I applaud YouTube for its recent innovations and improvements, including its full support for desired spatial resolutions, desired temporal resolutions (framerates-at least with prerecorded videos) and desired aspect ratios. I also applaud YouTube more recently for supporting RSS feeds from audio podcasts (as I covered in YouTube regrets its pseudopodcasts; embraces RSS!). However, YouTube still has much to learn from its Alphabet Inc. siblings like Google Chrome, Google Search and Gmail in terms of full IDN (since currently, YouTube only supports it haphazardly) and basic HTML (which YouTube doesn’t support at all), let alone live rates and stats, which it must learn from seasoned video professionals. Ahead, I’ll cover all four of these in detail.

Full IDN (International Domain Name) support in video descriptions

For those unfamiliar with them, an internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with accent marks, diacritics or ligatures. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.

I personally own several IDNs, in addition to several I manage for clients who host their websites with my company TecnoTur.LLC. Here are a few examples:

• AbruñaandMusgrave.com (a renowned architectural company located in San Juan, Puerto Rico)
• CapicúaFM.com (one of my podcasts)
• ElmundosegúnTeresa.com (one of my clients’ recent books)
• Laconspiracióndelcastellano.com (one of my recent books)
• Privacidadtelefónica.com (one of my upcoming books)

All of the above IDNs are foolproof and bulletproof, since the matching unaccented domain redirects instantly to the proper accented version when people type it in the browser the simpler way, like magic! In addition to working with languages like Castilian (aka «Spanish»), French, German, Italian, Polish and Portuguese, IDNs also work for other types of languages, including Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified or traditional), Cyrillic (including Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian), Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Tamil or Thai.

Even though YouTube supports IDNs haphazardly (via PunyCode entry and display which is both cumbersome to enter and ugly to see), for many years, YouTube’s Alphabet Inc. siblings including Google Chrome, Google Search and Gmail have fully supported IDNs in such a way that allows both entering and displaying it the pretty and human way. That is why when I added the podcast RSS feed for CapicúaFM, I was forced to enter in the PunyCode version of the feed, as I covered in detail in YouTube regrets its pseudopodcasts; embraces RSS!. That is also why the IDN links included in the episode notes listed in the CapicúaFM channel in YouTube sadly display them in ugly PunyCode in YouTube, even though they appear in the preferred human way in all other podcast platforms and directories I have checked recently.

For more information about IDNs, visit AccentedDomains.com in English (which redirects to a page at TecnoTur.LLC) or DominiosTildados.com in Castilian.

YouTube team: Your siblings including Google Chrome, Google Search and Gmail have fully supported IDNs in such a way that allows both entering and displaying it the pretty and human way for many years.

Basic HTML support in video descriptions

Most modern podcast apps, platforms and directories now automatically support basic HTML as received by the proper RSS feeds from audio podcasts. When I say «basic HTML», I mean:

• Proper display of italics
• Proper display of bold
• Proper display of human links.

Even though starting in October 2023, YouTube supports proper RSS feeds from audio podcasts, sadly, it cruelly strips the beautiful basic HTML which is included in the proper RSS feed. YouTube, it has been over a year since you started to accept proper audio RSS feeds from audio podcasts. On the other hand, Google searches indeed include the basic HTML from the same sources. Even a website and service like eBay allows for basic HTML in its descriptions.

It is about time that YouTube descriptions should support basic HTML, both videos uploaded manually and those created automatically from audio podcasts via RSS.

Live rates in YouTube Live

Fortunately, prerecorded YouTube supports all the common framerates, both integer and non-integer (although YouTube currently rounds all of them to the closest integer in stats), including:

• 23.976 fps (often further rounded to 23.98)
• 24 fps exact
• 25 fps exact (standard in PAL and ex-PAL television regions)
• 29.97 fps exact (standard rate in NTSC and ex-NTSC television regions)
• 30 fps exact (although not standard for traditional TV broadcast)
• 50 fps exact (standard in PAL and ex-PAL television regions)
• 59.94 fps exact (standard rate in NTSC and ex-NTSC television regions)
• 60 fps exact (although not standard for traditional TV broadcast, has become a gaming standard)

Sadly, for live broadcast, YouTube Live adds filler frames if we stream live video at 23.976, exact 24, exact 25 or exact 50 fps to make it fill into either 29.97 (±30 VFR) or 59.94 (±50 VFR). This is a waste of bandwidth during the live broadcast. Fortunately, YouTube goes back to the original native rate for the on-demand video offered later.

YouTube should support the live broadcast at the native original framerate, even if streamed live at 23.976, exact 24, exact 25 or exact 50 progressive frames per second. Filler frames are not helpful, nor are they welcome.

YouTube Stats, please stop rounding the framerate

If you are unfamiliar with YouTube Stats (previously called Stats for nerds) in YouTube, just right-click or control-click on top of any video.

It was bad enough when camera manufacturers used to round non-integer rates to the closest non-integer one in menus. After enough criticism in articles, most camera manufacturers have now repented and now list them in menus to at least two decimal places, except Sony, which displays them to two decimals with cameras over about US$5000 but not lower-priced ones. If we analyze the recorded file with a serious tool like Invisor, we know that Sony engineers know that they are recording at 23.976 (aka 23.98), 29.97 or 59.94, never exactly 30 or exactly 60 after 1953. Sony marketing must think that camera purchasers under about US$5000 are not intelligent enough to understand these intricacies.

If Rene Ritchie or anyone else at YouTube wants to discuss

If Rene Ritchie or anyone else at YouTube wants to discuss any (or all) of these four important YouTube issues, please contact me via this link.

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FTC disclosure

Neither Alphabet Inc., Google Chrome, Google Search or Gmail has paid for this article. Allan Tépper and TecnoTur.LLC pay standard pricing for its paid services. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.