Improving video awesomeness with one click

Whether you’re perfecting your double backflip at the park, capturing a flash mob on your phone, or enjoying singing in a subway, it’s not easy to get your video quality perfect. Sometimes videos suffer from symptoms like “shaky-camera-itis” or “augmented-darkness-levels” that keep viewers from seeing just how awesome your video really is. We made a big step last year with the YouTube Video Editor, and now we’re adding a feature that does the work of curing these symptoms for you.

If you upload a video that’s shaky or dark, we’ll automatically offer to fix it for you, creating an updated version of your video on YouTube.

When you upload a video that could use a fixup, you’ll see a notification bar on the Upload page and in your Video Manager. Click the button to fix it, and you’ll see a side by side preview to decide if you want to accept the edits.

Select “Okay” if you’d like us to update your video to the preview version (you can always undo this later). Even if you’re uploading a video from your mobile device, the Video Manager on the desktop will give you a notice if this video can be cured as well. Here’s an overview:



This breakthrough in video awesomeness is possible thanks to our research team who expanded on the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button launched last year, automatically detecting if stabilization or color correction would be helpful for you. The result is a one-click option rolling out over the next few days that cures these two symptoms now, and more planned in the future.

So you keep capturing those awesome moments, and we’ll keep on developing ways to help you make those videos even more awesome.

John Gregg, software engineer, recently watched “Panda,” and then watched “Panda (stabilized).”

Diagnose ads faster with new status insights icon

This week we're introducing a status insights icon in the Ads tab that provides visibility into the approval status and potential policy limitations for each individual ad creative. The new icon will be particularly valuable if you’re advertising products or services that are restricted by our advertising policies to show only in specific countries or with certain keywords.

To use the new status icon, simply hover over the speech bubble in the Status column of the Ads tab next to the ad of interest:


We’ll tell you if the individual ad is showing for the default keyword and location displayed in the hover. If you would like to re-diagnose the ad with with a different targeted location or keyword, you can edit the parameters from right within the hover:


This new icon complements the existing ad diagnosis tools, which include the status hover on the Keywords tab, a batch option to diagnose many keywords at once, and the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

Welcome to your new YouTube channel

Making it easier to connect with the content you love was the aim of the redesigned homepage and channel layouts we launched in December of last year. You can now start with a video you love, discover and follow a whole channel of great content from that creator or curator, and organize all the channels you love in a homepage that's always updated with the new videos you'll want to watch.

Since these updates, the data shows we’re onto something:

• Daily unique visits to channels have increased by 60 percent since December 2011
• Daily net subscriptions are up 50 percent since December 2011

Today is the next step in the new YouTube look and feel we launched in December, where all channels will be updated to the new layout. What does this mean for you? Well, for starters, you’ll now see every channel organized into one of four channel templates customized to suit different types of creators:



We’ve also built new ways to help you stay more engaged with the channels you love. For example, the Channel Feed shows you all the videos uploaded to a channel, as well as playlists and Liked videos across YouTube. The channel feed makes it clear what you’ll get if you subscribe. When you do, this feed will also be published on your homepage so you can keep up with all the latest activity from your favorite channels.



On the topic of features — a big thank you for all your feedback that we’ve incorporated over the past six months. You’ve helped us learn what works and what needs improvement as we evolved the design over time. Your feedback continues to drive updates and new features, and for all of you creators, here are a few updates to note:

• You wanted the ability to feature content prominently so we added a Featured tab and subsequently improved it with more templates and a search feature to help you program it more easily
• You told us having Favorites more accessible was important to you, so we turned it into a customizable part of your channel
• You wanted to link your +Page or your Google+ Profile to your channel, so we added this option

If you’re a YouTube creator, check out our post from last week with tips on making your channel look awesome, as well as the YouTube Creator Blog for regular updates on ways to improve your channel and connect with other creators.

The YouTube Team

Looking ahead in the YouTube player

Pssst! We’ve got a surprise — we want to give you a sneak peek to videos on YouTube.

