Youtube Viewing Options
Video quality
To give you the best viewing experience possible, YouTube adjusts the quality of your video stream from standard definition (such as 240p or 360p) to high definition (720p or 1080p), based on the speed of your Internet connection (bandwidth). This is why you may notice that the quality of your video changes as you watch videos.
Here are some other factors that determine video quality:
Video player size: By default, the quality setting will be on “Auto” and YouTube will use the highest quality based on your video player size.
Quality of the original uploaded video: For example, if the video was recorded in standard definition, it will not be available in high definition.
Change video quality
If you’re viewing YouTube videos on your computer, you can manually change the video quality by clicking the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the video player, and selecting your preferred quality.
You may see different quality options depending on which device you're using. If you don't see an option to select a video quality, that means playback quality is automatically determined.
If you’re signed in to YouTube on your computer, you can set default video quality preferences for all videos:
Never Play High Quality Video
If you have a slow Internet connection, you can make the video load more quickly by using a lower quality setting.
Go to your Settings page
Select I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video
Click the Save button
Always Play HD On Full Screen
If you have a fast Internet connection, you can change your settings to make sure videos always play in HD qualities when they’re available:
Go to your Settings page
Select Always play HD on fullscreen (when available)
Click the Save button
Watch Videos On Slow Connection Dial Up
Watch videos on slow connections (Dial-up)
Still rockin' the 56k? No problem. Even if you have a slow Internet connection, you can still watch YouTube videos. Here are some tips on optimizing your viewing experience:
Choose lower video quality settings (such as 240p and 360p) from the gear icon in the bottom right side of the video player.
Start the video and then click the Pause button immediately. Wait for the gray video progress bar to load a bit before clicking Play.
Change your video player settings to not default to the highest quality stream.
Try watching a shorter video; the shorter the video, the less time it takes to load.
Full Screen Mode
When you view a video, you can choose from three different size options: default, Large player or Full screen. To switch to full screen, click the rightmost rectangular icon in the bottom right corner of the video player. To exit out of full screen, press Esc on your keyboard or click the Full screen icon again.
If you have problems viewing full screen videos, make sure you have the most up-to-date version of Adobe Flash Player.
System Requirements
System requirements
In order to watch YouTube videos, make sure you have the following:
Adobe Flash Player
Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Opera
Internet connection with 500+ Kbps
Movies, TV shows, and live events requirements
Some premium content on YouTube -- like movies, TV shows, and live events -- require a faster connection and greater processing power to ensure optimal streaming speeds.
Adobe Flash Player
Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari
Operating system: Windows 7+, Mac OS X 10.7+, Ubuntu 10+, or Linux OS 11+ (64-bit)
Internet connection with 1+ Mbps
Make sure to close other tabs, browsers, and programs while streaming your content. It may also help to hardwire your Internet connection, instead of using a wireless network connection.
Chrome for Ubuntu or other Linux operating systems are not supported. If you receive an error message when attempting to use a supported browser, you may need to install a HAL module.
Using YouTube with a screen reader
Introduction
This following information will be helpful for people using screen readers as it explains the steps for using YouTube with screen readers. A screen reader is a software application that identifies and interprets what is being displayed on the computer screen. This information is then presented to a blind user as speech. Visually impaired or blind people use screen readers. This article provides step-by-step process for using YouTube making it easier for a new user to explore YouTube.
lightbulb icon Please note: The experience of using YouTube may not be same with all screen readers due to inconsistency of support of technology by the various screen readers. To learn more about using YouTube with a screen reader that supports Adobe Flash accessibility extensions, please see this accessibility feedback page.
Read on to learn more about using YouTube with a screen-reader and discover which keyboard shortcuts are available for the site:
Creating a YouTube account
A Google account is needed to sign in to YouTube (ex. Gmail or Calendar etc.). If you do not have a Google account then you can go ahead and create one using the following steps:
Go to www.youtube.com
Click the "create account" link (located at the top of the page after the search button).
Complete the requested steps. Once you've signed up you'll have an account and can get started.
Having an account allows you to sign into YouTube and take advantage of YouTube's community features. You can upload videos, comment on videos, save videos to playlists etc.. These are just a few of the benefits of signing up for a YouTube account. You do not need to sign in to use some basic features of YouTube. Such as, searching for videos, viewing videos etc..
Searching YouTube and Search Results
Searching for YouTube videos
Navigate to www.youtube.com
Navigate to the search edit box at the top of the page.
Please note: Though the search edit box does not have a label, it is located at the top of the page, has a search button after it, and is the only edit box on this page.
Type a search term and press enter.
Search results
The search results page has a "did you mean" section which suggests proper words if you misspelled the word(s).
Prior to the search results, various sorting options are provided to help you sort through the results.
Each of the search results has the following information:
A title of the video along with the duration of the video which is a link and a graphic. Hence, navigating using graphics would help navigating to and through the results quicker. Clicking on this will play the video.
A "+" sign which is link. Clicking on this will play the video as well.
The text "added to queue".
The title of the video which is also a link. Clicking on it will play the video as well.
A snippet of the video.
Name of the individual who posted the video.
How many years ago the video was uploaded and the number of views it has had so far.
Sometimes you will find a heading level 2, "Related searches" with heading level 3s below it. These are other search categories related to the search term(s) you typed. Clicking any of these search categories will take you to another page which has video results for that category.
The YouTube Flash Player
Once you click one of the search results, the flash player will load and the video will start playing automatically. Here are the components and layout of the flash player:
Section headers:
H1 for the title of the video
H4 for "highest rated comments", "all comments", and "suggestions".
