Why YouTube's HTML5 Player Sucks

I have run into all the same problems, also I don't like the loss of full screen video. HTML5 video is simply not an adequate replacement for Flash, end of story.<p>I've found that many people who believe things work fine joined the HTML5 opt-in trial, but don't realize that HTML5 only works on some videos and Flash is still being used for others. Most videos seem to be only available in Flash even with the trial enabled. Right clicking on the video reveals which it is if there is any doubt.<p>A YouTube engineer discussed some of the issues a couple years back: <a href="http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html" rel="nofollow">http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html</a>. At the time Hulu had similar comments about HTML5 video capabilities: <a href="http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/</a>. A more recent post from a few months ago by YouTube staff on the subject is here: <a href="http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes-html5-player-gets-better.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes-html5-play...</a>

It's not a YouTube issue, but a browser issue. HTML5 video was rushed and poorly implemented by the browser makers. I'm a Chrome user, so I can't speak for the Firefox and IE experience, but this awful user experience is true whenever I watch any HTML 5 video in Chrome. It's extremely frustrating, especially when it's missing simple things like buffering, caching and continuing download on pause. Give me Flash video any day.

Interesting take. I've always experienced caching issues of the video buffer not buffering correctly. This has happened ever since they introduced 1080 content. I generally only go to 720p if I ever want to actually finishing watching the video.<p>It could be that their servers just cant keep up with the 1080p feed. It would need a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it.<p>However, there is one great feature with their new player.<p>I have 3 monitors and when I fullscreen a video on one monitor, I can continue watching it and click away and work on another monitor and it is still maximized.

I'm not having these particular issues except for the timing one, but I'm definitely not a fan of the HTML5 player (yet). I'd also like to use it but it's just nowhere near as good.<p>Videos open and pause at 0, and no matter what I do I can't get them to play unless I reload until I get the flash player. Seeking is pretty wonky. As well a couple of weeks ago it used a different sound output than flash (Flash would use what my music did, the headset, but the HTML5 player would try to use my speakers, which were off. Seems to have improved now).<p>Just hoping it improves significantly in the future.

I'd love to hear if anyone else is having these issues, because it's really frustrating me.

Is anyone else finding this guy's site lags when scrolling? In Chrome any time the top banner is visible it lags. In Opera the whole page is unusable because to take 3-4 seconds to scroll,<p>Is there just too much CSS?

It looks like they fixed the bug, but for about 3 days a week ago I couldn't skip to different points in any video I've viewed in full screen without Chrome crashing. It was enough to almost push me back to Firefox...

i hadn't noticed any issue other than the cursor not going away, but i'd trade all of your gripes for the significantly decreased CPU usage (and heat output) of the HTML5 player vs the Flash player.