YoutubeHD fix (August 2011)

[RMerlin]

You Tube no longer offers 720p for most of the videos. So I suppose we will be stuck now.

The example video was not picked by search, but just using the Favourites menu.

I watched a lot of 720P videos recently, so I doubt that's the case.

[mad_ady]

I managed to download all qualities from the above test video and tested them all on the wdtv. The flv format plays just fine, except for quality 5 (240P) which is encoded with Sorenson H263.

Here is how quality 35 looks like (480P):

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adrianp@stingray:/media/kits/wdtv-kits/test-video/youtube$ mediainfo large-quality35.flv
General
Complete name                    : large-quality35.flv
Format                           : Flash Video
File size                        : 14.4 MiB
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Overall bit rate                 : 1 122 Kbps
httphostheader                   : o-o.preferred.rds-otp1.v15.lscache8.c.youtube.com

Video
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP             : M=1, N=17
Codec ID                         : 7
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Bit rate                         : 986 Kbps
Width                            : 854 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate mode                  : Constant
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.100
Stream size                      : 12.7 MiB (88%)

Audio
Format                           : AAC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                   : LC
Codec ID                         : 10
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Bit rate                         : 129 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L R
Sampling rate                    : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 1.66 MiB (11%)



Also, for reference, here's how the webm format looks like:

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adrianp@stingray:/media/kits/wdtv-kits/test-video/youtube$ mediainfo large-quality44.webm
General
Complete name                    : large-quality44.webm
Format                           : WebM
File size                        : 16.0 MiB
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Overall bit rate                 : 1 246 Kbps
Writing application              : google
Writing library                  : google

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : VP8
Codec ID                         : V_VP8
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Bit rate                         : 1 060 Kbps
Width                            : 854 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.108
Stream size                      : 13.6 MiB (85%)
Language                         : English

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor           : 1
Codec ID                         : A_VORBIS
Duration                         : 1mn 47s
Bit rate                         : 128 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 1.65 MiB (10%)
Language                         : English


Google added webm support for these qualities:

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adrianp@stingray:/media/kits/wdtv-kits/test-video/youtube$ ls *.webm
hd720-quality45.webm  large-quality44.webm  medium-quality43.webm


... and from what I've seen they're slightly larger (5-10%) than their flv/mp4 counterparts.

It is possible that newer videos have a different flv encoding, but I doubt it - why change it if it works and if you're planning to ditch flash anyway?

[jk2011]

Watched few random videos and all seem to be working fine.

Thanks guys for quick action!

[RMerlin]

same here i cant get my youtube HD work,,i already set it to 720P
here's my log message:

Jan 1 00:09:05 WDLXTV-8f727 user.notice YoutubeHD: Requesting list: /feeds/api/videos?v=2&format=5&q=jlo&start-index=1&max-results=5&orderby=relevance
Jan 1 00:09:06 WDLXTV-8f727 user.notice YoutubeHD: Requesting list: /feeds/api/videos?v=2&format=5&q=jlo&start-index=6&max-results=1&orderby=relevance
Jan 1 00:09:10 WDLXTV-8f727 user.notice YoutubeHD: Requesting video ID t4H_Zoh7G5A
Jan 1 00:09:10 WDLXTV-8f727 user.notice YoutubeHD: No fmt_map found - falling back to basic playback

That video plays fine for me. You probably aren't using the new proxy.

[davron94]

Youtube did quite a few changes to their website, which broke YoutubeHD.

I rewrote the scraper to deal with the new format. To get the new proxy code on your WDTV:

WDLXTV 0.4.7.3 and newer:
Try rebooting your WDTV, and see if YoutubeHD works again. If not, you need to force the download of the updated proxies. To do so, create (or modify if you already have one) /conf/S99user-script, so it contains:

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#!/bin/sh

# any existing content

/usr/bin/getproxies


Then reboot.

WDLXTV below 0.4.7.3:
Upgrade to 0.4.7.3, or fix it yourself - it's not trivial, but there are posts on the forums showing you how to patch it.

How do I know if YouTube is working in HD? The screen shows the "HD" watermark, but all of the videos that i have chosen to watch are in SD. Is there an HD video that i can view to confirm that my YouTube is working in HD?

[mad_ady]

Make sure the YOUTUBE_QUALITY parameter is set to 720P or 1080P to get hd content. You can check/set this parameter via the web interface.
From what you post it seems everything is working fine for the quality you selected.

[RMerlin]

How do I know if YouTube is working in HD? The screen shows the "HD" watermark, but all of the videos that i have chosen to watch are in SD. Is there an HD video that i can view to confirm that my YouTube is working in HD?

i always use the nVidia Purevideo 1080 HD video (search it on Youtube) for my tests.

While it's playing, looking at /tmp/messages.txt will tell you which quality is currently being played. The explanation for each Quality values can be found on Wikipedia's Youtube page - there's a table there listing qualities.

[davron94]

How do I know if YouTube is working in HD? The screen shows the "HD" watermark, but all of the videos that i have chosen to watch are in SD. Is there an HD video that i can view to confirm that my YouTube is working in HD?

i always use the nVidia Purevideo 1080 HD video (search it on Youtube) for my tests.

While it's playing, looking at /tmp/messages.txt will tell you which quality is currently being played. The explanation for each Quality values can be found on Wikipedia's Youtube page - there's a table there listing qualities.

Thanks for the info! would I be looking at this /tmp/messages.txt through the WEC on the computer while the video is running on the TV?

[KAD]

I think what you're looking for will be in dmaosd.log

KAD

[webazoid]

Thanks! Rebooted and YT HD works again!