4 ms·

as a data point youtube is unusable on raspberry pi 3. This happened within the last year, because prior to that you could "watch" videos at about 10-15FPS whic

as a data point youtube is unusable on raspberry pi 3. This happened within the last year, because prior to that you could "watch" videos at about 10-15FPS which is enough, for instance, to get repair videos in a shop setting (ask me how i know). When the raspberry pi model B - the first one released - came out, you could play 1080p video from storage, watch youtube, play games. I'm not sure what youtube is doing (or everyone else for that matter.) If we're serious about this climate crisis/change business, someone needs to cast a very hard look at google and meta for these sorts of shenanigans. eating CPU cycles for profit (ad-tech would be my off the cuff guess for why youtube sucks on these low power devices) should be loudly derided in the media and people should use more efficient services, even if the overall UX is worse.

LM358 3y ago
Could it just be due to lack of hardware video decoding? The Pi3 has x264 HW acceleration and youtube started using other codecs a while ago.
- Retr0id 3y ago
  I have no idea if it still works, but the "h264ify" browser extension used to be great for working around this issue (by forcing youtube to serve h264) https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify
  - genewitch 3y ago
    i did a full apt dist-upgrade to try and get the h264ify plugin to install and if i remember correctly i never was able to get it to install. I upgraded from "chromium" to "chromium-browser" and set all the compositing and other settings recommended for the RPI. and to reply to another sibling, "yt-dlp" isn't workable, this is for a senior citizen that does small motor repairs. I got an HP elitedesk that's a few years old coming in monday to replace the RPI; hopefully that will last another 3 years before google et al decide to "optimize" again.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      RPI 3 for a senior citizen seems like a poor solution in the first place. I would have opted for a small business-pc that is x86 based and 3-4 years old.
      - geraldhh 3y ago
        a used laptop that can play youtube videos can be had for about the same money
  - geraldhh 3y ago
    ytdl-format=best[vcodec!*=vp9]
- gerdesj 3y ago
  Is YT so impoverished they can't manage some sort of negotiation mechanism that includes x264 and makes it work?
  - treflop 3y ago
    That might be more on the browser that you’re using. It might be saying “yes I can play this format” to a format it can barely play.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    They encode videos ahead of time and they likely decided that whatever hardware you’re judging them by is only .9% of the market so fuck those guys. Big companies use percentages in places they shouldn’t and it gets them in trouble. .1% when you have a billion users is a million people you’re shitting on. For me that might be a dozen people. Very different.
    - wonnage 3y ago
      Encoding and storing billions of videos in a format used by 0.1% of users feels like a waste though
      - hinkley 3y ago
        The context above was exclusion of people based on income level.
      - geraldhh 3y ago
        robustness is only wasted if you're lucky
  - ogurechny 3y ago
    Supposedly, the whole point of Google financing “open codecs” was for them to break free from MPEG codec licensing. I imagine the total amount of fees had a lot of zeros. So, yes, each time they don't serve H.264 (unless absolutely required) results in saving a lot of money.
  - 3y ago
- extra88 3y ago
  Probably. I remember when YouTube switched to H.264 (it might have been some Flash-based video before that). I had an older Mac mini hooked up to my TV at the time and suddenly video framerates dropped to an unwatchable level because they saved their bandwidth (and mine but I didn't have to care about my Internet service was not metered) at the expense of client-side processing.
nolist_policy 3y ago
Its worth trying out different browsers. In my experience Chromium based browsers are a bit faster than Firefox on really low end devices (Pinephone, ...) as long as you have enough ram (>1Gb?). E.g. On the OG Pinephone a 720p video on Youtube is running smoothly in Chromium, but not Firefox.
flir 3y ago
I've got an old Roku box that has started rebooting after a few minutes of playing youtube videos. In your case, maybe pulling the video with yt-dlp then playing it works...
hinkley 3y ago
We need some watchdog group that watches page weight across sites and users and names and shames them. Maybe they could do that Consumer Reports style, or maybe it’s an add on the works a bit like Nielsen ratings.
ogurechny 3y ago
YouTube was not tested because monitors can't handle CMYK, and we need a lot of that extra coal black to color the results.
