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YouTube API Blog
apiblog.youtube.com · Company blog · on HN since 2008
The YouTube API Blog is Google's official blog for developers using YouTube's APIs and players, covering embeds, SDKs, and HTML5 video.
What HN saysHN commenters link it as a source for YouTube's Flash vs HTML5 reasoning and API announcements such as game integrations and the move to Stack Overflow.
24HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
11stories submitted
138story points
13 years agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1YouTube's thoughts on Flash and the video tag10 people · 113 points · first shared 2010 · 33 comments on HN
- 2A New Way To Embed YouTube Videos that Supports HTML52 people · 4 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Announcing the YouTube SDK for .NET2 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 4YouTube as a platform? The YouTube Analytics API1 people · 6 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 5HTTPS Support for YouTube Embeds1 people · 5 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 6YouTube Geo Search + Gears Geolocation = Find Flix Near You1 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 7YouTube Google I/O: The iframe Player API1 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 8No WebView required, with native YouTube Player API for Android1 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 9Updated YouTube Data API1 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 10Introducing JavaScript Player API for iframe embeds1 people · 1 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 11Youtube google io your game youtube1 people · first shared 2012
- 12Find hidden patterns with youtubes new1 people · first shared 2013
- 13Understanding playback restrictions1 people · first shared 2013
- 14The youtube api on stack overflow1 people · first shared 2013
- 15Oembed support1 people · first shared 2013
What HN people wrote when they linked it
arathnam · 2012-08-14
Yep, Call of Duty had a very successful YouTube integration (http://apiblog.youtube.com/2011/07/youtube-google-io-your-game-youtube… And yeah, we totally agree that being able to share videos with friends will lead to greater engagement and help others discover cool games.
We have made this super simple for game devs - we have a startRecording and a stopRecording API. Round based games lend themselves well to starting recording at the beginning of the round and stopping at the end without bothering the user. So, the cocos2d calls don't have to be instrumented and replayed. Check out http://kamcord.com/documentation/ for the details.
Okvivi · 2011-11-12
Here's a very good read (granted, a year old) about Flash vs. HTML5 at Youtube. http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
evanlong · 2012-02-26
My Google interview experience:
Google Internship January 2008: Had a phone screen. First question as I heard it: “Given a binary tree tell me if it is a binary tree?” I was a bit confused and said I didn’t understand the question and requirements. Given A tell me if it’s A. Yes? The interviewers response to my confusion was: “Do you even know what a binary tree is?” Yes, I do. When he restated the question as “given a binary tree tell me if it’s a valid binary search tree” I understood the requirements efffed up something in the implementation though. Then was asked to do another problem. Something with number sequence and iteration. Got told “division is slow” so don’t use it. Couldn’t see a solution without division on the spot. Then got asked if I know about Java serialization. My response: “implements Serializable” and you can write out or read in objects but I have never really used it in any serious way before.
I got the reject. Which I expected more or less. Kind of frustrating since I felt the interview was pretty much done in the first few minutes since I was asked: “do you even know what a binary tree is.” Kind of an uphill battle from my perspective.
YouTube February 2010:
Applied for YouTube because I saw an ad in gmail. Why not.
2 phone interviews. And 4 onsite.
I thought I did ok solved everything to the best of my ability. Frustrated that I didn’t get it. Really enjoyed it. Seemed like a lot of fun. One interviewer told me my current job sounded boring.…
kozhevnikov · 2013-09-03
Are there any YouTubers/Googlers here who could offer their insight given YouTube API [1] moved there just under a year ago?
[1] http://apiblog.youtube.com/2012/09/the-youtube-api-on-stack-overflow.h…
starkmike · 2013-05-17
Here's the non-mobile link for old school non-mobile peeps: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2013/05/find-hidden-patterns-with-youtubes-…
chaz · 2013-05-16
Money matters, but "safe" also means that it's not shown in inappropriate places or remixed with inappropriate content. For a family-friendly brand like Nintendo, that's a big deal. Advertisers care a lot about this, too, even though that's less relevant for Nintendo.
YouTube has a playback restriction feature for this very purpose, including domain white/black listing.
http://apiblog.youtube.com/2011/12/understanding-playback-restrictions…
ancarda · 2013-04-03
The code on your GitHub, for the most part, seems fine.
