks a ton.. That made my 3rd world connection a lot better
I realy hope that site works ok for you..
A vintage YT with absolutely no buffering..buffering…buffering
http://www.wenoo.net/user/CaptainSpry
Martin,
The buffering issue was frustrating me greatly. So much so that I dreaded loading a video on YouTube and I have a great connection.
I couldn’t imagine why a video site wasn’t just using autobuffer or preload since the only thing that people want to do there is watch videos.
Thank you very much for sharing this.
You provide a great service to us all by consistently showing us things to fix issues and annoyances on our systems and on the Internet, and better ways of using and interacting with both.
You rock.
Try “TubeMild” to Stream a Video from YouTube without Buffering :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w72mt8hcckkjh5/TubeMILD%200.4.exe
Holy Martin! I was having trouble a long time ago with this!
Thanks a lot!
I live in a rural area with two kinds of internet: slow or none. With the old version, I was able to pause a video, and let it load while fed goats or something. I hated it, it was annoying, it was tedious, but it was a way to get by. Now with this new thing, I don’t even get buffer. I just get a black screen with nothing moving, not even a buffer wheel. Not like I needed those videos for a class or anything Youtube, it’s fine whatever.
If you can use one of the youtube download things, it’s amazing; it doesn’t “buffer” so much as it “downloads to your computer”, but the principle is the same, and you can watch with no playback issues.