Years ago we created a way to link to a certain moment on a video, which let you find, share and comment on just your favorite parts. Now we’re expanding that control even more. Over the coming weeks, you’ll be able to see an image preview or a series of thumbnails with three new features on our video player. So whether you’re sneaking a peek ahead, scanning backwards, or using a thumbnail to find where you stopped watching a video, you’ll soon have three options to instantly look through YouTube videos. Here’s how each works:

Taking a sneak peek
So excited (or maybe so scared) that you want to find what happens later in the video? Hover your mouse over the seek bar and a thumbnail of that moment will appear, and you can click to start watching from that moment.

Scanning through thumbnails
Let’s say you started a video but had to come back and finish it later. You thought you were the middle of the video when main character looks dramatically into the camera, or maybe it was the shocking look from the supporting character a few seconds ago. Now you can drag the handle along the seek bar to show a filmstrip of thumbnails of previous and upcoming scenes.

Zooming in on long videos
If you’re watching a video that’s longer than 90 minutes, like one of the growing list of movies on YouTube, you’ll see an added feature that lets you zoom in on the seek bar, one and a half minutes at a time. This second bar that appears gives you more granularity for finding that exact moment you want on a long video. Check out Life in a Day to see how it works.

With an hour of video uploaded to YouTube every second, we’ve got a lot of sneak peeks to get ready on YouTube, and not every video will have this feature available at launch. Let us know what you think as you start seeing these features around the site.

Nundu Janakiram, product manager, recently watched “Brush With Death.”

How to upgrade to the new YouTube channels look

You work hard on your channel and your videos, so we’re doing the same on making channels look their best on YouTube. That’s why in December, we launched an updated look and new templates for channels, as well as features across the site to keep you better connected with the channels you enjoy.

Like a great symphony, these channels and features work best when everyone is playing on the same page. So that’s why we’re encouraging you to update your channel to the new look, and by March 7 we’ll be updating everyone. If you have a YouTube channel and 15 minutes today, select the “Try the new design” button on the top of your channel page that will give you step-by-step instructions for updating.

The step-by-step was a good start, but I want more info. Whatcha got?

• Use this Checklist to make sure you have the main parts of your channel covered
• Want to do more? The YouTube Creator Playbook has a special section just for improving your channel, as well as a ton of YouTube tips from the best in the biz
• Still have questions? Stop by the Help Center for more answers

Why the change?
We know how hard it is to find great content on YouTube (you’re uploading 60 hours of video per minute), so when viewers find your channel we want to help you keep them there, and keep them coming back. All uploaders are not the same, so now you have four different templates to best suit your needs: Creator, Blogger, Network and Everything. With the old design, it wasn’t always easy for viewers to browse your channel. However, we loved parts of the old channels design too (heck, many hours and Red Bulls were consumed to build it), like your ability to feature content. So we’ve enabled a new Featured Tab that offers you the ability to keep doing that.

I’m freaking out — please don’t change this!
We know change is never easy, especially when it’s something you’ve spent lots of time and effort on. Even more, there are human beings at YouTube who look at every piece of feedback, bucket them into categories, and work with product teams to address them each week. So whenever you see a blue "Send Feedback" link, know that that's not some decorative ornament. It's for real. So give your feedback because we (humans) need it to keep creating ways for YouTube to showcase your channels.

The YouTube team

Captions for all: more options for your viewing and reading pleasure

Since we first announced caption support in 2006, YouTube creators have uploaded more than 1.6 million videos with captions, growing steadily each year. We’ve also enabled automatic captions for 135 million videos, more than tripling the number of captioned videos available since July 2011. YouTube and Google’s video accessibility team have been hard at work, and we wanted to let you know about some of our progress over the past few months:

For YouTube viewers

More languages: We now support automatic captions and transcript synchronization in Japanese, Korean, and English. Speech recognition for those languages makes it easier for video owners to create captions from a plain transcript. Video owners can also add captions and subtitles in 155 supported languages and dialects, from Afar to Zulu. In Movies and Shows, you can even find out which subtitle languages are available before deciding to rent.

Search for videos with captions: Looking for that great quote from a video on YouTube? Add ", cc" to any search, or after searching, click Filter > CC to only see results with closed captions.

Caption settings: While watching a video, you can change the way the captions look by clicking on the “CC” icon and then the “Settings...” menu item. This includes changing the font size or colors used, and we’re planning to make this available on other platforms and add more options soon.

