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I can't watch videos on Youtube in HD ever since that mess with HTML5 last month.

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So in February there was a brief stint where Youtube decided to force everyone to watch videos only with the HTML5 player, which forced many Firefox users to watch videos with only 360p and 720p as resolution options, and even at 720p the video was blurry and playback was choppy. I tried using a couple different add-ons people made to force Youtube to use Flash Player again, but the video quality was even worse than on the HTML5 player so I removed them. And now, even after Youtube allowed Flash Player to be used again, ever since that mess happened it's affected the videos I watch. Now I can't watch videos in any real high definition, because on any resolution option the videos become "fuzzy." The edges of people, text, and objects are pixelated and either blurry or jagged and not crisp and sharp as they should be. I also have problems with "rippling," where it seems as if thin, vertical lines are moving on the screen and subtly distorting the video. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Flash Player, Firefox is on the current version, and everything else on my system that I know of is up to date. I have also tried watching videos in safe mode. Nothing changes. I can't get the videos to look normal again. For almost the past month I've had to start using Chrome specifically just for Youtube because nothing I do will get it to work properly again on Firefox.

So in February there was a brief stint where Youtube decided to force everyone to watch videos only with the HTML5 player, which forced many Firefox users to watch videos with only 360p and 720p as resolution options, and even at 720p the video was blurry and playback was choppy. I tried using a couple different add-ons people made to force Youtube to use Flash Player again, but the video quality was even worse than on the HTML5 player so I removed them. And now, even after Youtube allowed Flash Player to be used again, ever since that mess happened it's affected the videos I watch. Now I can't watch videos in any real high definition, because on any resolution option the videos become "fuzzy." The edges of people, text, and objects are pixelated and either blurry or jagged and not crisp and sharp as they should be. I also have problems with "rippling," where it seems as if thin, vertical lines are moving on the screen and subtly distorting the video. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Flash Player, Firefox is on the current version, and everything else on my system that I know of is up to date. I have also tried watching videos in safe mode. Nothing changes. I can't get the videos to look normal again. For almost the past month I've had to start using Chrome specifically just for Youtube because nothing I do will get it to work properly again on Firefox.

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Hello,

Some problems with Flash video playback can be resolved by disabling hardware acceleration in your Flash Player settings. (See this article for more information on using the Flash plugin in Firefox).

To disable hardware acceleration in Flash Player:

  1. Go to this Adobe Flash Player Help page.
  2. Right-click on the Flash Player logo on that page.
  3. Click on Settings in the context menu. The Adobe Flash Player Settings screen will open.
  4. Click on the icon at the bottom-left of the Adobe Flash Player Settings window to open the Display panel.

    The image "fpSettings1.PNG" does not exist.
  5. Remove the check mark from Enable hardware acceleration.
  6. Click Close to close the Adobe Flash Player Settings Window.
  7. Restart Firefox.

This Flash Player Help - Display Settings page has more information on Flash Player hardware acceleration, if you're interested.

Does this solve the problem? Let us know.

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I've had hardware acceleration turned off the whole time. Sorry I didn't specify that the first time. But no, that hasn't solved the problem.

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You can check for problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions and try this:

See also: