Some time ago YouTube switched to the new Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) buffering technology that segments media streams into blocks. Dash supposedly improves video playback for fast connections, and while that is often a great thing, it has one slight drawback that you may have noticed when you are skipping in videos or when you used to hit pause to let the video buffer completely.
The first thing that you may notice is that YouTube is no longer buffering all of the video when you hit the pause button. In fact, when you hit pause the buffering stops right away and will not commence until you hit the play button again.
The second issue that you may have with Dash is related to that. When you skip, you may notice that it takes a moment before the buffering kicks in and the video starts to play. This is more severe on slow Internet connections where it take more than a second or so.
If you prefer the old way of buffering on YouTube, for instance because you are on a slow connection and prefer to hit pause to wait for the video to buffer fully before you hit play to avoid any hiccups during playback, then you can use third party tools like YouTube Center for that.
YouTube Center is available for most modern web browsers as a native extension and also as a userscript that you can install instead. It is fully compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera among other browsers.
I have installed the extension in Firefox to demonstrate its functionality. Once you have installed the add-on in Firefox, you will notice a new cog icon next to the sign in or account related link at the top right on YouTube. When you click on it, the scripts preferences appear right on the screen.
Here you need to switch to the Player tab and locate the Dash Playback preference in the first group near the top of the screen. Uncheck the option to disable Dash Playback. The change is immediate and all videos that you play from that moment on use the old buffering technology on YouTube.
This means basically that you can hit the pause button to buffer videos 100% on YouTube before you play them on the site. If you are on a fast connection, you may also benefit from this as the video will buffer all the way through and not in chunks like before.
The first thing that you may notice is that YouTube is no longer buffering all of the video when you hit the pause button. In fact, when you hit pause the buffering stops right away and will not commence until you hit the play button again.
The second issue that you may have with Dash is related to that. When you skip, you may notice that it takes a moment before the buffering kicks in and the video starts to play. This is more severe on slow Internet connections where it take more than a second or so.
If you prefer the old way of buffering on YouTube, for instance because you are on a slow connection and prefer to hit pause to wait for the video to buffer fully before you hit play to avoid any hiccups during playback, then you can use third party tools like YouTube Center for that.
YouTube Center is available for most modern web browsers as a native extension and also as a userscript that you can install instead. It is fully compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera among other browsers.
I have installed the extension in Firefox to demonstrate its functionality. Once you have installed the add-on in Firefox, you will notice a new cog icon next to the sign in or account related link at the top right on YouTube. When you click on it, the scripts preferences appear right on the screen.
Here you need to switch to the Player tab and locate the Dash Playback preference in the first group near the top of the screen. Uncheck the option to disable Dash Playback. The change is immediate and all videos that you play from that moment on use the old buffering technology on YouTube.
This means basically that you can hit the pause button to buffer videos 100% on YouTube before you play them on the site. If you are on a fast connection, you may also benefit from this as the video will buffer all the way through and not in chunks like before.
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