Broadcast caption support: If the channel owner provides a video caption file in a broadcast format, we now support its position and style information, just like you’d see on TV. This means the text can appear near the character who is speaking, italicized to indicate an off-camera narrator, or even scrolling if the original captions were generated in a real-time mode. Check out this little demo from CPC to see how it looks, or even watch a rental movie with captions like those available from The Walt Disney Studios.

For YouTube creators

More supported formats: YouTube now supports many of the common caption formats used by broadcasters, such as .SCC, .CAP, EBU-STL, and others. If you have closed captions that you created for TV or DVDs, we'll handle the conversion for you.

MPEG-2 caption import: If you upload an MPEG-2 video file that contains closed captions with CEA-608 encoding, we'll import the captions along with the video and create YouTube captions. For example, the nonprofit organization Public.Resource.Org recently added thousands of public domain videos with closed captions to YouTube, coming from government agencies like the National Archives. Here’s some insight from Carl Malamud, President, Public.Resource.Org:

Many of the DVDs and VHS tapes lying around in our vaults and attics--particularly those that were produced by governments and others that care about accessibility of their videos--already have Closed Captions embedded in them. Pulling that information out automatically and making it visible on YouTube means that these videos will continue to be accessible to new generations of viewers.

Along with the millions of people like myself who rely on captions and subtitles, we were very encouraged when the Federal Communications Commission published rules governing closed captioning requirements for video on the web, whether that’s to your computer, tablet, phone or other device. We hope these new regulations will drive captions closer to becoming ubiquitous for video everywhere, and in the meantime we’ll keep developing more ways for you to enjoy all the great channels on YouTube.

Ken Harrenstien, software engineer, recently rented “Cars 2” and was ecstatic to see its awesome captions.

Four new Indian languages on YouTube: Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu

YouTube opened its doors in India in May 2008, and since then we’ve been working to make YouTube accessible for the entire Indian population — and its 30 regional languages. Beyond Hindi and English, we’ve added Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, and Tamil over the years, and today we’re welcoming four more to YouTube.

Now you can navigate the site in Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu, which are spoken by almost 200 million Indians. This also brings the total of available languages on YouTube to 58.

For Telugu, we have more than 100 films of Tollywood cinema, as well as partners like vegetarian cooking channel Gayatrivantillu who make videos for the web and have a growing global audience. For Kannada, Shemaroo Kannada and Anand Audio bring you music, drama, comedy and more to your homepage guide. Fans of Malayalam cinema should check out channels like Metro Matinee Videos and Hungama Malayalam. When it comes to news, YouTube’s partners like TV 9 provide news in both Kannada and Gujarati, and TheTimesKerala offers clips in Malayalam.

Gujarati	Kannada
Malayalam	Telugu

We hope this helps even more of you enjoy channels on YouTube in your native language, as we work to make the site accessible around the world.

Aditi Rajwanshi, YouTube India partner manager, recently watched "Chutney for Idli, Dosa, Upma, Vada etc."

YouTube Release Notes: More ways to communicate

You keep adding and watching more videos, so we’re working to keep adding more ways for you to watch, share and enjoy the channels and videos on YouTube. This week in Release Notes we’ve got a new way to promote your Google+ profile on YouTube, more options in the Annotations Editor, posting to your Channel Feed and more.

Google+ profile on YouTube channel
Want to share your Google+ profile or Google+ Page on your YouTube channel? We’ve added a feature to let you promote your presence on G+. We’re looking for other ways to bring the benefits of Google+ to your YouTube channel, so as always please give us your feedback!



Post videos, playlists to your own feed
You can now share videos and playlists in your Channel Feed by posting a Channel Bulletin. When you’re on your Feed tab you’ll see a box “Post to Feed,” where you can enter a comment and add a link to share a video or a playlist. When you’ve posted the bulletin, it will show up in your Channel Feed with your comment below the video. Viewers who are subscribed to your channel will be notified when you post to your feed in their homepage feed.

 

Homepage and Channel Feeds
After experiments and lots of your feedback, we’re releasing an update to how events are displayed in the feed. The update focuses on three main changes: (1) the video title is more prominent for upload and sharing events, (2) aggregated events now feature a “+more” button which will bring more attention to the event than the previously smaller notification and (3) adding videos to a playlist has a new cleaner styling.

