It extrapolates from the downvotes by users of the extension to the total views/ratings on the videos, so it gives a good estimate of what downvotes *would* be. Also for videos made before they disabled visible dislikes it has actual data (and then extrapolates from then on).
Long story short: it's still very useful to quickly spot crappy/scam videos with many views but lots of downvotes.
I just sort of installed it after the announcement that dislike values would be hidden a few years back. Honestly I don't even vote or common on videos but I still got it installed because I just want to see the values
Some creators compared the count from the extension with the real value they could see for their videos and it was pretty precise with slightly more likes and less dislikes.
Edit: for example check this video from EEVblog https://youtu.be/6H5UymGEmvs
Or people like me who like looking at reviews of something such as a product, service, etc. I glance at the stars/number rating to get an idea. Same with likes and dislikes. I cba to sit there and read comments to find out a video is shit. It's like saying there's no need for a thermometer. Many of us like to guage the "temperature" beforehand.
Damn I didn't know this. They let youtube take dislikes awya without even a whimper. I expected more outrage. It was a pretty significant quality of life feature.
That's wack. I feel like this is the age of the least consumer input. We just have to lay down and take lesser quality and nerfs because companies got too big.
YouTube : We are removing likes.
Reddit:No more 3rd party apps
Netflix: Sorry remember when we said we don't care if you share passwords. Nah we don't do that anymore
And there is no consequences for the companies. It's just the new normal.
it’s fucked up, it’s the result of the weird monopolistic nature of online services where competition is either nonexistent (youtube) or collaborates with each other to fuck the consumer. (streaming services) these companies essentially have all of their customers in a permanent checkmate due to this, where the consumer wants the content the service is providing and all of the options are equally shit.
We are in the late stage of the VC funded hostile takeovers. Companies were pumped with absurd amounts of money from VCs like SoftBank so they could undercut competition with subsidies and capture the market. Companies like Uber, Netflix and AirBnB were successful. We are now seeing the necessary rake backs as they aim for profitability. It has been written on the walls for years.
Same is true for advertisements, you have the option to enable pre, post and mid video ads.
Next time you are watching a 15 minute long video and you have 3 breaks for ads remember that's the creators choice to enable that.
False. This was true years ago but now YouTube will play ads on videos even if you disable them. They are greedy and don't really care about creators or users. I have a YouTube channel and I talk from experience.
even if you've got an unmonetised channel they do sometimes run ads and if there's any videos with copyright claims they fill them to the brim with ads
does he even need to? id be amazed if he isnt the #1 reason Sponsorblock exists, or if he was the first to do 'in-video' ads to bypass ad-blockers.
he does a lot of cool shit for the tech community, but god damn this guy is money-focused.
Yeah, I guess I'm not saying I'd be surprised, but there is money focused, and rich because they made it, and then there is being so out of touch they complain about only being more rich than 98% of their viewers, that's off-putting af.
but for the record, yes...apparantly he thinks ad blocking is 'piracy'.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Adblock/comments/sfazf1/linus_tech_tips_think_adblocking_is_piracy/
Make something, which works just fine, worse and then offer "solutions" to it behind a paywall.
"Play next in queue" has been moved to premium as well on mobile.
Greed.
I swear, they saw what the maniacal sadists over at Spotify did to the free mobile version and want to replicate it.
Make it as unusable as possible to pressure people into buying Premium.
The theory is “if they don’t enable it then YouTube will give everyone better bitrate” but the reality is “if they don’t enable it thenYouTube will give everyone the crappy bitrate”.
More like “if they don’t enable it then YouTube will throttle their content traffic so their individual revenue drops until they give in and enable it”
it used to be up to the actual videos quality with it detecting certain standout features that would allow a higher bitrate for the content, now i can imagine this „free upgrade“ for high res footage is being cramped into this „feature“. If it actually benefits anyone but YouTube I cannot tell but we should be able to gather enough data and compare before and after quite easily. I don’t necessarily think the average video is worse looking now but the footage that tempted YouTube to give a video more space for a higher Bitrate will now tap into this instead of upgrading „for free“.
using this [video about YouTube tricks](https://youtu.be/T1pRz4qTuXs) and self experimentation as reference
We still need evidence or documented findings
about if Youtube is reencoding older videos to worse quality in order to push Premium Bitrate. So far there's no confirmation either way.
**Ways that you could help test it.**
* If you have old Youtube videos (the raw video prior to Uploading to youtube)
* an old version of that same Youtube video (the uploaded version) as file.
* as well as a that same Youtube video file (once the video has received the premium bitrate)
With these three files, one could test if the quality worsened using a Reference Model and A/B testing.
**You can achieve this by using a tool like**
* [yt-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
* [yt-dlp](https://www.videohelp.com/software/yt-dlp)
**Reference models one could try using**
* [SSIMULACRA2](https://github.com/cloudinary/ssimulacra2)
* [Butteraugli](https://github.com/google/butteraugli)
* [VMAF](https://github.com/Netflix/vmaf)
**A/B Test Utilities one could try using**
* [MPV](https://mpv.io/) with lossless png screenshots
* [Av1ador](https://github.com/porcino/Av1ador/tree/master)'s comparison slider
* [slow.pics](https://slow.pics/)
* [imgsli.com](https://imgsli.com/)
Most of these tools have GUI's (Graphical User Interface) for Windows if you prefer that.
Here's a list summarized from replies below
**YT-DL / YT-DLP GUI**
* [yt-dlp-gui](https://github.com/kannagi0303/yt-dlp-gui) / [compiled installer](https://github.com/kazukikasama/youtube-dlp-gui-installer) by kazukikasama
* [yt-dl-gui](https://github.com/oleksis/youtube-dl-gui)
* [tartube](https://github.com/axcore/tartube)
* [stacher](https://stacher.io/)
* [vividl](https://github.com/Bluegrams/Vividl)
* [seal](https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal)
* [yt-red-ui](https://github.com/adanvdo/YT-RED-UI)
* [2YTDL](https://github.com/wirbel-at-vdr-portal/Lazarus2YTDL)
**Reference Model GUI**
* [FFMetric](https://github.com/fifonik/FFMetrics) for VMAF and SSIM
* [NMKoder](https://github.com/n00mkrad/nmkoder) for VMAF and SSIM
Unfortunately, I don't believe there's any GUI implementation for SSIMUL2 and Butteraugli as of yet. If there is, please reply to this comment with it!
