Meaning my carrier? Wanted to make sure and then comment.
Thanks.
Take a look at these three images of a YouTube ‘LIVE’ video stream test. Notice the bit-rate (burst) pattern in the system monitor windows. It shows what I suspect is Google using a temporal form of throttling.
In the first image I am using Chromium and streaming live from google. You can see the data burst is even, regular with peak burst rates of over 1mbit/s. I am ‘NOT’ signed into my Google Account.
In this second image I am using FireFox and streaming live from YouTube. I am ‘SIGNED IN’ to my Google account. Notice the bit-rate patter now. Continuous, with an irregular distribution of data and an average peak data burst in the 200kbits/s.
In this third image I am using FireFox and streaming live from YouTube. I am ‘SIGNED OUT’ of my Google account. You can see the data burst is even, regular with peak burst rates of over 1mbit/s. and in almost exactly the same manor as in Chromium.
Aside from even more evidence of Google account throttling these images indicate a temporal throttling of the bit-stream. Why would Google do that? Well I’ve listed my guesses above.
All very interesting. Also another interesting thing. This is a completely separate Google account I am testing with to the one I used in testing before. So this Google account throttling effects multiple Google Accounts.
Original Source Video:
LIVE! 24/7 4K SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Facility - YouTube
I mean no disrespect in saying this… But are you aware that if you manually set the “Quality” (resolution) of a YouTube video via the Settings cog at the bottom of any video, then that preference will be remembered for not only the video being watched, but all future videos? That playback setting is saved for the Google account signed in at the time. Now, if you log out of your account, or use a different browser that is not logged into your account, that playback preference no longer applies, and YouTube will stream as fast as it can (on Auto mode).
So… If you set your Quality to, say 480p, whilst logged in, then your bitrate will be correspondingly low. Log out, or use another browser, and Auto mode will stream the same video at the highest Quality/resolution/bitrate it can… which (likely being greater than 480p) would produce the bandwidth profiles you are seeing.
I’m confident that you have checked the actual Quality setting of the videos that you are testing with — to make sure that those settings are consistent across all of your browsers — but I don’t recall you saying that explicitly.
This message is just to ensure that “the bleeding obvious” explanation has, in fact, been discounted.
I ‘always’ set the video quality ‘manually’ to 360p. I list that as the method I use for testing above.
So I think that is the right way. Resting the quality manually each time I view the stream. No Auto mode.
Rock on.
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Cool. Thanks for clarifying.
I am unable to reproduce your results no matter how hard I try. Mobile/fixed/chrome/Firefox/loggedIn/loggedOut/incognito — all take roughly the same bandwidth when viewing that livestream at a fixed quality.
Quite a mystery!
I have not looked into any specifics in relation to testing or exact anything, BUT…
I use Chrome, only, I have always had YouTube set to 1080p in the cog settings, I don’t log out on my personal computer. Recently I have seen YouTube repeatedly set my videos to default 360p almost every time which I then manually change when I notice it.
This is a relatively new thing to happen to me, maybe a couple of months.
So yes… But also no.
@Zibob - I think Google mentioned they were going to lower the default in order ease some traffic.
It is but one I think I can solve. 
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I did think that might be the case. I will try to.check up on the rest later.
I am going to layout some other work-around’s I’ve not mentioned here in another post. One has me scratching my head.
I am going to also recap my system, software involved and test methodology just so I make sure all understand the issue but also understand the possible regional nature to the issue.
But for now checkout the difference between using a ‘Private Window’ and a ‘Normal Window’ in FireFox. As with my previous test the results are interesting. Lately throttling has been starting around 5:00pm CST Till 12:00 am even later. This test was done was around 5:00pm CST
Here I am viewing a ‘live’ stream from YouTube at 360p. I am ‘NOT’ signed into a Google account. I am using FireFox with a ‘Private Window’. You can see the data burst is even, regular with peak burst rates of over 1mbit/s.
Here I am viewing a ‘live’ stream from YouTube at 360p. I am ‘SIGHNED IN’ to a Google account. I am using FireFox with a ‘Normal Window’. Notice the bit-rate pattern now. Continuous, with an irregular distribution of data and an average peak data burst in the 250kbits/s.
So a workaround in FireFox for me is opening a video stream into a ‘Private Window’ In fact I can steam in the private window with no throttling and in the normal with throttling at the same time. Side-by-side! So crazy; one’s being throttled the other is not and with the same ‘live’ stream in the same web browser and plugins.