pimlottc 3y ago
YouTube is definitely getting heavier. My early 2021 MacBook Air (Intel) now gets random video pauses under moderate load, something that never used to happen.
- nicce 3y ago
  Could be just ads that adblocker tries to block. Google is trying new ways all the time to bypass adblockers.
nicbou 3y ago
I had to upgrade my 12" Macbook because Youtube Music brought it to a crawl. I could play music or work, but not both.
- bombela 3y ago
  That's absurd. I remember using winamp (and the skin compatible Linux clone, I forgot it's name) streaming internet radios while programing a toy OS in 2004. I could listen to music while compiling and running the BOSHS emulator on my AMD Atlon CPU with a whooping 256MiB of RAM.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  I used a 12" Macbook as my main development machine. It ran IntelliJ with Python/Django applications, Postgres & Redis running in parallel (along with Safari, Mail, etc) around 2018-2020 just fine. Tried it somewhat recently around Ventura and the machine clearly appeared to be struggling with the OS alone. So we had a machine that used to be capable of actual, productive work, and is now seemingly struggling at idle? It doesn't look like the new OS brought anything new or useful to the table (besides copious amounts of whitespace) either.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    I got mine in 2022-2023, so I couldn't tell how it changed. However I wouldn't be surprised. Operating systems used to be much snappier.
userbinator 3y ago
I use Invidious for browsing the site, and watch the actual videos via a script that deobfuscates and gets the actual stream URL and then passes that to VLC. As another data point, YouTube a decade ago would've been perfectly fine on that hardware too. The culprit is web bloat in general, and more specifically the monstrosities of abstraction that have become common in JS. Even for those who don't believe at all in "climate crisis", there is something to be said for the loss of craftsmanship and quality over time that's caused this mess, so I think it's something everyone across the whole political spectrum can agree with.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  Can you share that script? Also using invidious, but passing to vlc sounds good for saving cpu cycles.
  - nolist_policy 3y ago
    Just use something like this: mpv --demuxer-max-bytes=1024MiB --vo=gpu --opengl-es=yes --ytdl --ytdl-format="best[height<=800]" "$url"
- geraldhh 3y ago
  'apt install yt-dlp mpv' then put this in '.config/mpv/mpv.conf' to twart hw requirements ytdl-format=best[height<=?720][vcodec!=vp9]/bestvideo[height<=?720][vcodec!=vp9]+bestaudio/best[vcodec!*=vp9]/best and pass url's to it (i use 'play-with' ff extension)
gruez 3y ago
>If we're serious about this climate crisis/change business, someone needs to cast a very hard look at google and meta for these sorts of shenanigans By all accounts client devices' energy consumption is a rounding error in terms of contribution to climate change. Going after them to solve climate change makes as much sense as plastic straw or bag bans.
- maigret 3y ago
  IT is emitting around as much as aviation, and that was a surprise to me, most of it are due to client devices. Don’t have the source at hand at the moment though. And of that, most emissions are upfront until you buy it. Buying a new device because it’s not fast anymore causes emissions, not running it. Think about e-waste as well.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >IT is emitting around as much as aviation What counts as "IT"? It's most certainly a superset of "client devices", which is what my and the parent comment was talking about.
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  It has a cumulative effect and drives the continual "upgrade" cycle. When you consider the life-time of an average mobile device, and the resources required to manufacture and ship them, it's a not insignificant problem.
  - gruez 3y ago
    Random source from google[1]: >Berners-Lee writes that in 2020, there were 7.7 billion mobile phones in use, with a footprint of roughly 580 million tonnes of CO2e. This equates to approximately 1% of all global emissions Of course, not everyone is replacing their phones yearly. Another source[2] says the average consumer phone is 3 years old. That works out to 0.33% of global emissions, assuming the phones aren't recycled/reused to developing countries. Even if assume people are upgrading their phones for app/web performance reasons, the impact is far less than 1%. [1] https://reboxed.co/blogs/outsidethebox/the-carbon-footprint-of-your-phone-and-how-you-can-reduce-it https://reboxed.co/blogs/outsidethebox/the-carbon-footprint-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphone-life/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphon...