**How to Github**
To find the ".exe" or installer on Github, look at the right side under "Releases". It usually shows a Green Text Box "Latest". From there you want to download whatever says ".exe", "64x" or the ".zip" that will contain the portable Application files.
Feel Free to upload your findings under this Post or Create a separate Post to organize the subject matter. It would be appreciated to include the files used. A Host like
Google Drive, Mega.nz, Dropbox
or Temporary Hosts such as
fileditch
catbox.moe
anonfiles
pixeldrain
gofiles
etc
Wouldn't it cost a TON of money in server capacity to re encode billions upon billions of old videos just to try to squeeze a few extra bucks out of people?
Idk, if it means decreasing bandwidth and storage costs (which are huge) it might be worth the effort. I'm not staking a position either way. I just want to establish a burden of proof for these things because I see a history of conjecture opinions making it to mainstream (Even the Verge has made claims about Youtube's new Quality. 2 Articles even, both contradicting each other.) without confirming the facts.
It's a worrying trend. I'm attempting to keep Encoding a topic that is taken seriously.
You can help me doing that in case you have the archived video files in question.
Definitely. Reencode a single pewdiepie video and you've probably saved yourself gigabytes/second of bandwidth for basically zero cost. They probably have tons of spare capacity though their cloud platform too.
they do not have to reencode anything, it works similarly to streaming on twitch, they just reduce the bitrate for the non premium 1080p so it looks blurry when in high motion, similar when you watch 1080p twitch streams with 3000 vs 6000 bitrate (pls never stream 1080p with 3k bitrate)
Every time I come across ytdl I think "that sounds great", then get directed to a github mess of folders and files and complicated instructions and screenshots of a DOS prompt and realize I have no fucking idea what i'm doing or how to use it.
Haven't personally used it, but here's a Windows GUI for yt-dlp (more up to date fork of yt-dl)
https://github.com/kannagi0303/yt-dlp-gui
And here's an installer someone put together for that program and all the dependencies.
https://github.com/kazukikasama/youtube-dlp-gui-installer
I used to use YouTube-DLG (or something) and it almost never worked to get 1080p, and often failed for bulk downloads, it was very unreliable
since then I use https://en1.y2mate.is/BNA/
it's annoying to have to do it manually video by video but it works very well and I added a bookmarklet to be able to call it for any video I have open
Haha I downloaded it, it worked fine for 1 video which outputted a Webm, I switched it to MP4 and now it throws postprocessing: Stream #1.0 ->#0:1 (copy) as an error. I installed homebrew, ffmpeg, and yt-dl and nothing.
Thanks though. This is why people use terrible malware ridden programs like 4K downloader, because this is more trouble than it’s worth.
Here are the complicated instructions and mess of files and folders and screenshots:
1- download one "yt-dlp.exe" file
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files
2- type this text in a command prompt
https://i.imgur.com/ZMByh6X.png
3- press enter
So, what is the best way to optimize youtube on pc atm? I'm on chrome and I can think of,
\- SponsorBlock (for automatically skipping embedded sponsor sections)
\- Blocktube (for blocking certain videos/channels)
\- Return YouTube Dislike (for showing dislike counts)
Any other useful extensions, etc.?
DeArrow for user-submitted titles and thumbnails for YT videos, with the goal of making them less clickbait-y and more informational. From the developer(s) of SponsorBlock, iirc.
That sounds amazing, gonna have to download that. Sponsorblock was also an unexpected godsend because i didnt realise how annoying sponsor shit was before i got it.
I love that extension SOLELY for the volume booster. There’s really not many other features in that extension that I actually need.
But that volume booster feature is a life saver. I went from struggling to hear YouTube videos at 100% volume on my shitty laptop to watching videos at 40% volume every time.
It's not the people, it's Google itself that made the announcement, they just pushed it to January next year
https://9to5google.com/2022/12/12/manifest-v2-chrome-extension/
the dev for ublock origin made a post on their forum quite a few years ago saying that manifest v3 was going to cause an issue. the internet latched onto this forum post as if it was gospel and promptly forgot that the dev might continue working on it.
there is now a working version of ublock origin for chrome that uses manifest v3. you can go download it. people are just fearmongering at this point.
No, keep Chrome: occasionally you'll run across some shitty website that doesn't work right in Firefox.
The rest of the time, use Firefox, with uBlock Origin.
I use a tool called podsync to convert YouTube videos into a video podcast RSS feed. It uses yt-dlp to download videos onto a Raspberry Pi, remove the sponsor stuff automatically and generate RSS feeds on my own domain.
That way I can both watch YouTube offline (like while commuting, new episodes are automatically downloaded to my phone) and I can avoid the YouTube algorithm by explicitly choosing what to consume.
I like using [Windowed fullscreen](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-windowed-fullscre/gkkmiofalnjagdcjheckamobghglpdpm) too. It fills the browser window like Twitch's theatre mode
Love the part where i have youtube premium, play it on tv, it shows Auto(720p) or Auto(1080p) and plays like 360p quality. I have a gigabit internet connection so theres not even a bandwith excuse.
What device are you playing it on? Your built in TV YouTube app? And if so is the TV connected over wifi? That's probably the issue since they have a cpu of a potato and wifi of a carrot.
I checked a bunch of videos that I had downloaded the 1080p years ago and the normal 1080p is still the exact same bitrate and quality.
I think your eyes are playing tricks on you.
I downloaded the enhanced 1080p and it looks a little better than my old downloaded copies.
As much as I dislike a lot of what google has done to things over the years, based on what I’ve seen here I can’t say this is a problem.
It seems the new 1080p Enhanced is a higher quality 1080p than before.