The flash player has the following components:
Subtitles:
If a video has subtitles then the subtitles are placed at the top of the video. The subtitles section begins with the text "subtitles start" followed by two lines of subtitles and end with the text "subtitles end". If the subtitles are on, the screen reader should say "Subtitles Loaded". If the subtitles are off, press the "Subtitles Unloaded" button, the button should change to "Subtitles Loading". Then after two seconds or so it should speak "Subtitles Loaded". From that point on the subtitles will appear at the beginning of the Flash player.
Play/pause button:
The button text toggles based on the current status of the video.
Seek slider:
The seek slider is used to fast forward or rewind the video and to increase or decrease the volume. To use the seek slider, first turn off virtual cursor then tab to the slider.
Use left/right arrow keys to fast forward/rewind the video and use the up/down arrow keys to increase/decrease volume.
Mute/unmute: This button toggles depending on whether the video is muted or not muted.
360p button:
This button changes the quality of the video in terms of pixels. Here are the available resolutions: 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p (default), 240p, 240p Light
Pop-out button:
The pop-out button creates a new browser window and places only the player with the video that is currently playing. It leaves out all the content that is outside the actual player. This allows users to resize the player any way they like.
lightbulb icon The button is also useful for blind users who might want to get rid of all the extra elements in the HTML page around the player and be left just with the player on its own.
Its important to note, that if you have pop-up blocker enabled, then you'll need to disable the pop-up blocker in order to open this new window.
Expand/Shrink button:
The label of the button toggles depending on the current selection. Clicking the expand/shrink button makes the video player larger and smaller.
This button also increases the video quality when you expand the player, and uses a lower quality when you shrink it if the video has multiple qualities.
Time elapsed/total duration:
This section shows the total time elapsed over the total duration of the video. It shows you how much of the video has played already and how much there's still left to play.
Note: To replay the video, click on the "play" button after the video stops playing.
Keyboard shortcut Function
O To jump to the beginning of the flash player
Spacebar Play/Pause when the seek bar is selected. Activate a button if a button has focus
Play/Pause Media Key on keyboards Play / Pause
Stop Media Key on keyboards Stop
Next Track Media Key on keyboards Moves to the next track in a play/list
Left/Right arrow on the seek bar Seek backward/forward 5 seconds
Home/End on the seek bar Seek to the beginning/last seconds of the video
Up/Down arrow on the seek bar Increase/Decrease volume 5%
Numbers 1 to 9 (not on the numeric pad) on the seek bar Seek to the 10% to 90% of the video
Number 0 (not on the numeric pad) on the seek bar Seek to the beginning of the video
Download Videos
In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed. However, you can download MP4s of your own uploads.
How to download an MP4 of an upload
Sign into your account.
Click on your username in the top right hand corner of your screen and select Video Manager from the expanded menu.
Find the video you'd like to download.
Click the arrow next to Edit to open a drop-down menu.
Click Download MP4.
Why can’t I download my video?
You won’t be able to download your videos under the following circumstances:
Your video has been removed from YouTube
You’re using a pre-approved audio track
Your video has copyrighted content
You’ve already download two videos in the last hour:
You can only download an individual video up to five times per day, so if you don’t see the “Download MP4” button, it may be because you’ve already exceeded that limit. Once a day has passed, the button will appear again.
Watch Videos With Caption
Search For Videos With Caption
Search for videos with captions
Videos with captions available will have a “CC” icon underneath the video summary in search results. If you’d like search results to only show videos with captions available, enable this search filter:
Enter your keywords in the YouTube search bar
Click the Filters button
Click CC (closed caption)
Change Caption Font and Format
Change caption font and format
YouTube has multiple settings to customize the font, color, size, and position of captions to suit your needs. To get started, first make sure you have captions turned on, then follow these steps:
Click the captions icon
Click Options
Click Display Settings
Select from the Font drop-down menu to customize font style
Click the + or - buttons to increase or decrease font size
Click the colored boxes next to Foreground to change the caption text color
Click the colored boxes next to Background to change the caption background color
Click Done
Note: these will be your default captions format settings until you change them again or click Reset to go back to the default captions format.
To change the position of captions in the video player, simply click and drag the captions to the desired location.
Caption shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts allow you to quickly adjust caption formatting while watching your video. Click anywhere in the video player before using keyboard shortcuts in order for them to work.
“b” will toggle the background shading on or off
“+” makes the captions bigger
“-” makes the captions smaller
Turn captions on and off
Captions are only available on videos where the owner has added them, and on certain videos where YouTube automatically provides them.
If a video has captions, you can turn them on by clicking the captions icon at the bottom of the video. Depending on your location, the captions icon will look like one of the following: or
To turn them off, click the captions icon, then Turn Captions Off.
Select caption language
Choose different caption languages by clicking the captions icon. If the language you’d like isn’t there, you may want to try auto-translated captions, which uses Google Translate to translate the captions.
Here’s how to enable auto-translated captions:
Click on the captions icon at the bottom of the video
Click Options
Click Translate Captions
Click to select a language
Click OK
Change default settings for captions
Here’s how to always show or hide captions by default if they're available:
Go to your Account Settings page
Select Playback from the left-hand menu
Check or uncheck Always show captions
(Check Show automatic captions by speech recognition (when available) to enable automatic captions for videos that don't already have captions provided)
Click Save
View captions transcript
For videos with captions provided by the owner, you have the option to view the full captions transcript, and jump to specific parts of the video.
Here’s how to open this interactive transcript option:
Click the transcript icon underneath the video player. As you watch the video, the transcript will scroll to show you the current caption text.
Click on any line of caption text to jump to that part of the video.