LM358 3y ago

Could it just be due to lack of hardware video decoding? The Pi3 has x264 HW acceleration and youtube started using other codecs a while ago.

Retr0id 3y ago
I have no idea if it still works, but the "h264ify" browser extension used to be great for working around this issue (by forcing youtube to serve h264) https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify
- genewitch 3y ago
  i did a full apt dist-upgrade to try and get the h264ify plugin to install and if i remember correctly i never was able to get it to install. I upgraded from "chromium" to "chromium-browser" and set all the compositing and other settings recommended for the RPI. and to reply to another sibling, "yt-dlp" isn't workable, this is for a senior citizen that does small motor repairs. I got an HP elitedesk that's a few years old coming in monday to replace the RPI; hopefully that will last another 3 years before google et al decide to "optimize" again.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    RPI 3 for a senior citizen seems like a poor solution in the first place. I would have opted for a small business-pc that is x86 based and 3-4 years old.
    - geraldhh 3y ago
      a used laptop that can play youtube videos can be had for about the same money
- geraldhh 3y ago
  ytdl-format=best[vcodec!*=vp9]
gerdesj 3y ago
Is YT so impoverished they can't manage some sort of negotiation mechanism that includes x264 and makes it work?
- treflop 3y ago
  That might be more on the browser that you’re using. It might be saying “yes I can play this format” to a format it can barely play.
- hinkley 3y ago
  They encode videos ahead of time and they likely decided that whatever hardware you’re judging them by is only .9% of the market so fuck those guys. Big companies use percentages in places they shouldn’t and it gets them in trouble. .1% when you have a billion users is a million people you’re shitting on. For me that might be a dozen people. Very different.
  - wonnage 3y ago
    Encoding and storing billions of videos in a format used by 0.1% of users feels like a waste though
    - hinkley 3y ago
      The context above was exclusion of people based on income level.
    - geraldhh 3y ago
      robustness is only wasted if you're lucky
- ogurechny 3y ago
  Supposedly, the whole point of Google financing “open codecs” was for them to break free from MPEG codec licensing. I imagine the total amount of fees had a lot of zeros. So, yes, each time they don't serve H.264 (unless absolutely required) results in saving a lot of money.
- 3y ago
extra88 3y ago
Probably. I remember when YouTube switched to H.264 (it might have been some Flash-based video before that). I had an older Mac mini hooked up to my TV at the time and suddenly video framerates dropped to an unwatchable level because they saved their bandwidth (and mine but I didn't have to care about my Internet service was not metered) at the expense of client-side processing.

nolist_policy 3y ago

Its worth trying out different browsers. In my experience Chromium based browsers are a bit faster than Firefox on really low end devices (Pinephone, ...) as long as you have enough ram (>1Gb?). E.g. On the OG Pinephone a 720p video on Youtube is running smoothly in Chromium, but not Firefox.

flir 3y ago

I've got an old Roku box that has started rebooting after a few minutes of playing youtube videos. In your case, maybe pulling the video with yt-dlp then playing it works...

hinkley 3y ago

We need some watchdog group that watches page weight across sites and users and names and shames them. Maybe they could do that Consumer Reports style, or maybe it’s an add on the works a bit like Nielsen ratings.

ogurechny 3y ago

YouTube was not tested because monitors can't handle CMYK, and we need a lot of that extra coal black to color the results.

pimlottc 3y ago

YouTube is definitely getting heavier. My early 2021 MacBook Air (Intel) now gets random video pauses under moderate load, something that never used to happen.

nicce 3y ago
Could be just ads that adblocker tries to block. Google is trying new ways all the time to bypass adblockers.

