Mobile YouTube on N95 phone

Trying to play video clips with the YouTube application on my Nokia N95 phone, I have repeatedly received the message “could not connect to video streaming server”. Yesterday I upgraded the N95 firmware and decided to have another try with YouTube.

A useful review on the Nokia Users site explains some aspects and shortcomings of the application.

I eventually solved the problem by changing settings in Real Player: via path Realplayer > Options > Settings > Streaming > Network > Default access point to set the Real Player streaming network connection to be via the mobile provider.

The YouTube application uses two separate network accesses, one for the search application and one for Real Player. Both must be defined. I can set the application access to my WLAN or mobile provider, but the Real Player will only work with the mobile provider, and not over the WLAN. The restricted data rate makes for an unappealing rendering of the video content.

Once the video player is operating, two other important limitations become glaringly apparent.

The video has no sound unless the active profile has warning tones set On. As I don’t want to have my life interrupted constantly by warning tones, I need to have a special profile just for use with YouTube, and remember to reactivate the normal one later.

The application will reorient to landscape mode, but this unhelpfully reduces the area used by the video frame.

Overall, as the application won’t work over the WLAN, it doesn’t really fulfill its promise without a 3G connection.