5 ms·

An example of Silicon Valley technology assumption. Many apps assume 100% internet connectivity at all times. i.e. not even minimally functional when offline.

• oefrha 6y ago
  YouTube does plan for the worst, you can even watch on a <100kbps connection if you're okay with 144p (and YouTube will downgrade to that automatically). It seems that OP defines downgrading to 720p60 (?) as "broken". I do support bringing back the 1080p30 stream though. Edit: Tested in Chrome with the "Slow 3G" throttling profile. YouTube automatically falls back to 240p with some buffering.
  • Twisell 6y ago
    Why is it broken? It's clever to push lower quality, but here they push to a lower quality than what was achievable so far before the "upgrade". So from a user standpoint, YouTube have downgraded the service overnight for all low speed connections. The more frustrating being for users that could sustain 1080p yesterday and are "upgraded"(?) to 720p60 today. Roughly same bandwidth but much lower resolution for what? better frame-rate? Not sure why anyone would prioritize frame-rate over resolution with all our fancy HiDPI screen.
    • user5994461 6y ago
      It's much worse than that. When you watch a video with text or small content, like a gaming video for example, these have menus and texts, it stops being readable when downgraded from 1080p to 720p (or worse). It's broken. When you live with flatmates or family, you're getting crazy load time and erratic pauses now because of the contention. There's not enough headroom to buffer ahead with the bandwidth use increasing 50% overnight. The video is dropping as soon as somebody else opens something, it's effectively broken. The algorithm will see contention and downgrade the quality, only to upgrade it again a minute later when it sees a bit of headroom, only to fail again. There's a lesson here on network contention. Worse case is with 2 people browsing youtube, the 2 players are fighting each other for bandwidth.
  • pmlnr 6y ago
    > I do support bringing back the 1080p30 stream though. Wait, what? Why would 1080p30 be gone?! I don't like 60fps, it looks weird, so now it's either 480p OR I'm forced to watch 60fps?! WTF?!
    • oefrha 6y ago
      I don't know, I just watched some newly uploaded videos available exclusively in 30fps. TFA shows a screenshot where there's no 720p(30) or 1080p(30) option though, so it must be happening to some videos. (Does it even make sense to "upgrade" a 30/29.97 fps origin video to 60fps? I don't think so.)
      • user5994461 6y ago
        Videos that are submitted in 60 FPS are only available in 60 FPS. It's getting more common as the cameras as getting cheaper. Check this for example, you should only have the choice between 60 FPS options. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ Videos that were submitted in 30 FPS remain as they were. It doesn't make sense to create new frames out of nothing indeed.
        • rasz 6y ago
          30fps versions are still there on the server, its the default player hiding them from you. There is even 4K 30fps file available 313. D:\_learning>youtube-dl.exe -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ [youtube] LXb3EKWsInQ: Downloading webpage [info] Available formats for LXb3EKWsInQ: format code extension resolution note 249 webm audio only tiny 57k , opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 1.89MiB 250 webm audio only tiny 75k , opus @ 70k (48000Hz), 2.53MiB 140 m4a audio only tiny 130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz), 4.84MiB 251 webm audio only tiny 148k , opus @160k (48000Hz), 4.96MiB 394 mp4 256x144 144p HDR 88k , av01.0.00M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 2.34MiB 278 webm 256x144 144p 97k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 3.38MiB 160 mp4 256x144 144p 111k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 2.87MiB 395 mp4 426x240 240p HDR 191k , av01.0.00M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 4.33MiB 242 webm 426x240 240p 233k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 6.89MiB 330 webm 256x144 144p60 HDR 243k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 7.96MiB 133 mp4 426x240 240p 245k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 5.86MiB 396 mp4 640x360 360p HDR 403k , av01.0.01M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 8.67MiB 243 webm 640x360 360p 435k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 12.85MiB 331 webm 426x240 240p60 HDR 504k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 16.65MiB 134 mp4 640x360 360p 