nicbou 3y ago

I had to upgrade my 12" Macbook because Youtube Music brought it to a crawl. I could play music or work, but not both.

bombela 3y ago
That's absurd. I remember using winamp (and the skin compatible Linux clone, I forgot it's name) streaming internet radios while programing a toy OS in 2004. I could listen to music while compiling and running the BOSHS emulator on my AMD Atlon CPU with a whooping 256MiB of RAM.
Nextgrid 3y ago
I used a 12" Macbook as my main development machine. It ran IntelliJ with Python/Django applications, Postgres & Redis running in parallel (along with Safari, Mail, etc) around 2018-2020 just fine. Tried it somewhat recently around Ventura and the machine clearly appeared to be struggling with the OS alone. So we had a machine that used to be capable of actual, productive work, and is now seemingly struggling at idle? It doesn't look like the new OS brought anything new or useful to the table (besides copious amounts of whitespace) either.
- nicbou 3y ago
  I got mine in 2022-2023, so I couldn't tell how it changed. However I wouldn't be surprised. Operating systems used to be much snappier.

userbinator 3y ago

I use Invidious for browsing the site, and watch the actual videos via a script that deobfuscates and gets the actual stream URL and then passes that to VLC. As another data point, YouTube a decade ago would've been perfectly fine on that hardware too. The culprit is web bloat in general, and more specifically the monstrosities of abstraction that have become common in JS. Even for those who don't believe at all in "climate crisis", there is something to be said for the loss of craftsmanship and quality over time that's caused this mess, so I think it's something everyone across the whole political spectrum can agree with.

zelphirkalt 3y ago
Can you share that script? Also using invidious, but passing to vlc sounds good for saving cpu cycles.
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  Just use something like this: mpv --demuxer-max-bytes=1024MiB --vo=gpu --opengl-es=yes --ytdl --ytdl-format="best[height<=800]" "$url"
geraldhh 3y ago
'apt install yt-dlp mpv' then put this in '.config/mpv/mpv.conf' to twart hw requirements ytdl-format=best[height<=?720][vcodec!=vp9]/bestvideo[height<=?720][vcodec!=vp9]+bestaudio/best[vcodec!*=vp9]/best and pass url's to it (i use 'play-with' ff extension)

gruez 3y ago

>If we're serious about this climate crisis/change business, someone needs to cast a very hard look at google and meta for these sorts of shenanigans By all accounts client devices' energy consumption is a rounding error in terms of contribution to climate change. Going after them to solve climate change makes as much sense as plastic straw or bag bans.

maigret 3y ago
IT is emitting around as much as aviation, and that was a surprise to me, most of it are due to client devices. Don’t have the source at hand at the moment though. And of that, most emissions are upfront until you buy it. Buying a new device because it’s not fast anymore causes emissions, not running it. Think about e-waste as well.
- gruez 3y ago
  >IT is emitting around as much as aviation What counts as "IT"? It's most certainly a superset of "client devices", which is what my and the parent comment was talking about.
MrVandemar 3y ago
It has a cumulative effect and drives the continual "upgrade" cycle. When you consider the life-time of an average mobile device, and the resources required to manufacture and ship them, it's a not insignificant problem.
- gruez 3y ago
  Random source from google[1]: >Berners-Lee writes that in 2020, there were 7.7 billion mobile phones in use, with a footprint of roughly 580 million tonnes of CO2e. This equates to approximately 1% of all global emissions Of course, not everyone is replacing their phones yearly. Another source[2] says the average consumer phone is 3 years old. That works out to 0.33% of global emissions, assuming the phones aren't recycled/reused to developing countries. Even if assume people are upgrading their phones for app/web performance reasons, the impact is far less than 1%. [1] https://reboxed.co/blogs/outsidethebox/the-carbon-footprint-of-your-phone-and-how-you-can-reduce-it https://reboxed.co/blogs/outsidethebox/the-carbon-footprint-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphone-life/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphon...