I have that issue too, I'm on sprint so I only have 3g in my house so I use my 4g wifi and I still get the buffering so wat I do is just watch the you tube videos with out hd sucks but when I'm in 4g area you tube plays good.

 

i must say that my YouTube on my GN2 is flawless, below is a screenshot, once in a while i might get that "loading" icon but not enough to bother me.......verizon here lte NYC


Screenshot_2013-01-02-21-40-01 by Ceva321, on Flickr

 

I have no issues with my home WiFi network. Can play all HD youtube vids flawlessly with no buffering. Only time I experience anything like it would be a service disruption in my area (which is uncommon).

 

I don't watch too much youtube on my phone, but the few times I tried it, it was fine. No buffering in the middle. Youtube also works with the stock browser. You could try it there and see if there is any difference.

 

I had trouble with YouTube when I had power saving mode on. Disabled that and now I don't seem to have any issues. Not sure if that could be the problem or whatever was wrong fixed itself around that time.

 

I'm with Rogers LTE in Canada, never had a problem with youtube on Note 2 but did have it once in a while with iPhone4s. Here's hoping you found a fix. All the best for 2013. Cheers.

 

I think it's YouTube thats the problem.
Mine has been buffering since the their last update.
For the 1st month I never experienced any buffering as you described.
Now, it's not even worth sitting thru it- hopefully they'll get it sorted out soon.

 

I'm running on Verizon 4G at my house and have watched several 30+ minute long videos with NO buffering at all! It has played flawlessly on all of the videos. Is there something running in the background on your phone perhaps?

 

You should go into applications and uninstall updates. That will take you back to original YouTube that came on the phone which works much better then their last update.