633k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 15.49MiB 397 mp4 854x480 480p HDR 735k , av01.0.04M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 15.80MiB 244 webm 854x480 480p 857k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 23.18MiB 332 webm 640x360 360p60 HDR 1059k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 35.72MiB 135 mp4 854x480 480p 1496k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 30.03MiB 398 mp4 1280x720 720p60 HDR 1552k , av01.0.08M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 35.98MiB 247 webm 1280x720 720p 1697k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 46.97MiB 333 webm 854x480 480p60 HDR 1988k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 69.11MiB 399 mp4 1920x1080 1080p60 HDR 2683k , av01.0.09M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 65.43MiB 302 webm 1280x720 720p60 2742k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 76.27MiB 136 mp4 1280x720 720p 3220k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 57.62MiB 248 webm 1920x1080 1080p 3249k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 84.22MiB 298 mp4 1280x720 720p60 3483k , avc1.4d4020, 60fps, video only, 92.61MiB 137 mp4 1920x1080 1080p 4337k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 103.11MiB 334 webm 1280x720 720p60 HDR 4524k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 162.28MiB 303 webm 1920x1080 1080p60 5018k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 134.10MiB 299 mp4 1920x1080 1080p60 5794k , avc1.64002a, 60fps, video only, 163.70MiB 335 webm 1920x1080 1080p60 HDR 6920k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 252.07MiB 400 mp4 2560x1440 1440p60 HDR 8626k , av01.0.12M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 223.85MiB 271 webm 2560x1440 1440p 9621k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 249.96MiB 308 webm 2560x1440 1440p60 13357k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 388.12MiB 336 webm 2560x1440 1440p60 HDR 16917k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 607.18MiB 401 mp4 3840x2160 2160p60 HDR 18167k , av01.0.13M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 460.07MiB 313 webm 3840x2160 2160p 18852k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 628.46MiB 315 webm 3840x2160 2160p60 26568k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 956.39MiB 337 webm 3840x2160 2160p60 HDR 30646k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 1.05GiB 18 mp4 640x360 360p 655k , avc1.42001E, 30fps, mp4a.40.2@ 96k (44100Hz), 24.53MiB 22 mp4 1280x720 720p 1669k , avc1.64001F, 30fps, mp4a.40.2@192k (44100Hz) (best)
  • hirako2000 6y ago
    OP is defining a downgrade that 40% of the UK users now have to fall back to 480p since 720p60 won't work and 1080 won't work. OP wants 720p30 back since it s the highest resolution that 40% users were able to use before the change. 480p, seriously?
    • oefrha 6y ago
      People who can play 720p30 well enough but not 720p60 would have a connection speed around 3Mbps, which is at most 10% per the graph in TFA. TFA is claiming ~40% got a downgrade in resolution.
      • hirako2000 6y ago
        It's rather that they have 4Mbps for 720p30 to play well. They don't reach 5Mbps hence 720p60 buffers. We could argue about whether that's 10% or 40% of the UK that is affected. I see your point.
        • user5994461 6y ago
          It's affecting 40% of the population, everybody with a connection less than 8 Mbps, give or take. 1080p60 is around 6 Mbps, need a 7-8 Mbps connection to work well. The 20% who had a connection 4-8 Mbps and could do 1080p got downgraded to 720p60. The 20% who had a 2-5 Mbps connection and could do 720p got downgraded to 480p. Obviously it's not clear cut, there's a continuous spectrum where things will load much slower and start having breaks in playback until you really have to drop the resolution. Well, we should also consider households having more than one person. Two people watching YouTube requires double the bandwidth, going into 12 Mbps+ territory. Truth be told, this is affecting more than 40% of the population.
• raverbashing 6y ago
  Yeah, it certainly didn't break only for the UK (though it might be a rolling change) But yeah if you're assuming every user has the same bandwidth and latency a Google office (in SV) or employee has you're going to have a bad time Depending on the app it's easy to trigger JS errors with latency problems and some things happening before others
• Just1689 6y ago
  Hahaha. My friends and I call it Silicon Valley Syndrome. Glad to see we were not alone