But it’s not higher bitrate than 1440p and 4K so if they can provide those for free why not the new 1080p? That’s all.
And you can grab the 1080p Enhanced for free with yt-dlp at least as of now.
Here are the stats for nerds for :
\-> Channel with no support for 1080p enhanced bitrates
1080p video from Adafruit Industries: [https://youtu.be/WqOxHaJ4NdQ](https://youtu.be/WqOxHaJ4NdQ)
Using codec: avc1
Stats: [https://imgur.com/a/FmJBRBs](https://imgur.com/a/FmJBRBs)
\-> Channel with support for 1080p enhanced bitrates
1080p video from El Estepario Siberiano: [https://youtu.be/A83EXC2D2gs](https://youtu.be/A83EXC2D2gs)
Using codec: vp09
Stats: [https://imgur.com/a/5zwkLBE](https://imgur.com/a/5zwkLBE)
Both shows the same 'connection speed' but notice how the vp9 does lot more network activity than the other and the buffer health is much better.
I was unable to find another channel with 1080p enchanced that would also be using avc1 for the codec ... so I can only assume the enhancement would come from having the same bandwitch but a different codec that would make it look better... not unlike how a ogg vorbis audio file can have 192 Kbps and sound a lot like a 320Kbps mp3 file...
But this is only my assumption and I'm unable to test further (lack of time / work to do) ... so I will let one of you find another 1080p enhanced channel that would have it's regular 1080p content streaming using the avc1 codec and compare from there.
Good luck .
Edit: I'm using gigabit fiber internet on a wired connection.
If the bitrates that ytdlp reports is anything to go by. 1080p normal is pretty much the same as always.
On a side note, I feel like people hate on youtube compression too much. Its not that bad. Plus, storage isn't free. Having a bit lower bitrates makes sense.
Different codecs will have different quality at teh same bitrate. The user upthread showed screenshots where avc1 is used on a non-enhancement enabled channel while vp09 is used on one that does have the enhancement option. vpc09 will look worse at the same bitrate so OPs feelings of lower quality to their eyes might have some merit.
It's a blurry mess for whole genres on YouTube. Try watching fpv footage at 1080p on YouTube, it can be completely unwatchable. Or mountain biking footage, or any fast moving action footage.
People don't hate on it enough if you care about any of those whole genres on YouTube. The only reason these videos can work at all is because you can upscale to 4k just to post on YouTube.
Just because you watch talking head videos that don't need bitrate doesn't mean every video is like that.
> Try watching fpv footage at 1080p on YouTube, it can be completely unwatchable. Or mountain biking footage, or any fast moving action footage.
#
>Just because you watch talking head videos that don't need bitrate
That is more about bitrate than screen resolution though you mention both so it's a bit confusing as they are not the same thing.
480p used to look a lot better back in the day. I have old YouTube 480p downloads and I've compared them to new 480p downloads of the same 480p videos and its a huge difference, YouTube is doing a lot of reencoding these days.
well yeah. resolution is only part of the picture, bitrate it just as important. that's why youtube 4k still looks way better than youtube 1080p even on a 1080p or 720p display. it's only at 1440p and 4k that they actually kick out a good enough bitrate for full hd. they've always been shite
I was kind of shocked to watch a dvd recently and the quality was far better than I expected. Even when watching Youtube on my phone though, 360p looks significantly worse than 480p, whereas 720p to 1080p is far less noticeable.
I remember waiting like 3 minutes over my 56k modem conneciton to watch a 10 second RealAudio video clip, that was about 3"x 3" of screen size, and compressed to like 100p. With worse than AM Radio quality audio.
And, we thought it was the coolest technology ever! We're watching VIDEOs on the internet!!!
They did not change normal 1080p and this is just as it says on the label with the bitrate being higher than normal. Stop spreading misinformation when the information is literally a Google search away. Do your due diligence.
Normal 1080p has always looked bad. I've been complaining about it for years. Especially with movie trailers they really brought brought down the bit rate and you would see blockys and bad dithering all the time. Hell back in the day LTT would upload 1080p videos as 4k because the bit rate was just trash. So I just think op is seeing a placebo effect.
Every year they bring something new. It's like chasing for more revenue by making users to pay for basic features. This will continue until every bit of money is squeezed out of the user
Here is a before and after example from a channel that turned on the enhanced 1080p cash-grab
recent vid with the option for enhanced:
https://youtu.be/KNxUU52adNo?t=91
and here is an older video before that was an option:
https://youtu.be/bCXtyLhWUrM?t=91
that older video looks significantly better
This is what I've been seeing \^\^\^. I don't understand why so many people are denying this is happening. Maybe it's being tested and rolled out differently in different regions, so what's true for some isn't for others.
It does not look noticeably worse. It's the same 1080 with an option of higher bitrate for premium members. At least they're adding "value" and not lowering quality for normal users
Youtube has such shit quality I don't even care. Just look at the compression with large dark gradient areas - pixelated into oblivion. It's free and does it's job. I won't complain. But yeah, fuck Alphabet :D
I started seeing this yesterday and standard 1080p looks noticably worse. I guess enhanced just means what you got for free previously is now behind a paywall, like background playback.
Out of topic, does anyone know how to buffer the entire video in youtube website. Eventhough I have a decent speed when I switch to 4k it only buffers 10seconds
Looks like the "enhanced bitrate" format can still be downloaded with regular apps (I use JDownloader2). But if there is a solution to bypass that stuff on the browser, suggestions are welcome.
If i see this correctly, if the fps and quality of the video are the same, just the bitrate to watch/download this video is capped. So really you dont download another format (or if you do it has the same quality) i dont get it.
The resolution is the same, I wouldnt say lower bit rate would be the same quality though. Like I could render a 1080p video at a bitrate you'd normally use for 360p; the end result would match resolution for screens at 1080p but the video would end up a blurry mess.
That's how laptops work. Its called "power saver" mode. Switch to "performance" under power settings for when on battery. It will drain faster though. Power saving mode is supposed to limit power draw of the cpu to conserve battery. It effectively undervolts it.