One thing I can say is don't use exec[1] if you can avoid it:
$string = 'rm /var/www/Giftest/*.gif';
exec($string);
While there's nothing * technically* wrong, it's platform specific and I think it would be better to use PHP's unlink[2] function. Also, sorry if this is wrong, I haven't looked at the regex but it seems your parsing YouTube URLs? Have you looked at oEmbed[3] - it may be an easier way to accomplish what your doing? You can use it with json_decode[4] to get an object.
[1] https://github.com/Machtap/GiffyTube/blob/master/download.php
[2] http://php.net/manual/en/function.unlink.php
[3] http://apiblog.youtube.com/2009/10/oembed-support.html
[4] http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php
cpearce · 2011-01-14
"Of course, hardware adoption is still a huge question mark which I noticed Google also failed to discuss further in this post."
This has been discussed on the WebM blog:
"The WebM/VP8 hardware decoder implementation has already been licensed to over twenty partners and is proven in silicon. We expect the first commercial chips to integrate our VP8 decoder IP to be available in the first quarter of 2011."
http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-har…
"They don't address why they're removing it, why they chose to do it now, or whether or not they'll be consistent across their platforms."
Incidentally, months ago they've also blogged about why they'll keep YouTube using Flash, rather than HTML5:
http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
cookiecaper · 2011-01-11
YouTube depends on Flash for its most profitable enterprises, which are advertisements before the video you're trying to watch, rental, and so forth. I don't know why they can't implement pre-show ads in HTML5, but rentals, etc., can't be done in HTML5 because they require DRM.
There was a big post a while back about all the things YouTube needs to do in Flash instead of HTML5. The fact of the matter is that HTML5 video puts several of YouTube's main money-makers out of order, at least temporarily while the logic is re-implemented.
Edit: The post from YouTube about why they still need Flash is at http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html .
kj12345 · 2010-12-11
Apparently they use it for movies and other proprietary content:
http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
tomlin · 2010-11-05
> Angus: Youtube's Flash implementation uses more battery than their HTML5 equivalent on my machine.
Apologies for this, it seems to have evidence in it: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
It's hard for me to compare HTML5 to Flash if the Flash version has a truckload of abilities being used that cannot be utilized in HTML5. What's so hard to understand about this?
Does the MacBook fan only come on for Flash? It seems unlikely. Seems like it might engage for CPU-intensive processes that contain audio, video, Internet access (WiFi or 3G isn't cheap on the battery) and a mixture of other features.
I'm not trying to get any one to agree to Flash being better. I just don't see an equal argument. Ever.
SteveC · 2010-08-20
YouTube listed the reasons why they still use Flash over HTML 5
http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
aaroneous · 2010-08-17
Youtube started testing this about a month ago: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/07/new-way-to-embed-youtube-videos.htm…
woodall · 2010-07-14
I do not know how Hulu Plus is steaming data to the iP(ad)hone, but there has to be some sort of encryption. The reason so many streaming sites use Adobe Flash and/or Microsoft SilverLight is because they offer it. Youtube wrote a blog post about HTML5 and included some insight on this[1].
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Content Protection :: YouTube doesn't own the videos that you watch - they're owned by their respective creators, who control how those videos are distributed through YouTube. For YouTube Rentals, video owners require us to use secure streaming technology, such as the Flash Platform's RTMPE protocol, to ensure their videos are not redistributed. Without content protection, we would not be able to offer videos like this.
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[1] http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html
droithomme · 2012-02-08
I have run into all the same problems, also I don't like the loss of full screen video. HTML5 video is simply not an adequate replacement for Flash, end of story.
I've found that many people who believe things work fine joined the HTML5 opt-in trial, but don't realize that HTML5 only works on some videos and Flash is still being used for others. Most videos seem to be only available in Flash even with the trial enabled. Right clicking on the video reveals which it is if there is any doubt.
A YouTube engineer discussed some of the issues a couple years back: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html. At the time Hulu had similar comments about HTML5 video capabilities: http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/. A more recent post from a few months ago by YouTube staff on the subject is here: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/11/youtubes-html5-player-gets-be…