YouTube has been on a roll lately, testing and quickly introducing new features to consumers. The latest feature they are working on will make it easier to watch very lengthy videos on its platform both on the web and its apps. If you binge a lot of lengthy podcasts or storytime videos on YouTube, then this will be a welcome feature to you.
If you’ve been on YouTube for a while now, you may have noticed creators put timestamps on their descriptions to help you navigate their lengthy videos. These timestamps can also be seen on comments for those juicy parts.
YouTube has seen how these timestamps have been frequently used and they are now working on a new formating feature that will see them utilise Chapters on “a small selection of videos across Android, iOS, and desktop while we gather feedback.”
YouTube confirmed that these Chapters will appear at the bottom of the video player and use timestamps from the creator’s video description.
Some users have even begun seeing Chapters on select channels and are typically generated from timestamps the creator has provided. It looks like YouTube is using these timestamps to create the Chapters as videos without timestamps don thave Chapters included.
The difference between timestamps and Chapters is that they result in different separations along the scrubbing timeline. The name of the Chapter is revealed when you hover over one.
This is HUGE for YouTube! Look at the timeline!!! It takes the timestamps from my description and essentially turned them into chapter markers for the video! It shows the title of the section and how much you've completed! AMAAZING! pic.twitter.com/gEG5fYvoot
— Podcastage (@podcastage) April 12, 2020
Here’s the actual video to see Chapters in action:
Here’s how it looks on the YouTube app:
The change is probably a server-side update.