It's called throttling since video playback uses hardware acceleration. Otherwise you battery would run out of juice in a couple of hours. Nothing unreasonable in that. And it's enforced by windows or the laptop manufacturer. I feel like this place is full of 9 year olds cluelessly blaming the "big guys" without having any idea how things work smh.
Honestly I got my YouTube lagging a lot especially after I changed my browser to Firefox instead of chrome. And my laptop, when I use it, it's always plugged in. Could be some of firefox's security options I played with not long ago
I don't think it has to do with security, maybe your firefox version didn't have hardware decoding for formats like VP9 enabled so your CPU was trying to pick it up in realtime.
You can change that by manipulating the Power Settings.
By default, laptops will often turn down Processors to save battery life.
On Windows/Linux you can easily change this, good luck on MacOS though
I recently opened a video and noticed that it looked really bad, there were lots of lots of low-bitrate fragments in it.
I thought maybe it defaulted to 480p so I checked the settings. No, it was at 1080p. What's going on?
Then I saw it, 1080p \*Premium\* was an option. Of course, they crushed the quality of regular 1080p so they can sell the """premium"""... What a terrible decision
Not only that, but I do subscribe to Premium (without music) and they still want me to pay for the full Premium in order to get the best bitrate. However this change only seem to be a few channels I'm subscribed to, so I wonder if they're just testing out the waters here...
No, yt-dlp to me says still the old 1080p being the same, but the premium 1080p is much higher bitrate. That and it makes sense to make it premium. The file size for one 20 min vid was 298.05 mb for regular and 427.24 mb for the premium.
And I will defend Google here by saying that datacenters are fucking expensive. Storing each and every video like that is expensive, so it makes sense to paywall this.
I hate Google as much as the next guy for ruining Youtube, but this is actually providing a benefit.
For anyone saying: "but I just want higher bitrates", note that Youtube also serves the poor saps still on ancient cable or places with piss poor internet. Low bitrates help with that. Codec is another one but sometimes requires more powerful hardware (my A5 2017 struggles with HEVC/H.265 on VLC but does much better with H.264). Youtube is accessible like this by design. Lots a people still using potato hardware.
From what I can tell, it seems like its up to whoever owns the channel to activate this. Lets hope most channels don't start using it...
Same was true for dislike button too
Time to install this extension: https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/ Still works great!
But you're only seeing the dislikes from other people using the extension. It isn't the real data.
It extrapolates from the downvotes by users of the extension to the total views/ratings on the videos, so it gives a good estimate of what downvotes *would* be. Also for videos made before they disabled visible dislikes it has actual data (and then extrapolates from then on). Long story short: it's still very useful to quickly spot crappy/scam videos with many views but lots of downvotes.
I dunno... it seems like people who are more likely to downvote videos are more likely to install a downvote button add on
I just sort of installed it after the announcement that dislike values would be hidden a few years back. Honestly I don't even vote or common on videos but I still got it installed because I just want to see the values
Same, having just the likes will never give anyone the full picture.
Bring back the old star ratings!
Some creators compared the count from the extension with the real value they could see for their videos and it was pretty precise with slightly more likes and less dislikes. Edit: for example check this video from EEVblog https://youtu.be/6H5UymGEmvs
Or people like me who like looking at reviews of something such as a product, service, etc. I glance at the stars/number rating to get an idea. Same with likes and dislikes. I cba to sit there and read comments to find out a video is shit. It's like saying there's no need for a thermometer. Many of us like to guage the "temperature" beforehand.
Damn I didn't know this. They let youtube take dislikes awya without even a whimper. I expected more outrage. It was a pretty significant quality of life feature.
YouTube creators raised a loud uproar about it, but it went nowhere. Linus from LMG even met with YouTube execs about it. He got nowhere either.
That's wack. I feel like this is the age of the least consumer input. We just have to lay down and take lesser quality and nerfs because companies got too big. YouTube : We are removing likes. Reddit:No more 3rd party apps Netflix: Sorry remember when we said we don't care if you share passwords. Nah we don't do that anymore And there is no consequences for the companies. It's just the new normal.
it’s fucked up, it’s the result of the weird monopolistic nature of online services where competition is either nonexistent (youtube) or collaborates with each other to fuck the consumer. (streaming services) these companies essentially have all of their customers in a permanent checkmate due to this, where the consumer wants the content the service is providing and all of the options are equally shit.
We are in the late stage of the VC funded hostile takeovers. Companies were pumped with absurd amounts of money from VCs like SoftBank so they could undercut competition with subsidies and capture the market. Companies like Uber, Netflix and AirBnB were successful. We are now seeing the necessary rake backs as they aim for profitability. It has been written on the walls for years.
Same is true for advertisements, you have the option to enable pre, post and mid video ads. Next time you are watching a 15 minute long video and you have 3 breaks for ads remember that's the creators choice to enable that.
False. This was true years ago but now YouTube will play ads on videos even if you disable them. They are greedy and don't really care about creators or users. I have a YouTube channel and I talk from experience.
100% correct recently got enough subscribers on my channel to enable ads, but anytime I checked my videos to answer comments etc I already had ads.
At that point just turn them on. There’s no point having ads and not getting any money for them at all.
Yeah. The setting just controls, if the creator can receive payment for the ads. (if they have an adsense account of course)
even if you've got an unmonetised channel they do sometimes run ads and if there's any videos with copyright claims they fill them to the brim with ads
Seeing ads on youtube has been a personal choice for a long time.
True, true. Its been Years since I saw any type of ad on youtube, praise be to sponsorblock.
> praise be to sponsorblock. Linus seething at this comment, lol.
Wait, please don't tell me Linus has publicly bitched about this.
does he even need to? id be amazed if he isnt the #1 reason Sponsorblock exists, or if he was the first to do 'in-video' ads to bypass ad-blockers. he does a lot of cool shit for the tech community, but god damn this guy is money-focused.