Before:                                                                        After:
 

Annotations
Customizing your videos is easier with our new annotations features. We’ve been adding more options to the Annotations Editor like a new annotation type, a full color palette and a new timeline. We’ve also added annotation styles, which lets you choose a templated design to apply to your videos. You can quickly pick a design for your annotation and apply it your video. Start using these today in the Editor by clicking the arrow next to any upload in the Video Manager.



The YouTube Team recently watched, “KevJumba vs. NY Yankee Nick Swisher Ping Pong FaceOFF.”

Check out the new Video Manager

You put a lot of work into your videos, so we’re putting a lot of work into making sure they look their best on YouTube. Today we’re rolling out an updated Video Manager with some new features that’ll help you handle all your videos. To try out the new design, go to the Video Manager and click “try it now.”

Highlights of the new Video Manager are:

• Simplified top and left navigation bars to help you get to the tools you need more quickly
• Icons to indicate privacy status, if monetization is enabled and scheduled publish status
• Badges to indicate whether videos are HD, Creative Commons and/or captioned
• A new look that’s consistent with our fresh coat of digital paint

We also cleaned up our suite of editing tools and improved the navigation used to get between these tools:

To learn more, watch this video walkthrough or check out our Help Center.

Have feedback? On the left side of the page click the “send feedback” button, where we’ll be reviewing all of your comments on the design. We’re planning on fully releasing this interface early next year, so submit your ideas before then. You can also share your thoughts in our forum.

Dan Auclair, Web Developer, recently watched “Halloween Light Show 2011 - Party Rock Anthem.”

Get more into what you love on YouTube with our new look

From your favorite sports highlights and dance competitions to make-up tutorials, science experiments and great movies, there’s a ton of great stuff on YouTube — over three billion views worth per day by last count. More and more, behind every great video is a great Channel, and with our announcement last month that more of them are coming to YouTube, we want to make it easier for you to find and keep tabs of what you want to watch.

So, today we're introducing a new homepage, Channel design and a fresh coat of digital paint. Here are three ways these updates will improve your life on YouTube:

1. A new homepage
The YouTube homepage is your gateway to a vast entertainment universe. To help you get more into YouTube, we’re making it easier to find and follow great Channels when you arrive. On the left side of the homepage you can create your own, personal, customizable YouTube Channel line-up. Sign-in, or create a YouTube account. Then you can browse recommended Channels; customize your homepage’s feed; even link your YouTube account to Google+ and Facebook to see what your friends are sharing. The new homepage feed we launched earlier this year is now front and center on the homepage. You can switch between feeds by clicking on different Channels on the left.

For step by step instructions on using the new YouTube homepage, you can go to our help center.

2. Simpler, customizable Channels
Given the homepage’s new focus on helping you find and organize your favorite Channels, we would be remiss if we didn’t update the look and feel of the Channels themselves. Today we're launching an improved Channel design focused on what matters most: helping users find great videos. As different uploaders have different goals, we've created new Channel templates to meet your needs whether you produce one video a week or have thousands of videos for a fan to browse. Some partners have even uploaded videos talking about the features, or giving tips on how they’re taking advantage of the new design. To learn how to opt-in to and test this new Channel design, check out our help center.

3. A new overall design
To bring the new homepage and Channels designs together we’ve also applied a fresh coat of digital paint across the whole site. In July, we unveiled an experimental design called Cosmic Panda. We’ve used your feedback to improve our overall design, and today, we’re presenting a cleaner and simpler YouTube, with a consistent gray background, bigger video thumbnails and a more streamlined watch page.

Ready to get started? Your new YouTube is already shipped and waiting for you at YouTube.com, and like every new toy, we included an instruction manual (and video) to help.



Our recent Channels expansion, our grants and educational programs, and this new design are all focused on helping you discover a broader range of entertainment on YouTube. We’re always innovating and testing new stuff out to make the experience the best it can be for you. We rely on your feedback to figure out when we've gotten it right and when it needs further tweaks. So let us know what you think.

The YouTube team