Tired of watching long videos when you just want to watch a specific scene? Well, YouTube has launched a video chapter feature on desktop, phones, and tablets.
YouTube started experimenting with the new feature back in April, but it has only now become official. The new feature breaks videos in sections and lets you pick exactly what you want to watch.
The ‘chapters’ feature on a desktop will be found on the video progress red line at the bottom of the video and it will have black breaks in it to show where each chapter ends and when a new one begins. When you place your mouse on the dotted or break lines you will be able to see different chapters.
The same method is also used on phones and tablet app for Android and iOS, but there is a catch. YouTube took note that your finger might be in the way of locating your chapters. The solution to this is you will feel a little buzz indicating when you are scrolling through chapters.
The sad part is that chapters are not automatically applied to all the videos, video makers will have to manually set up chapters themselves. The new feature relies on video makers on putting timestamps, the first chapter should begin at 00:00 and a title to go with the description, your video should have 3 timestamps that will last more than 10 seconds each. Then YouTube’s new feature will scrape that metadata to use for its new chapters interface.
YouTube stated that it will remind video creators about placing chapters during the uploading process to ensure that more videos have chapters moving forward.
According to The Verge, the idea of the chapter feature came from a ‘how to style video’ uploaded on the platform.