YouTube iFrame API quality parameter "vq" bug - video playback with black screen

4
votes

There seems to be a huge issue with the iframe url parameter "vq" (in this case "vq=hd720"). If you use this paraneter, the video screen in the flash player turns black.

This example URL worked until today:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/dFVDJlM6zLY?vq=hd720

(feel free to replace the example YouTube ID)

Now, this example works only without the "vq" parameter (vq=hd720):

http://www.youtube.com/embed/dFVDJlM6zLY

The problem is, that we delivered this YouTube iframe in a lot of websites for a lot of clients and it worked quite well for month (years?). Now every single site has black youtube videos!!!

Does anyone know if this parameter was depricated?

Was there a new YouTube API release today?

The parameter was already discussed and recommended in diffrent forums:

e.g. Force youtube embed to start in 720p

Any ideas how to force Google (YouTube) to solve this problem?

4
apiiframevideoparametersyoutube
Does it run as HTML5 or Flash? – Kevin B.
We are having the same problem since today. Seems like it's a youtube issue. Remove the vq parameter for now. – Mario Campa
It seems, that YouTube has fixed this issue. Fast response. – Kevin B.

4 Answers

3
votes

It seems that the only way out of this (currently) is to remove the vq parameter or set it to auto. This seems like a widespread problem though, that has occurred very recently. You may wish to star this issue at google make them take notice:

https://code.google.com/p/gdata-issues/issues/detail?id=6009

1
votes

I was having a similar issue but when I tried to force an embeded youtube video to play in HD at a dimension smaller than the HD resolution.

I was able to get around the "black screen" HD issue by using the old embed code.

If you set the video size to the highest resolution you can then use vq=hd720 parameter and set the video width and height to a lower resolution

<object width="1280" height="720"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO_ID?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0&amp;vq=hd720"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/kyilUYoxcww?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

Hope this helps!

0
votes

Just had this exact problem. Found changing it to vq=auto works in the code. But on the videos we're working with it's coming out at a slightly lower quality than we'd like.

Nevertheless, this at least removes the blackout.

0
votes

What are your 3d settings set to? Here's what I've noticed...

1) Taking away the vq=hd setting works.

2) Turning the 3D setting on the video player ON (or sometimes OFF the ON again) makes the video work.

3) Curious about number 2, I went to the video settings on the video (the admin settings) and changed the 3D settings under Advanced. I changed it from "Disable 3D for this video" to "Please make this video 3D." For some reason this works -- the vq code is back to working the way it should.

HOWEVER I don't know if I would recommend doing this! The reason I set all my videos to "Disable 3D for this video" in the first place was because if I left on on the on the default "No Preference," it often caused glitches in the video.

Has YouTube changed anything with the 3D settings recently? I think thay may have but am not certain.