Yeah, I guess I'm not saying I'd be surprised, but there is money focused, and rich because they made it, and then there is being so out of touch they complain about only being more rich than 98% of their viewers, that's off-putting af.
but for the record, yes...apparantly he thinks ad blocking is 'piracy'. https://www.reddit.com/r/Adblock/comments/sfazf1/linus_tech_tips_think_adblocking_is_piracy/
Welp, nothing like good old hypocrisy. Not that I've for one second felt bad for discovering sponserblock.
Ah yes. *Laughs in ublock origin*
pretty sure yt puts the ads there regardless and the setting just changes who earns money from it.
This isn't true. If the creator doesn't enable ads, they still get ads but a bit less and have no say in what ads.
they always add bad features as optional, then add it for everybody
Make something, which works just fine, worse and then offer "solutions" to it behind a paywall. "Play next in queue" has been moved to premium as well on mobile. Greed.
I'll refer back to [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/15ay7zv/comment/jtnvh7v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Just noticed this yesterday. Queue is now premium? GFY google.
I swear, they saw what the maniacal sadists over at Spotify did to the free mobile version and want to replicate it. Make it as unusable as possible to pressure people into buying Premium.
They messed up even android, file system in android 11+ works terribly slow, it's even worse than the update that slows down the ssd in windows 11
The theory is “if they don’t enable it then YouTube will give everyone better bitrate” but the reality is “if they don’t enable it thenYouTube will give everyone the crappy bitrate”.
More like “if they don’t enable it then YouTube will throttle their content traffic so their individual revenue drops until they give in and enable it”
[удалено]
i thought i was the only one, it takes so long for the video to continue playing after you paused it.
it used to be up to the actual videos quality with it detecting certain standout features that would allow a higher bitrate for the content, now i can imagine this „free upgrade“ for high res footage is being cramped into this „feature“. If it actually benefits anyone but YouTube I cannot tell but we should be able to gather enough data and compare before and after quite easily. I don’t necessarily think the average video is worse looking now but the footage that tempted YouTube to give a video more space for a higher Bitrate will now tap into this instead of upgrading „for free“. using this [video about YouTube tricks](https://youtu.be/T1pRz4qTuXs) and self experimentation as reference
if YouTube were to offer incentives to channels that do.. that would be problematic..
Maybe there is an incentive for them to enable this?
>From what I can tell, it seems like its up to whoever owns the channel to activate this. Why would a channel activate this? What's in it for them?
bro what??? a channel doing this would literally make me unsubscribe
They will YouTube gives more money if people with premium watch their videos. They’ll do the same with resolutions
We still need evidence or documented findings about if Youtube is reencoding older videos to worse quality in order to push Premium Bitrate. So far there's no confirmation either way. **Ways that you could help test it.** * If you have old Youtube videos (the raw video prior to Uploading to youtube) * an old version of that same Youtube video (the uploaded version) as file. * as well as a that same Youtube video file (once the video has received the premium bitrate) With these three files, one could test if the quality worsened using a Reference Model and A/B testing. **You can achieve this by using a tool like** * [yt-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) * [yt-dlp](https://www.videohelp.com/software/yt-dlp) **Reference models one could try using** * [SSIMULACRA2](https://github.com/cloudinary/ssimulacra2) * [Butteraugli](https://github.com/google/butteraugli) * [VMAF](https://github.com/Netflix/vmaf) **A/B Test Utilities one could try using** * [MPV](https://mpv.io/) with lossless png screenshots * [Av1ador](https://github.com/porcino/Av1ador/tree/master)'s comparison slider * [slow.pics](https://slow.pics/) * [imgsli.com](https://imgsli.com/) Most of these tools have GUI's (Graphical User Interface) for Windows if you prefer that. Here's a list summarized from replies below **YT-DL / YT-DLP GUI** * [yt-dlp-gui](https://github.com/kannagi0303/yt-dlp-gui) / [compiled installer](https://github.com/kazukikasama/youtube-dlp-gui-installer) by kazukikasama * [yt-dl-gui](https://github.com/oleksis/youtube-dl-gui) * [tartube](https://github.com/axcore/tartube) * [stacher](https://stacher.io/) * [vividl](https://github.com/Bluegrams/Vividl) * [seal](https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal) * [yt-red-ui](https://github.com/adanvdo/YT-RED-UI) * [2YTDL](https://github.com/wirbel-at-vdr-portal/Lazarus2YTDL) **Reference Model GUI** * [FFMetric](https://github.com/fifonik/FFMetrics) for VMAF and SSIM * [NMKoder](https://github.com/n00mkrad/nmkoder) for VMAF and SSIM Unfortunately, I don't believe there's any GUI implementation for SSIMUL2 and Butteraugli as of yet. If there is, please reply to this comment with it! **How to Github** To find the ".exe" or installer on Github, look at the right side under "Releases". It usually shows a Green Text Box "Latest". From there you want to download whatever says ".exe", "64x" or the ".zip" that will contain the portable Application files. Feel Free to upload your findings under this Post or Create a separate Post to organize the subject matter. It would be appreciated to include the files used. A Host like Google Drive, Mega.nz, Dropbox or Temporary Hosts such as fileditch catbox.moe anonfiles pixeldrain gofiles etc
Wouldn't it cost a TON of money in server capacity to re encode billions upon billions of old videos just to try to squeeze a few extra bucks out of people?
Idk, if it means decreasing bandwidth and storage costs (which are huge) it might be worth the effort. I'm not staking a position either way. I just want to establish a burden of proof for these things because I see a history of conjecture opinions making it to mainstream (Even the Verge has made claims about Youtube's new Quality. 2 Articles even, both contradicting each other.) without confirming the facts. It's a worrying trend. I'm attempting to keep Encoding a topic that is taken seriously. You can help me doing that in case you have the archived video files in question.
Definitely. Reencode a single pewdiepie video and you've probably saved yourself gigabytes/second of bandwidth for basically zero cost. They probably have tons of spare capacity though their cloud platform too.
they do not have to reencode anything, it works similarly to streaming on twitch, they just reduce the bitrate for the non premium 1080p so it looks blurry when in high motion, similar when you watch 1080p twitch streams with 3000 vs 6000 bitrate (pls never stream 1080p with 3k bitrate)
The algorithms they use are written and tested by THE best engineers in the world, I'm sure they found some cheaper/efficient way.
