Browser / Player app – FAQ

if you are having issues with the app or have a question you’d like to ask us, a suggestion you’d like to make, etc,  please use the “About” tab in the application to send us a mail.  We’ll address your question/concern/suggestion as soon as possible!  As always, please try to contact us and give us a chance to help prior to leaving negative feedback in the app store.

So far – a couple of questions have come up that we’d like to address:

  • Question: “I noticed that my favorite blogger posted a video tonight and then blogged about it.  When I went to the mobile web view, the thumbnail never appeared and it had a play icon with a line through it.  I decided I’d try to play it through the video player for their channel, but it was not there.  What gives?”
  • Answer:  YouTube does not make content available to mobile devices at the exact same time a video is uploaded to their systems.  When a content creator uploads a video, they typically upload it in the highest resolution format possible (High Definition for example) – and then YouTube will convert that video into suitable versions for connections of varying bandwidth capabilities.   If you have ever cut video before, you know that this conversion process takes quite some time.  This is especially true if you are getting thousands of new uploads every day, every hour, maybe even every minute.  The mobile browser basically shows the same exact content on the blogger’s full web page, just in a “per article” form.  Because of this, the links that are embedded for the content they upload will appear.  If the mobile version of that content has not been generated by YouTube, you will see the play icon with a line through it, and the video will not play.  Be patient, the video will show up as soon as it is available in mobile format.  As for this not showing in our streamlined mobile video list, we already take this into account.  If the video is not available, we do not display it until it is available.  Therefore, as soon as the mobile version is ready – it will appear in the video listing views.
  • Question : “Why is YouTube playback so slow – I think there is something wrong with your player!”
  • Answer : Fortunately for us, it’s not our player nor is it a problem with your iPhone or iPod Touch ;).  Our application uses the same exact player that the built-in YouTube application does on the iPhone/iPod.  We posted a little earlier ago about how YouTube seems to be suffering from growing pains during the evening hours over the past few months.  You will find that if you stream the same content on multiple devices and even a full desktop computer from YouTube in the evening hours, you will experience slow load times,  stuttering, and other bandwidth issues.  We hope that they upgrade their capacity to support all of the new high definition content they have promised the masses – because right now, their pain is obvious to even casual users.  One of our customers has offered the suggestion to turn wireless off and go back to 3G service when this happens.  While that seems counter productive, it actually works in most cases because the mobile videos are much lower bandwidth, and lower resolution, and can therefore stream through heavy traffic easier.  Unfortunately, this is not a solution for iPod users – but let’s keep our fingers crossed that YouTube solves these issues soon!

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