Interesting.
Source Video:
Hi,
I am still being throttled as of today. It looked like it might have stopped but then picked back up. So this issue, at least for me exist. I will continue to work with Mozilla and anyone here who might be able to help.
Switch DNS break account throttling.
I found it odd that changing the domain name server to Googles own DNS instead of that automatically assigned (i guess defaults to cell carrier), will break Googles account throttling. Eventually over time it will fail as an alternative but it’s odd to me why that happens and perhaps indicates a method employed by Google.
On the back-end there has to be a lot going on for Google to stream me a video and this is going to cause latency and not desirable if you need a real-time metric. If the cell carrier is using Google to throttle accounts and streaming YouTube video on the cell carriers network during peak hours then I would suspect Google would want DNS information to help throttle the video stream quickly. Mirrored DNS data could be sent to Google making the whole throttling affair easier.
Since the Google account throttling I experience so closely matches Googles own representation of the cell carriers video traffic it seems that a DNS connection may exist between my cell carrier and Google. Coupled with YouTube account throttling breaking on breakout of the default DNS configuration it seem likely to me.
I’m interested to hear what others think about this especially technically.
Google needs to explain why.
I believe the evidence I have presented could suggest a throttling scheme between US Cellular and Google where by US Cellular is using Google to throttle video streaming on US Cellular’s networks during US Cellulars peak data hours. This throttling arrangement uses YouTube account information coupled with US Cellulars DNS and other data and is designed to have Google do the video throttling form their end.
If this is true and I currently think it is the most likely explanation, then this as far I know would be something new and perhaps something illegal. I currently have an account with US Cellular with no throttling restriction on video. An arrangement by US Cellular to use Google to throttle streaming video to me would IMO be illegal.
So out of all the reasons I can come up with a throttling scheme between Google and US Cellular seems the most plausible.
There are other equally concerning why’s here to consider. Is this account throttling political? Is Google throttling my streaming video because of my political views? Is Google punishing me for using an add blocker? Is Google punishing me for my use of FireFox as my default web browser? There many questions here and Google needs to explain at least why they are throttling steaming on my YouTube accounts.
To me this is very serious stuff and the ramifications are deep. If you are willing to believe your eyes then maybe the evidence I presented here might move you to question Googles motives as well. I know I do.
I’m diving a bit deeper and learning as I go and sticking with this for sure.
Maybe the stream was cached from the first watch? Didn’t try logging back in and re testing.
@Vidiot_X hey! I tested and cannot confirm this behaviour, Firefox 85 with “User-Agent Switcher”.
Actually the whole video in 360p pre-loads in a matter of ~20s, I’ve approx. a 200mbps connection.
One thing to note for yourself, though:
- I think Firefox does NOT clear private window’s cookies/local storage as long as any of its windows are open. Basically, you need to CLOSE the private window and reopen it to clear.
- Codecs matter. The spikes you observed is a different method of video delivery, one video is made of many smaller chunks, instead of one continuous piece - hence the spikes, once the browser begins downloading them.
The lack of spikes would mean either of those: a) your connection isn’t fast enough to pre-buffer and complete downloading one piece until the next is started b) the video is delivered in a continuous manner
2b) You may affect your results by merely opening the debug window, but Right Click → Stats for Nerds tells you which codecs are being used. If you have problems with playback, try to enable the AV1 codec in account settings. It’ll be more taxing on your CPU for decoding, but may allow you better playback (but it’s not available for many videos as of now).
Lastly, use youtube-dl and forget the buffering issues.
I will see if Chrome’s UA helps with youtube-dl download speeds, as those seem to become rate-limited (100-150KB/s) for longer videos. If I don’t come back - no positive results.
I’m going to go ahead and put together a recap of events to make sure everything is clearly understood.
For now, please remember caching is not an issue (IMHO: see live stream results) and unless you are tethered to a PC on a US Cellular network you might not be able to reproduce the results.
At it’s most basic if I am logged into my Google account ‘ALL’ YouTube videos are throttled, clear and simple. Sign out of my Google account and ‘ALL’ video streams are ‘NOT’ throttled.
I’ll recap. Certainly there is other data to be gathered here. But the issue for sure is at the Google account level.
@Vidiot_X
Using the extension below, you can force YT to use a specific video resolution all the time.