GUIDE High resolution Youtube videos and Safari.

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

Got that shiny new rMBP and want to play some stunning videos. Or is youtube now slow for you in Safari? This is a solution.

EDIT 1:
Some of you are replying that this has suddenly stopped working. Try reinstalling the plugin and flash. It may help. Post AND quote me if you need help.

EDIT 2:
It seems that clicktoflash will randomly stop working after an extended period of time. No idea why. The only fix I know of is the reinstall and reconfigure it.

EDIT 3:
Posted a video at the end showing how it should look. Video is not embedded.

For this guide I will be using the timescapes 4k rapture trailer. You will need a mac running OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.

This is how Timescapes looks with flash player installed.
Nothing unusual but playback at very high resolutions is takes up a lot of CPU and battery.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.20.23%20PM.png

Now this is the same video with HTML5. Same UI for the player. At high resolutions the video is just unplayable. Heck at low resolutions it is unplayable.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.21.26%20PM.png

Now the fix.
1) Go to the HTML5 youtube trial page here, and make sure you are not in the trial. It should look like this.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.38.27%20PM.png

2) Download ClickToPlugin and install it. Clicking the link should auto download the file.

3) Go to the "Media Player" page for preferences. Mine looks like this.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.23.14%20PM.png

I don't have an ATV but if I did I could stream videos to it. (Kinda useless with airplay mirroring in ML.)

In the "Shortcuts menu" page enable downloads. My page looks like this.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.23.22%20PM.png

Now lets go back to that timescapes video. This is what it should look like now. Looks familiar? Its quicktime X.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.24.42%20PM.png

Hovering over the left side will let you choose your resolution if you want to play in anything other then what you set as a default.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.25.02%20PM.png

Right clicking on the video will also give you the option to download it in whatever format/resolution you are currently playing it in. You can even open it in quicktime X.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%204.25.11%20PM.png

This is how it should look. (Video)

Enjoy.

PVisitors · Jul 13, 2012

Seems a very good guide from the interesting posts on the other thread. Just to 100% clarify, is this downloading every youtube file, or just changing the youtube player?

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

PVisitors said:
Seems a very good guide from the interesting posts on the other thread. Just to 100% clarify, is this downloading every youtube file, or just changing the youtube player?

It just changes the youtube player. Downloading is another option that is available.

EDIT:
This is how it looks when played. The options fade away after a few seconds just like quicktime X.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%205.52.28%20PM.png

gentlefury · Jul 13, 2012

I've been using this for a while and its great...the only issue is, using HTML5 as the default player it tends to stutter and freeze the video at high resolutions. Change that to Quicktime and it plays perfectly.

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

gentlefury said:
I've been using this for a while and its great...the only issue is, using HTML5 as the default player it tends to stutter and freeze the video at high resolutions. Change that to Quicktime and it plays perfectly.

This is playing with quicktime in the browser. I can play 4K with integrated graphics no problem.

gentlefury · Jul 13, 2012

eagandale4114 said:
This is playing with quicktime in the browser. I can play 4K with integrated graphics no problem.

I've just had a lot of problems with freezing picture and stuttering if the default player is set to HTML5. When it's set to the Quicktime Option it doesn't have a problem.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-07-13%2520at%25206.01.12%2520PM.png

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

gentlefury said:
I've just had a lot of problems with freezing picture and stuttering if the default player is set to HTML5. When it's set to the Quicktime Option it doesn't have a problem.

What are your system specs?

EDIT:
Show a screenshot of it in action, like the one I posted a few posts.

EDIT 2:
Is it possible to play back video in the page itself i.e. no new QT window?
I can't get that to work.

gentlefury · Jul 13, 2012

eagandale4114 said:
What are your system specs?

EDIT:
Show a screenshot of it in action, like the one I posted a few posts.

I have a 2011 MBA and a 2008 Mac Pro. Both have issues playing with the HTML5 player option at high resolutions, but play fine at lower resolutions. But with Quicktime Player as the default it plays fine in all resolutions. (4k has troubles after a couple mins on my MBA....but it's a MBA...)

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

gentlefury said:
I have a 2011 MBA and a 2008 Mac Pro. Both have issues playing with the HTML5 player option at high resolutions, but play fine at lower resolutions. But with Quicktime Player as the default it plays fine in all resolutions. (4k has troubles after a couple mins on my MBA....but it's a MBA...)

Can you play the video within the page?

gentlefury · Jul 13, 2012

eagandale4114 said:
Can you play the video within the page?

thats what I'm talking about if you switch to quicktime player instead of HTML5 it plays in the page, same as HTML5, except it plays better. Both methods are using QT so I don't know why.

Hopsdaballa04 · Jul 13, 2012

Thanks, for the guide. It didn't make a big difference for me. I attempted to view the 4k hobbit trailer and it was stuttering the whole time. I'm sure it was about .5 frames per second. Check it out and post back, maybe I have a setting wrong.

eagandale4114 · Jul 13, 2012

Hopsdaballa04 said:
Thanks, for the guide. It didn't make a big difference for me. I attempted to view the 4k hobbit trailer and it was stuttering the whole time. I'm sure it was about .5 frames per second. Check it out and post back, maybe I have a setting wrong.

Is this the video you are talking about?
If so yes I was able to replicate it when played at 4k on the Intel HD3000 GPU while in youtube.
So I then proceeded to download it on my computer. After the download it I played it back natively in Quicktime X and it played back fine.