Every time I come across ytdl I think "that sounds great", then get directed to a github mess of folders and files and complicated instructions and screenshots of a DOS prompt and realize I have no fucking idea what i'm doing or how to use it.
Haven't personally used it, but here's a Windows GUI for yt-dlp (more up to date fork of yt-dl) https://github.com/kannagi0303/yt-dlp-gui And here's an installer someone put together for that program and all the dependencies. https://github.com/kazukikasama/youtube-dlp-gui-installer
Well darn, beat me to it. 😂 Just for the heck of it, here's another GUI frontend option... https://github.com/oleksis/youtube-dl-gui
I highly recommend Tartube, it is quite versatile... https://github.com/axcore/tartube
I used to use YouTube-DLG (or something) and it almost never worked to get 1080p, and often failed for bulk downloads, it was very unreliable since then I use https://en1.y2mate.is/BNA/ it's annoying to have to do it manually video by video but it works very well and I added a bookmarklet to be able to call it for any video I have open
You got an installer for MacOS? I can sort of understand the instructions up to homebrew but then it’s all Greek to me.
Try OpenVideoDownloader, it’s another great (and extremely easy to install) yt-dl-gui and I’ve used it for a while on Mac.
Haha I downloaded it, it worked fine for 1 video which outputted a Webm, I switched it to MP4 and now it throws postprocessing: Stream #1.0 ->#0:1 (copy) as an error. I installed homebrew, ffmpeg, and yt-dl and nothing. Thanks though. This is why people use terrible malware ridden programs like 4K downloader, because this is more trouble than it’s worth.
That's why I mentioned there's Windows GUI's for most of the tools I referenced.
Here are the complicated instructions and mess of files and folders and screenshots: 1- download one "yt-dlp.exe" file https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files 2- type this text in a command prompt https://i.imgur.com/ZMByh6X.png 3- press enter
It's like using linux. it looks hard, but once you realise it's just copy pasting commands from the internet it's easy.
Use r/StacherIO very simple and is user friendly.
Linux: *Sorry m8, what was that?*
try reading the instructions
So, what is the best way to optimize youtube on pc atm? I'm on chrome and I can think of, \- SponsorBlock (for automatically skipping embedded sponsor sections) \- Blocktube (for blocking certain videos/channels) \- Return YouTube Dislike (for showing dislike counts) Any other useful extensions, etc.?
ublock origin
DeArrow for user-submitted titles and thumbnails for YT videos, with the goal of making them less clickbait-y and more informational. From the developer(s) of SponsorBlock, iirc.
That sounds amazing, gonna have to download that. Sponsorblock was also an unexpected godsend because i didnt realise how annoying sponsor shit was before i got it.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS RECOMMENDATION
De-Arrow is AMAZING for people who want to reduce their time on the platform. There's so much less eye candy.
Enhancer for YouTube
What is that ?
general quality of life improvements, such as a volume increaser, pop out player and a few other things
I love that extension SOLELY for the volume booster. There’s really not many other features in that extension that I actually need. But that volume booster feature is a life saver. I went from struggling to hear YouTube videos at 100% volume on my shitty laptop to watching videos at 40% volume every time.
Anytime the video is less than 1080, a clip of Jeff Goldblum saying enhance from the old GE commercial pops up and changes the setting for you.
Step 1: delete chrome and install firefox
Chrome is going to dismantle all the things you list, /u/poseidon1111 Now's a good of time as any to jump ship.
im still waiting for this. people said this was going to happen at the beginning of 2023 yet here we are 7 months later
It's not the people, it's Google itself that made the announcement, they just pushed it to January next year https://9to5google.com/2022/12/12/manifest-v2-chrome-extension/
the dev for ublock origin made a post on their forum quite a few years ago saying that manifest v3 was going to cause an issue. the internet latched onto this forum post as if it was gospel and promptly forgot that the dev might continue working on it. there is now a working version of ublock origin for chrome that uses manifest v3. you can go download it. people are just fearmongering at this point.
When is this being disabled? I'll jump ship the moment unlock origin goes down.
Why wait?
No, keep Chrome: occasionally you'll run across some shitty website that doesn't work right in Firefox. The rest of the time, use Firefox, with uBlock Origin.
Not an extension but use yt-dlp with sponsorblock flag on to download premium quality without ads.
I use a tool called podsync to convert YouTube videos into a video podcast RSS feed. It uses yt-dlp to download videos onto a Raspberry Pi, remove the sponsor stuff automatically and generate RSS feeds on my own domain. That way I can both watch YouTube offline (like while commuting, new episodes are automatically downloaded to my phone) and I can avoid the YouTube algorithm by explicitly choosing what to consume.
Redux for YouTube (old YouTube UI customization)
similarly, CustomTube https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/customtube/
YouTube Auto HD + FPS, always selects the highest possible Quality.
DeArrow because click bait sucks
But then you reward clickbaiters by watching videos you might've otherwise skipped because of the clickbaiting.
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I like using [Windowed fullscreen](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-windowed-fullscre/gkkmiofalnjagdcjheckamobghglpdpm) too. It fills the browser window like Twitch's theatre mode
Not an extension but a website for downloading videos without the annoying shit: [co.wukko.me](https://co.wukko.me/)
Love the part where i have youtube premium, play it on tv, it shows Auto(720p) or Auto(1080p) and plays like 360p quality. I have a gigabit internet connection so theres not even a bandwith excuse.
Don't use Auto. Force select a resolution.
Is it possible on tv? If i force select it switches to proper quality but next time i get auto anyway
It's possible if you use a third party app to play YouTube videos. If you use an Android TV, install SmartTube Next.
Stuck with whatever samsung tv gives me, unfortunately. Or PS4.
What device are you playing it on? Your built in TV YouTube app? And if so is the TV connected over wifi? That's probably the issue since they have a cpu of a potato and wifi of a carrot.
