When I'm watching a YouTube video it will only buffer the next 30 seconds or so. This is something I want to avoid because when trying to watch 1080p videos it will keep pausing because it has to download the next 30 seconds and my connection isn't fast enough to keep up.
I'd rather it download the entire video before I can click play. But whenever it does this there doesn't seem to be a way to get it to do what I want.
I understand that they did this to save bandwidth. But it would be better if they would at least make it an option. Like being able to click a button that tells them "hey, I'm planning on watching this entire video so download the whole thing".
It seems to be random too. It happens in some 1080p videos, not in others, in some 720p videos, not in others. And it's been happening more recently in the past 2 months.
EDIT: It doesn't seem to be happening anymore with videos at or above 720p quality. Videos below that quality will apparently not be buffered, which I'm ok with. This probably depends on your connection speed too.
Best Answer
Firefox add-on SmartVideo for YouTube will do just that. You can even tell it to either start the video when you want. You can just open the link in a new tab, and just come back to it when you're ready to watch the vid. It has other useful options as well.
Edit: SmartVideo can be a bit buggy. As to 720p videos being buffered, I think it's because all videos in 720p (or higher? not sure) are already on WebM format. It's my default setting. It's the fastest video setting to load, faster than a 480p flv file.
Edit2: SmartVideo is also available for Google Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smartvideo-for-youtube/lnkdbjbjpnpjeciipoaflmpcddinpjjp?hl=en