YouTube for Android TV adds support for 8K videos

If you have an 8K smart TV, you can watch high-res content on YouTube. Here are other features from the latest update.

YouTube logo. (HT Tech)

YouTube is rolling out support for 8K videos for Android TVs running version 10 and above. The feature is available through the latest version, 2.12.08.

YouTube had added support for 8K videos back in 2015, long before 8K compatible devices were actually available widely. Five years later, 8K TVs are still a handful and very, very expensive. Nonetheless, the support allows the high-resolution format to be available as and when 8K TVs are available to more users across the world.

Apart from 8K videos support, YouTube's new version brings the support for Cast Connect. The update also brings improved resolution selection, and YouTube Music splash screen. Other improvements include fixing of incorrect date and time issues.

Interestingly, YouTube's changelog had initially featured support for AV1 HDR playback, but was later omitted to include the Cast Connect support, reports Android Police.

That said, YouTube has been working on a variety of features. Just recently, YouTube said it is testing a machine learning-based tool to help automatically generate video chapters. The tool is likely to help reduce stress on creators to manually add timestamps in their long-format videos.

Another new feature in the works is a new way to add timestamps in the comments section. The feature, currently being tested with a selecta group of users, shows a new icon as they are writing a comment. Users can then simply tap on the icon to create a precise timestamp in a video.