I was actually having the opposite problem a few days ago. Twitch was lagging even on Low, but Youtube videos were fine.

Mine was terrible as well, I've noticed that switching into the feather beta helped, making sure that my adobe flash settings were set so that unlimited download was on helped too.

Feather Beta

Been having issues with youtube for the past year. However, as of late (i.e. past week), I've been having to watch almost every twitch stream on Low quality.

might be some outages due to the massive winter storm that hit half the country

It may not be youtube so much as it is your ISP throttling youtube. Try this, worked wonders for me: http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/how-to-stop-youtube-sucking-windows-guide/

doesn't this only happen on twc? im using cox cable, but i'll give it a shot thanks.

YouTube has been trash ever since they enabled DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP). This prevents the player from loading the entire video as quickly as possible. Instead the player tries to download as little as possible as it plays the video -- and it does this poorly.

The YouTubeCenter extension allows you to disable DASH. You can get YouTubeCenter from https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter/wiki. If you're using Chrome, because it's not a signed Chrome extension, you have to drag the .crx file from Explorer/Finder into the Extensions window. Then once it's installed, visit YouTube and go into Settings. Click on the Player tab and then uncheck "Dash Playback."

I know this sounds like some snakeoil, but I swear it works. Now I can watch 720 and 1080 videos with no stuttering. And if it does stutter, I can just pause the video and let the player load it in its entirety.

You can try using the html5 player instead of flash: http://www.youtube.com/html5

You can't watch videos in 1080 anymore if you disable dash.

seriously, this is dumb. i can understand dash playback and the advantages it holds (especially for those with bad or unreliable internet) but not having a good way to disable it is just shitty since it clearly doesn't work properly.

youtube is just a mess altogether honestly, google really need to get their act together over there.

If you use youtube feather beta http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta you can load almost anything instantly, but it doesn't display comments on videos, google really knows how to fuck their users over

I have had the same problem for months, like a video loads in chunks and when I select an already loaded chunk it will start buffering again and never start, its the worst video player ever, guess its since they implemented DASH.

how is not seeing comments a downside?

as bad as the comment system is now, some people might still want to read comments

THere are various reasons you might want to read the comments, for example someone who actually manages a youtube channel would prefer to view the comments on their own videos, and some people always like to see the comments on videos they watch.

As horrible as the youtube comment system is, small niche channel comments are usually decent.

addons

If you use it also enable ads again, it blocks ads by default -.-

Might also mention that everytime YouTube makes an update to the site the plugin can break down and you'll need to install a new version (which is quite often actually).

I wouldn't worry about that too much since updates for the YouTubeCenter are being pushed pretty much every day.

id use feather but timestamp links dont work with it

YouTube has also been allowing game companies to trawl the site with bots looking for their game content. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1sm26m/the_death_of_the_lp_gamers_will_no_longer_make/

I got one of these notices on my SimCity video, which is cool because it was a worthless shitty video anyway. Luckily my TF2 vids haven't been touched, I assume because Valve doesn't hire massive, seething piles of human foreskin for marketing and legal departments, but EA is of course as evil as ever.

It's frustrating to be on a fiber connection by Ethernet and still have issues loading a full 1080p video.

Shame that 1080p is disabled now on non-DASH. Reading up on that now.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/videopolicy.html

Thanks Kaneco. You have validated my assumption about the dearth of dank piles of foreskin at Valve.

OK wait hold up. Valve is fine with anyone monetizing videos on YouTube.

Does this mean I don't actually have to get paid through the Machinima network, and could just upload vids on my own? That would like quadruple or quintuple my CPM... in fact, it would make TF2 video production an almost-viable job.

Someone explain to me why I'm wrong and I still have to use a network like TGS or Machinima please.

I wasnt even aware you were partnered through the machinima network but from my understanding and from the experience I have with google advertising and other google products, all they do is simply link a adsense account to the content creator, you are free to monetize content directly without being associated with any network.

Valve is one of the few companies (others being mojang with minecraft for example) which are totally fine and even encourage people to produce content from their games and monetize it.

So yeah, I think what you said was absolutely right. You could possibly make a living out of it (not with your current subscriber count) but if you increased your fan base that would be feasible. I know people dont like to disclose it too much about this style of life but I believe people like star and even with a smaller subscriber base are able to make a decent living out of this.

I have never been partnered with machinima or any type of network but from my knowledge I have never heard of any advantage of being associated with a network like machinima, all I have heard from them were about very restrictive and slave-like contracts with ridiculous clauses and huge margins for them (networks).

I thought Machinima pays higher CPM than adsense?

Thanks so much for the helpful post. I've emailed Machinima already, looking to end the contract.

I may experiment with more vids again, including shoutcasts. I can't make any promises about coming back out of retirement because I've applied to a new job that will be far more stressful... but I want to see just how well I can really do. If the money is good enough, it will entice me to keep churning out good content. And yes, in a sense it's about the money. I won't go back to giving up a sizeable chunk of my social life and travel plans for low pay, as much as I do love TF2.

Edit: If it's just Adsense alone, then yeah, not worth it at all. The big bucks come from the video ads and other auctioned content, so unless I can hold onto those, I'll have to keep the Machinima thing and stay hidden in retirement land.

:(

Sal, if I had a higher paying job, I'd give you real money to cast again.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/169665

ViewTube_GM allows you to play videos on multiple streaming platforms without flash and DASH playback. You can use HTML5 or a plugin of your choice. It's quite nice.

After checking my YouTube reported CPM and total payments vs. what Machinima sends me, even after removing ads that are likely exclusive to Machinima, I could probably earn double per vid. That just might be worth it? We'll see.