Small YouTube Embeds on iPad

When embedding YouTube videos with the iframe method, YouTube appears to set the maximum dimensions of the served video file based on the initial iframe size. This means that a video that has small initial iframe dimensions will not scale up to glorious Retina resolution even when sending the player into full screen mode.

Try one of these three small players on iPad, then fullscreen them: http://undsoversity.de/ios-entwicklung

Possible workarounds:

• Use the old Flash embed, which should trigger the older Safari plugin
• Instruct the user to tap the title of the iframe to go to the YouTube (web)app
• Roll your own (js) player that will start up the iframe at a more suitable size

These all suck. So it’s up to YouTube and Apple to do something about it. Hah. Did I miss a better way?