Apr 24, '08 07:30:03AM • Contributed by: robotdestroy
[robg adds: To use the bookmarklet, just drag it from the linked page to your bookmarks toolbar. Load a video in YouTube, then click the link in your toolbar. The page will then reload with the QuickTime player in place of the Flash player. (If you see the QuickTime logo with a question mark, this means that video isn't available in a high quality version.) The linked blog post has an easy-to-use drag-to-the-toolbar version of the bookmarklet; I'm going to reproduce the source here in the second part of this hint, in case the original post goes away at some point -- but using the linked blog post is by far the easiest way to add this to your bookmarks bar.]
Here's the source:
javascript:(function%20()%20{var%20video_id%20=%20null;var%20video_hash%20=%20null;var%20video_player%20=%20document.getElementById(%27movie_player%27);if%20(video_player)%20{var%20flash_variables=video_player.attributes.getNamedItem(%27flashvars%27);if%20(flash_variables)%20{var%20flash_values=flash_variables.value;if%20(flash_values)%20{var%20video_id_match=flash_values.match(/video_id=([^(\&|$)]*)/);if%20(video_id_match!=null)%20video_id=video_id_match[1];var%20video_hash_match=flash_values.match(/t=([^(\&|$)]*)/);if%20(video_hash_match!=null)%20video_hash=video_hash_match[1];}}}if%20(video_id==null%20||%20video_hash==null)%20{var%20args=unsafeWindow.swfArgs;if%20(args)%20{video_id=args[%27video_id%27];video_hash=args[%27t%27];}}if%20(video_id==null%20||%20video_hash==null)%20return;var%20yt_mp4_path%20=%27http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt=18&video_id=%27+video_id+%27&t=%27+video_hash;var%20div_embed=document.getElementById(%27watch-player-div%27);if%20(div_embed)%20{div_embed.innerHTML=%27<embed%20src=\%27%27+yt_mp4_path+%27\%27%20type=%22video/mp4%22%20width=480%20height=400%20scale=\%27aspect\%27></embed>%27;}})();
Hint Options
| Click here to return to the 'Watch YouTube videos with QuickTime embedded player' hint |
It didn't work using Camino. Loading the video and clicking the java script bookmarklet downloaded a unplayable file.
Seemed to work OK, (Firefox 3 beta) but how is this easier than just clicking the "Watch in High Quality" link (in the Views/ratings box beneath the control bar) for those video's where HQ is available?
It's not any easier; however, it does play the video via Quicktime as opposed to Flash-a big deal to Intel Mac owners, who (like me) I'm sure are tired of watching their processor use spike every time they try to watch a YouTube vid.
Ahhh I see what you mean... Flash HQ stayed constant at ~ 33% CPU usage. (Low Q Flash was ~28%) QT was 18-33% variable while buffering, then dropped to a steady 11% while playing the whole rest of the movie. Maybe just my eyes but it looked to be a bit sharper picture too! Nice catch!
I have my YouTube account set to, "Always play higher-quality video when it's available." But for some reason not all videos play in high quality, so I had to manually force YouTube to play in high quality by using, "&fmt=18", until now. This tip is great, Thanks.
Works great in Opera 9.27 OS 10.4.11 (PPC).
One question though: does the higher-quality video have a higher resolution than can be displayed in the the embedded window? i.e. is there a loss of quality associated with not being able to full-screen Quicktime videos within the browser? (As opposed to the embedded flash player.)
Unfortunately I don't think there is a good way to fullscreen an embedded QuickTime movie. Perhaps it could be popped up in a new window, but I thought this inelegant. It is possible to easily modify the bookmarklet to make the movie larger, but this ends up overwriting other parts of the page; it doesn't rewrap around the enlarged video. Perhaps some more creative CSS modification could fix this, but I didn't look in to it enough to find out. One side benefit is you can simply save the movie from the menu in the QuickTime plugin, then watch it at fullscreen in QuickTime player.
Using an older 12" PB, I found this hint to be really handy as flash video, and flash in general, really bogs down PPC processors. I think the next progression would be a greasemonkey script so I don't have to click the bookmark each time. Also, I've noticed that this does not work with all videos (probably because they were posted awhile ago and no HQ format conversion was made).
Here is an example....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KJwQqkPekyM
I opened it in 2 tabs and refreshed the second tab with this link and you can clearly see that the qt version is much better! Great hint! :)