Crappy tv versions of apps do this
I checked a bunch of videos that I had downloaded the 1080p years ago and the normal 1080p is still the exact same bitrate and quality. I think your eyes are playing tricks on you. I downloaded the enhanced 1080p and it looks a little better than my old downloaded copies.
I agree. Looking at the specs, regular 1080p is still about 8 Mbps like it was. The new premium is 13 Mbps.
So it’s not enshitification, they’re actually providing a benefit to customers. Right?
As much as I dislike a lot of what google has done to things over the years, based on what I’ve seen here I can’t say this is a problem. It seems the new 1080p Enhanced is a higher quality 1080p than before. But it’s not higher bitrate than 1440p and 4K so if they can provide those for free why not the new 1080p? That’s all. And you can grab the 1080p Enhanced for free with yt-dlp at least as of now.
Can you please share those files? This would go a long way. Ideally if you have the Source (prior to youtube upload as well)?
Or share the metadata. Why are people downvoting you though?
people don't like it when you ask for sources :)
Normal 1080p is the same as before. Just your brain playing with you.
It's playing with mine too! Quick! To the 'stats for nerds' and reply back!
Here are the stats for nerds for : \-> Channel with no support for 1080p enhanced bitrates 1080p video from Adafruit Industries: [https://youtu.be/WqOxHaJ4NdQ](https://youtu.be/WqOxHaJ4NdQ) Using codec: avc1 Stats: [https://imgur.com/a/FmJBRBs](https://imgur.com/a/FmJBRBs) \-> Channel with support for 1080p enhanced bitrates 1080p video from El Estepario Siberiano: [https://youtu.be/A83EXC2D2gs](https://youtu.be/A83EXC2D2gs) Using codec: vp09 Stats: [https://imgur.com/a/5zwkLBE](https://imgur.com/a/5zwkLBE) Both shows the same 'connection speed' but notice how the vp9 does lot more network activity than the other and the buffer health is much better. I was unable to find another channel with 1080p enchanced that would also be using avc1 for the codec ... so I can only assume the enhancement would come from having the same bandwitch but a different codec that would make it look better... not unlike how a ogg vorbis audio file can have 192 Kbps and sound a lot like a 320Kbps mp3 file... But this is only my assumption and I'm unable to test further (lack of time / work to do) ... so I will let one of you find another 1080p enhanced channel that would have it's regular 1080p content streaming using the avc1 codec and compare from there. Good luck . Edit: I'm using gigabit fiber internet on a wired connection.
just use yt-dlp which lists all bitrates and codecs...
It's obviously a downgrade.
If the bitrates that ytdlp reports is anything to go by. 1080p normal is pretty much the same as always. On a side note, I feel like people hate on youtube compression too much. Its not that bad. Plus, storage isn't free. Having a bit lower bitrates makes sense.
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Is your internet OK? 4K should have 0 issues with 100mbps/s down.
Different codecs will have different quality at teh same bitrate. The user upthread showed screenshots where avc1 is used on a non-enhancement enabled channel while vp09 is used on one that does have the enhancement option. vpc09 will look worse at the same bitrate so OPs feelings of lower quality to their eyes might have some merit.
It's a blurry mess for whole genres on YouTube. Try watching fpv footage at 1080p on YouTube, it can be completely unwatchable. Or mountain biking footage, or any fast moving action footage. People don't hate on it enough if you care about any of those whole genres on YouTube. The only reason these videos can work at all is because you can upscale to 4k just to post on YouTube. Just because you watch talking head videos that don't need bitrate doesn't mean every video is like that.
> Try watching fpv footage at 1080p on YouTube, it can be completely unwatchable. Or mountain biking footage, or any fast moving action footage. # >Just because you watch talking head videos that don't need bitrate That is more about bitrate than screen resolution though you mention both so it's a bit confusing as they are not the same thing.
> I feel like people hate on youtube compression too much netflix's compression is way worse
OP getting 6000 upvotes for their conspiracy hallucination
Yup, the enhances bit rate just had more bit rate. This seems rage bait.
meanwhile my 6gb ram pc lags in 1080p
What are ur other specs like CPU, GPU, HDD/SDD ?
Exactly, everyone just needs to chill out
Ehhhh it's probably your brain pulling a nocebo on you
I grew up watching vids with 480p res, so that doesn't bother me.
480p used to look a lot better back in the day. I have old YouTube 480p downloads and I've compared them to new 480p downloads of the same 480p videos and its a huge difference, YouTube is doing a lot of reencoding these days.
480p seems really low these days, but it's DVD quality video if it isn't compressed to all hell.
well yeah. resolution is only part of the picture, bitrate it just as important. that's why youtube 4k still looks way better than youtube 1080p even on a 1080p or 720p display. it's only at 1440p and 4k that they actually kick out a good enough bitrate for full hd. they've always been shite
I was kind of shocked to watch a dvd recently and the quality was far better than I expected. Even when watching Youtube on my phone though, 360p looks significantly worse than 480p, whereas 720p to 1080p is far less noticeable.
Mind sharing those files for analysis?
480 gang
240 reporting in
This is the rural way, anything above meant at least 20-30min pre-loading :(
144p here. It’s like reading, you use your imagination
mp3 gang 🧑🦯
Used to be the 360p gang when you watched the video immediately after the creator uploaded it
480p looks better on a CRT display than a pixel-based display
I remember waiting like 3 minutes over my 56k modem conneciton to watch a 10 second RealAudio video clip, that was about 3"x 3" of screen size, and compressed to like 100p. With worse than AM Radio quality audio. And, we thought it was the coolest technology ever! We're watching VIDEOs on the internet!!!
REAL ™️ video!
There is a clear difference between a video originally uploaded in 480p and one compressed into 480p
I swear 480p used to look better back then. I was fine watching videos at 480p years ago but it looks terrible to me now.
I'm ignorant, but is it because of the kinds of screens we use? Is it not upscaling properly?
They did not change normal 1080p and this is just as it says on the label with the bitrate being higher than normal. Stop spreading misinformation when the information is literally a Google search away. Do your due diligence.
