YouTube TV is getting a price hike in the US, but hopefully, that means that the quality will be enhanced. Apparently, when it comes to features, this seems to be the case. If you’re an avid fan of sports, rejoice! YouTube TV is adding support for Multiview Streaming. That comes right in time for the NCAA March Madness games! The service is rolling out in early alpha and is available only for sports. With it, it’s possible to show up to four sports streams at once.
Multi-View support comes in time for March Madness
To access the new feature, you need to visit the “Top Picks For You” section. From there, you can pick from pre-chosen multiview groups. You can jump to a full-screen view for each match, and switch the audio and captioning to the stream that captures your attention.
The new YouTube TV feature offers support for all smart TVs and living room media players. The only thing you need to make sure is that your device can run YouTube TV. Anyway, your device doesn’t need to be so powerful to handle the new feature. According to the company’s German Cheung, the company moves the processing to YouTube’s servers. Your hardware only has to handle one feed regardless of how many streams you’re watching. Are you aware of cloud gaming? The feature seems to follow the same principle. The tech comes from YouTube’s co-streaming feature.
Worth noting that not all will get the feature right now. YouTube will be alerting lucky users with notification alerts and emails. Anyway, YouTube TV plans to deploy multiview streaming for all subscribers in the “coming months”. According to Engadget, the firm plans to expand the feature over time. It will also add the option to customize the stream selection. Of course, this is work-in-progress, so there is no actual forecast for the feature’s full availability.
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The timing of this feature is quite convenient for the US. After all, March Madness has just begun. Moreover, the MLB season will begin very soon. When it comes to content for streaming services, Sports is a predominant force. As result, giants like Netflix are trying to explore this segment, and YouTube also wants a good slice of this cake. YouTube TV can pose a threat to conventional TV providers. YouTube TV can sound like a more attractive deal for those who want a full-fledged service that offers multi-view support. Again, this is just the beginning. The feature has the potential to grow and become better until the next year. As for March Madness, the feature is really interesting and better than the official app. Right now, the official app only supports four-way streaming on the web. You’re limited to two streams elsewhere.
YouTube TV is more expensive
The feature comes shortly after another price hike for YouTube TV. Earlier this week, the company announced a price increase to $72.99 for new subscribers. That is an $8 increase from the $64.99 per month. Right now, the service is 114% more expensive than it was six years ago. The old price has been standing for the past three years. However, with the continuous changes in the economic scenario, we’re not exactly surprised to see a new price hike. The company is giving some time for old users to adapt. The new price will begin to apply only on April 18. The arrival of the Multi-View support seems like an incentive to keep users engaged with the app.
YouTube TV currently offers more than 100 TV channels. The company explained the price hike is because “content costs have risen”. Moreover, it is investing in its “Quality of Service”. The last sentence is actually a fact. After all, the company bought the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket from DirectTV. It will cost about $2 billion per year. Someone needs to pay this bill.