Screen%20Shot%202012-07-13%20at%208.57.57%20PM.png

I then reloaded the youtube page and I noticed that the issues occurred when the playback position was near the maximum buffered point. Try letting the video fully buffer. Check activity monitor to make sure it fully downloads. That seems to have let me do it.

Sairo · Jul 14, 2012

Does this trick only work out for the retina owners? Or will it also improve my glossy 13" quality?

simplekid · Jul 14, 2012

The time-lapse clip works flawlessly on my rMBP using safari default settings, in fact any 4k that i throw at it works perfectly. So theres really no need to be doing this if your on a modern machine, great tip for those who are on older machines though.

houkouonchi · Jul 14, 2012

Hmm. I installed flash already for spedtest.net and what but in both firefox and safari youtube plays just fine.

Yes even both those 4k videos played just fine without me doing anything. The hobbit video however was using 120-150% cpu usage.

I tried your workaround and even in quicktime that hobbit vid is using over 100% cpu usage for me (maybe not quite as fast) but doesn't appear to be any significant reduction in CPU usage?

Or maybe its because I don't run HiDPI mode (I run at 2880x1800 native).

Anonymouse106 · Jul 14, 2012

THis really helped me! On a new rMBP I was dropping frames on Youtube unless I let it download first (Vimeo works fine). Switching to the quicktime player completely solved the problem for me.

Sometimes I think my ISP intentionally slows (or reorders?) packets from Youtube to discourage rapid fire video watching. Quicktime somehow manages this so that there are no dropouts in playback, while the HTML5 and Flash players freeze momentarily while they process. I have no evidence to support this, it's just a crazy theory!

Pipper99 · Jul 14, 2012

Thank you for this guide!

luigi.lauro · Jul 19, 2012

gentlefury said:
thats what I'm talking about if you switch to quicktime player instead of HTML5 it plays in the page, same as HTML5, except it plays better. Both methods are using QT so I don't know why.

If i switch to QT Player it plays OUTSIDE the browser window, not inside.

Can you please explain how to make it play INSIDE the browser window and post some screenshot of qtplayer running inside the window?

Thank you.

gentlefury · Jul 19, 2012

luigi.lauro said:
If i switch to QT Player it plays OUTISIDE the browser window, not inside.

Can you please explain how to make it play INSIDE the browser window and post some screenshot of qtplayer running inside the window?

Thank you.

You're right. When I first set it it was playing on browser. But now it opens outside. Must have been a bug or something.

Pipper99 · Jul 22, 2012

eagandale4114 said:
It just changes the youtube player. Downloading is another option that is available.

EDIT:
This is how it looks when played. The options fade away after a few seconds just like quicktime X.

Image

I don' tnow what I'm doing wrong, but my rMBP bogs down after about 10 seconds into Timescpes or any 4k video. it plays beautifully on my iPad 3, however.

Slickdilla · Jul 23, 2012

this trick messed up pandora so it no longer works...and some other video sites...

Slickdilla · Jul 23, 2012

eagandale4114 said:
Got that shiny new rMBP and want to play some stunning videos. Or is youtube now slow for you in Safari? This is a solution.

For this guide I will be using the timescapes 4k rapture trailer. You will need a mac running OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.

This is how Timescapes looks with flash player installed.
Nothing unusual but playback at very high resolutions is takes up a lot of CPU and battery.

Image

Now this is the same video with HTML5. Same UI for the player. At high resolutions the video is just unplayable. Heck at low resolutions it is unplayable.

Image

Now the fix.
1) Go to the HTML5 youtube trial page here, and make sure you are not in the trial. It should look like this.

Image

2) Download ClickToPlugin and install it.

3) Go to the "Media Player" page for preferences. Mine looks like this.

Image

I don't have an ATV but if I did I could stream videos to it. (Kinda useless with airplay mirroring in ML.)

In the "Shortcuts menu" page enable downloads. My page looks like this.
Image

Now lets go back to that timescapes video. This is what it should look like now. Looks familiar? Its quicktime X.

Image

Hovering over the left side will let you choose your resolution if you want to play in anything other then what you set as a default.

Image

Right clicking on the video will also give you the option to download it in whatever format/resolution you are currently playing it in. You can even open it in quicktime X.

Image

Enjoy.

do you kknow how to make this work with pandora?

eagandale4114 · Jul 23, 2012

Slickdilla said:
do you kknow how to make this work with pandora?

Pandora uses HTML5 AND Flash at the same time. You will need to go to control lists in the click to plugin preferences and add http://www.pandora.com to the box which says allow plugins on these sites.
I would also enable invisible plugins under general. That should help with incorrectly loading sites.

BR3W · Jul 31, 2012

Has something changed either with youtube, click2plugin, or OSX 10.8?

I can't replicate what you've done here. The first video looks just like it does when using the flash video player (even though I don't have flash installed and I am not in the html5 beta). That is, it doesn't look like quicktime X is launching or handling the video content.

Furthermore, the Hobbit video linked later in the thread is now showing up as "This video is currently unavailable" even though I can get it to play fine after changing the user string to iPad or using the html5 extension.

striker33 · Jul 31, 2012

Its a shame the 4k videos look like crap on youtube. I cant believe some people actually think they look impressive on the retina display.

A highly compressed 1hr 1080p MP4 (2.2GB) looks extremely impressive, where as this crap just looks pixellated to hell.

*GUIDE* High resolution Youtube videos and Safari.

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GUIDE High resolution Youtube videos and Safari.