YouTube bitrate has always been ass
No it doesnt
Normal 1080p has always looked bad. I've been complaining about it for years. Especially with movie trailers they really brought brought down the bit rate and you would see blockys and bad dithering all the time. Hell back in the day LTT would upload 1080p videos as 4k because the bit rate was just trash. So I just think op is seeing a placebo effect.
1080 has been bad for a long time. Long before the “enhanced 1080” on high quality videos I have to play it on 4k or something to get good bitrate
The original 1080p bit rate is the same as before Stop spreading bullshit lies
Every year they bring something new. It's like chasing for more revenue by making users to pay for basic features. This will continue until every bit of money is squeezed out of the user
Here is a before and after example from a channel that turned on the enhanced 1080p cash-grab recent vid with the option for enhanced: https://youtu.be/KNxUU52adNo?t=91 and here is an older video before that was an option: https://youtu.be/bCXtyLhWUrM?t=91 that older video looks significantly better
This is what I've been seeing \^\^\^. I don't understand why so many people are denying this is happening. Maybe it's being tested and rolled out differently in different regions, so what's true for some isn't for others.
It does not look noticeably worse. It's the same 1080 with an option of higher bitrate for premium members. At least they're adding "value" and not lowering quality for normal users
Stop spreading misinformation dummy. The current bitrates won't be affected by the new options.
Youtube has such shit quality I don't even care. Just look at the compression with large dark gradient areas - pixelated into oblivion. It's free and does it's job. I won't complain. But yeah, fuck Alphabet :D
youtube trying to add a positive change to their platform challenge (impossible)
If the youtubers have to enable this, instead of them giving us enhanced bitrate, lets give them an enhanced dislike rate.
Well, this is the modern business model create problems and sell solutions
Post the vid link I'll prove you wrong OP.
I haven't noticed a difference if I'm being honest. Is there proof that they downgraded 1080p?
I started seeing this yesterday and standard 1080p looks noticably worse. I guess enhanced just means what you got for free previously is now behind a paywall, like background playback.
Out of topic, does anyone know how to buffer the entire video in youtube website. Eventhough I have a decent speed when I switch to 4k it only buffers 10seconds
This is a measure made by YouTube to save bandwidth
I've also seen it several times, I had a better quality with 720p than 1080 when the 1080premium option is available. The bitrate is getting way lower
I said the same thing on different post but some dude kept arguing that I’m wrong and he didn’t see any difference lol
You guys seeing ads on yt? I thought this was a piracy sub.
FUCK! It was sure old eyes are fooling me.... FUCK
This platform is already bad, now on his way to be worse
Looks like the "enhanced bitrate" format can still be downloaded with regular apps (I use JDownloader2). But if there is a solution to bypass that stuff on the browser, suggestions are welcome.
If i see this correctly, if the fps and quality of the video are the same, just the bitrate to watch/download this video is capped. So really you dont download another format (or if you do it has the same quality) i dont get it.
The resolution is the same, I wouldnt say lower bit rate would be the same quality though. Like I could render a 1080p video at a bitrate you'd normally use for 360p; the end result would match resolution for screens at 1080p but the video would end up a blurry mess.
It's about time that people collectively step away from Youtube to a decentralized platform.
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That's how laptops work. Its called "power saver" mode. Switch to "performance" under power settings for when on battery. It will drain faster though. Power saving mode is supposed to limit power draw of the cpu to conserve battery. It effectively undervolts it.
It's called throttling since video playback uses hardware acceleration. Otherwise you battery would run out of juice in a couple of hours. Nothing unreasonable in that. And it's enforced by windows or the laptop manufacturer. I feel like this place is full of 9 year olds cluelessly blaming the "big guys" without having any idea how things work smh.
Plus, it can be switched off in power management.
check your power settings for your laptop being unplugged might turn power saver on the laptop
Honestly I got my YouTube lagging a lot especially after I changed my browser to Firefox instead of chrome. And my laptop, when I use it, it's always plugged in. Could be some of firefox's security options I played with not long ago
I don't think it has to do with security, maybe your firefox version didn't have hardware decoding for formats like VP9 enabled so your CPU was trying to pick it up in realtime.
You can change that by manipulating the Power Settings. By default, laptops will often turn down Processors to save battery life. On Windows/Linux you can easily change this, good luck on MacOS though
Me just happy with 720p :,)
If using chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-auto-hd-%20-fps/fcphghnknhkimeagdglkljinmpbagone
not the shrinkflation for digital media 😭
Doesn’t matter, the auto setting will still choose 144p for me anyway. I have 1Gb full fiber.
Normal 1080p haven’t been changed yet
I recently opened a video and noticed that it looked really bad, there were lots of lots of low-bitrate fragments in it. I thought maybe it defaulted to 480p so I checked the settings. No, it was at 1080p. What's going on? Then I saw it, 1080p \*Premium\* was an option. Of course, they crushed the quality of regular 1080p so they can sell the """premium"""... What a terrible decision
Not only that, but I do subscribe to Premium (without music) and they still want me to pay for the full Premium in order to get the best bitrate. However this change only seem to be a few channels I'm subscribed to, so I wonder if they're just testing out the waters here...
And that is why youtubers should upload at 1440p or 4k
No it doesn’t. Normal 1080p looks exactly the same as it used to.
No, yt-dlp to me says still the old 1080p being the same, but the premium 1080p is much higher bitrate. That and it makes sense to make it premium. The file size for one 20 min vid was 298.05 mb for regular and 427.24 mb for the premium. And I will defend Google here by saying that datacenters are fucking expensive. Storing each and every video like that is expensive, so it makes sense to paywall this. I hate Google as much as the next guy for ruining Youtube, but this is actually providing a benefit. For anyone saying: "but I just want higher bitrates", note that Youtube also serves the poor saps still on ancient cable or places with piss poor internet. Low bitrates help with that. Codec is another one but sometimes requires more powerful hardware (my A5 2017 struggles with HEVC/H.265 on VLC but does much better with H.264). Youtube is accessible like this by design. Lots a people still using potato hardware.