Tag Archive: YouTube

YouTube Mobile undergoes its biggest redesign yet

Posted Jul.07, 2010 under Google

Google revealed today perhaps the biggest update yet for the YouTube mobile website since it first became available in 2007, bringing improvements such as HTML5 support and a revamped user interface.

According to Google, the mobile website, which offers a way for those on mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone or Google’s Nexus One the opportunity to view YouTube videos without using native applications, has seen exponential growth (160% in the past year in fact), and now streams more than 100 million videos per day to users across the globe (roughly the same amount as the desktop version of YouTube was receiving when Google acquired it in 2006).

With mobile consumption continuing to grow strongly, the YouTube team has made every effort to improve the usability and speed of the newly designed web app with this latest update, which is only available at this stage for iOS and Android devices. Based primarily around touch-screen devices, YouTube Mobile is now faster than ever before, with a much more visually impressive and user friendly interface that represents its also newly redesigned desktop counterpart. Long-awaited functions such as the ability to “favorite,” “like” or “unlike” videos, and create video playlists from the mobile website, are now available, while a new ”home screen” view, similar in looks to that of the Facebook for iPhone and LinkedIn for iPhone applications, allows quick access to places around the YouTube Mobile site such as favorites, playlists, and subscriptions.

Videos on the HTML5 capable site will be of higher quality than even the native YouTube iPhone application, which is still using a streaming format designed for second generation Edge networks. Through the new mobile site, you can also watch better quality videos by toggling a new “HQ” option, which is toggled on by default.

The team at YouTube is making every effort possible to convert users from native apps to the new site, prompting new visitors on the iPhone to install the web app on the home screen and making it clear that the mobile site will be updated with support for new features before native apps get that support(in particular, the iPhone YouTube app which Apple has full development control over – not Google).

YouTube’s new mobile site will be rolling out over the course of the day in English only, with support for additional languages to be made available in the coming months.

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YouTube hacked, Justin Bieber videos targeted

Posted Jul.04, 2010 under Google

Reports coming from Thenextweb indicate that YouTube was compromised earlier today, this time the attacker or attackers were targeting Justin Bieber videos. This isn’t the first time users on the Internet have teamed up and picked on Justin Bieber.

The simple exploit on YouTube has caused annoying popups and in some cases redirected users off of the website and to explicit websites like “One Man, One Jar.” Users were also posting messages claiming that Justin Bieber has died.

Users were using malformed HTML to get past YouTube HTML security checks in the comment section. Some people report seeing users leaving comments using the marquee tag and JavaScript alert function to cause popups.

Users from the infamous website 4chan are claiming responsibility for the attacks, posting messages like, “Today is a reminder that we can still shake the foundation of the Internet.”

YouTube has since blocked and patched the exploit, in this message sent from Google:

”We took swift action to fix a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on youtube.com that was discovered several hours ago. Comments were temporarily hidden by default within an hour, and we released a complete fix for the issue in about two hours. We’re continuing to study the vulnerability to help prevent similar issues in the future.”


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Why YouTube will continue to use Flash instead of HTML5

Posted Jul.03, 2010 under Google

The worlds biggest video website has been trying to implement a Flash-free player for some time now, even opening an experimental HTML5 player, but expressed their concerns with the new player earlier this week.

All the major browsers are working on making the switch to HTML5 later this year, including Microsoft with Internet Explorer 9. Google’s Android phone and Windows Phone 7 mobile browsers and operating systems will support Flash. Even Apple’s Safari 5 will be HTML5 compliant, but their mobile browser, found on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad products, will not support Flash.

However, YouTube has noted some concerns with the HTML5 video tag as a replacement for the traditional Flash Player. First, not all browsers have agreed on a codec standard, and with users uploading 24 hours worth of video every minute to YouTube, it’s important that they support the minimal amount of available codecs.

Currently Google, Opera, and Mozilla are supporting WebM VP8, which would highly benefit the HTML5 video codec. VP8 is an open-sourced video streaming media project by Google which operates under a BSD-style royalty-free license. Microsoft and Apple will be sticking with the H.264 standard, but Microsoft said Internet Explorer 9 will also allow users to install WebM if they wish.

Until all the browsers can agree on a video encoding format, YouTube said it will still stick with H.264, which it has been using since 2007.

HTML5 also has problems performing robust video streaming, and when streaming live videos, it’s important to have full control over buffering and video quality controls. DRM-protection is also important to YouTube, so they can offer services like YouTube Rentals, which requires making sure videos are not copied and redistributed around the web without the owners consent.

If anyone has actually tried using the HTML5 player, there is a significant difference between the Flash version of the site and the HTML5 player. One noticeable difference between the two players is the delay when selecting a certain part of a video. The HTML5 video seems to have a 1-2 second delay, wile the Flash player is almost instant.

On the comparison below is the HTML5 player (left) and the Flash version of the player (right), running on Chrome 6.0.447.0 running Flash 10.1.53.64, on a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate edition installation. There is a significant difference in terms of loading time and video quality, both of which Flash has the advantage.

Another important feature for YouTube is embedding videos on external websites. Although HTML5 allows for sandboxing and message-passing functions for things like captions, annotations and advertising, Flash is still the tool most sites use for embedded content.

Lastly, HTML5 does not support webcam and microphone access. Thousands of videos are uploaded daily using YouTube’s built-in video recording software that uses the users webcam and microphone to record, something that would be impossible to do without Flash.

As HTML5 is still in development and definitely still requires a lot more work, it may be some time yet before users and major websites ditch Flash for HTML5.

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YouTube adds cloud-based video editor

Posted Jun.16, 2010 under Google

YouTube launched a cloud-based simple video editor today, giving users basic functionality for editing their already uploaded videos.

The online editor isn’t going to compete against desktop video editing programs like Final Cut Pro or anything, but allows you to trim, snip, splice together and audio swap videos you have already uploaded.

The online editor lets you make last minute adjustments directly on the website, without having to reupload the final edit again.  The drag-n-drop service lets you select any of your uploaded videos and merge them together to make one final video.  The editor also includes the entire YouTube audioswap library, but gives you a chance to preview the clip before adding it to the video, however, you can still only select one song per video.

Once you select ‘Publish’ your video will automatically be processed by YouTube, so no need to sit and watch the upload progress bar.  Your video descriptions are also tagged with “I created this video at http://www.youtube.com/editor“, which links to a users profile.

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