Youtube now using HTML 5 in Chrome whenever it is possible

StingBull · May 19, 2014

Chrome is the only browser that supports YouTube's HTML5 requirements. Google has managed to create proprietariness out of an open standard once again.

What I like about using HTML5 player in Firefox is that it disables that stupid DASH system for me so that I can buffer my videos all the way. And I don't lose all those buffering If I go forward or backwards.

jmaster299 · May 19, 2014

Oh right, I use chrome so thats why.

No, because even with Chrome you still used to have to enable it manually.

LAwLz · May 19, 2014

I depends on the video if you can select 4K when the video is using HTML5, newer videos you can but older videos you can't, first thought is that they haven't re-encoded them for it yet.

Again it depends on the video but some are using VP9 but most seem to be using H.264/AVC (identified as AVC1), you can check by right clicking and selecting 'Stats for nerds' to find out what a video is using, the 'newer' video above is using VP9 for all resolutions on Chrome.

Damn you're right, it does use VP9.

It's really nice to see that it's finally starting to show up. Hopefully it will become more popular than HEVC but sadly it doesn't seem like it (we are very close to HEVC hardware acceleration, but I haven't heard anything about VP9 hardware acceleration).