YouTube streaming idiocy

[icupnimpn2]

I have a slow internet connection, living on a Native American reservation. Watching video on YouTube my connection can't keep up. The best thing would be to hit play, hit pause, and let the video fill in. Then watch once most had been downloaded/cached. Unfortunately YouTube seems to intentionally stop video downloading if you're not actually watching. If you hit pause it goes for a little bit then makes nearly no progress.

Is there any way to force YouTube to actively download a movie that is paused? Or any trick around this that doesn't involve me using some 3rd party utility to download entire YouTube videos?

[Mistabashi]

I don't think there's any way to get around it unfortunately. It's obviously intended to prevent uncessesary use of bandwidth, but it's rather annoying when you have a slow or unreliable connection.

[Heliocentric]

HELLO I HAVE A SOLUTION
You use chrome right? Course you do, all sane people use chrome, good.
There is a chrome plugin called "YouTube Downloader: MP3 / HD Video" actually, i think its name is longer cos it ends "..."
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...hrome-ntp-icon
You can literally just download the video as mp4 or something straight off youtube.

Yes you didnt want to download them, but they are actually very small and its the format the youtube video exists in anyway.

[Danny252]

Hit play, hit mute, go do something else for 10 minutes?

[byteCrunch]

HELLO I HAVE A SOLUTION
You use chrome right? Course you do, all sane people use chrome, good.
There is a chrome plugin called "YouTube Downloader: MP3 / HD Video" actually, i think its name is longer cos it ends "..."
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...hrome-ntp-icon
You can literally just download the video as mp4 or something straight off youtube.

Yes you didnt want to download them, but they are actually very small and its the format the youtube video exists in anyway.

Or if you're actually sane, do not enjoy Google "borrowing" all your data and do not like the multi-process bloated annoyance that is Chrome/Chromium, for Firefox there is "Video DownloadHelper".

[djbriandamage]

OP, why do you even need Youtube? Your username and avatar are so hilarious I could just watch that all day long! I used to do that stuff on my Speak and Spell back in the day too.

[Ringwraith]

Is there any way to force YouTube to actively download a movie that is paused? Or any trick around this that doesn't involve me using some 3rd party utility to download entire YouTube videos?

It should go and load the whole thing if you manually set the quality away from 'auto', it's the little gear icon.

[somini]

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/114002
This Greasemonkey script has an option so select the default quality you want, and also if you want to auto-play the video. I use it and it's awesome. It's regularly updated, for when YouTube decides to change things.

[icupnimpn2]

OP, why do you even need Youtube? Your username and avatar are so hilarious I could just watch that all day long! I used to do that stuff on my Speak and Spell back in the day too.

It's always nice when you find out someone else has shared one of your life's little joys.

It should go and load the whole thing if you manually set the quality away from 'auto', it's the little gear icon.

I've messed with that before to try to prevent losing all of my buffered video when going full screen, but did not know it would also let the whole video load. Will have to give it a shot.

Hit play, hit mute, go do something else for 10 minutes?

As things are, my headphones have just broken, so I don't even have to hit mute! Thanks for the ProTip

Much love to all respondents

[westyfield]

OP, why do you even need Youtube? Your username and avatar are so hilarious I could just watch that all day long! I used to do that stuff on my Speak and Spell back in the day too.

It's always nice when you find out someone else has shared one of your life's little joys.

Whaaaat. You've been on this forum for ages and I've only just realised the connection between your name and avatar. Mind is partially blown.

[magnus1969]

It's always nice when you find out someone else has shared one of your life's little joys.

Something else I've missed out on? My childhood is destroyed!