Letting the entire video buffer is the same as downloading the entire video which you can still do. My favourite tool is yt-dlp
I remember when we were still on dial-up and I found a youtube video I wanted to show my brother, I'd let it buffer and load and have to keep the pc on the entire day until he got home from work.
Modern ABRs are actually quite sophisticated, and in most cases you're unlikely to notice the forward buffer limit. Unstable connection scenarios are going to be the exception where it breaks down.
For best user experience it's of course good practice to offer media offlining alongside on demand, but some platforms consider it a money-making opportunity to gate this behind a subscription fee.
It sucks for livestreams on youtube too, since it only starts downloading the next chunk of video when it's almost done playing through the current chunk and if you experience a hiccup, then youtube's solution is to send you back in the livestream (amount depends on latency setting of the streamer) so instead of getting a nice live stream, you could be going back as far as around 20 seconds in the past, so if you want to participate then you're going to be that slow on your reaction. Instead of waiting for the full 5 seconds of the buffer to play through before downloading the next chunk, I wish they'd query for the next chunk before then and not only that, but if there's a hiccup, don't send the stream back by so much, because also if you fall too far behind then it skips ahead. It's all over the place.
Has YouTube live streaming just shit the bed for anyone else this past week? That and the main page has been laggy to the point I'm being brought the wrong videos when I click on something. I assume it's because of uBlock Origin.
I've been watching JPEGs uninterrupted for ages.
If you're on Windows download potplayer and copy video links to one in potplayer
If you wait potplayer will buffer the entire video or a good chunk of it
with my garbage connection it's still a reality for me
The only time I notice it not working that way still is if my internet cuts out or the page itself is having problems and it won't load at all. Otherwise it loads the entire video pretty quickly. Like don't even have to pause it to see the gray line getting lighter because it goes so fast it's done loading a 20 minute video within the first 30 seconds of said video.
Now, if I am watching cable TV on the other hand... That shit buffers like crazy. And it's even weirder that I have cable internet. How is my internet faster than the TV when they use the same lines?
What I did was open 4 videos and go to the next tab when one started buffering
