Apart from entertainment, YouTube is also an effective learning tool, thanks to the tons of educational and instructional videos that can make an expert pianist out of nothing, literally. As if the videos weren’t addictive already, YouTube includes some little-known tricks that help the real YouTube to addicts stay entertained, even when not actually checking out videos. Like its parent company, Google, YouTube developers often incorporate fun pieces of code that let users play with its interface. Here, we sample 5 of the most interesting YouTube tricks for taking your YouTube experience to the next level.
1. On-site Video Editor
If you regularly upload videos to your channel or are looking to start uploading, YouTube has made this process a tad easier for you. Instead of editing your videos on an expensive third-party application like Final Cut, you can use YouTube’s own on-site editor to trim or lengthen clips, add effects, music, or even add extra clips to an existing video. You can also create videos without worrying about compatibility and also use soundtracks and music from a huge selection of songs. To use this feature, simply head over to your account, upload a video, and activate the video editor. You can choose from a wide variety of tools to easily customize your videos and experience on YouTube.
2. “Use the Force Luke”
Typing this phrase into YouTube’s search bar will literally make you feel dizzy. In keeping up with Google’s famous doodles (recall “Google gravity”), YouTube incorporates its own set of doodles – called Hunt the Easter Eggs – that help you kill time without actually navigating away from the site. This YouTube doodle shifts the contents of the page randomly, which is actually the closest YouTube comes to getting drunk. You can use your mouse pointer to shift contents around if you want more chaos. One caveat, though: if nausea comes easily for you, this will definitely do a number on you.
3. YouTube TV
Watching standard YouTube videos on regular TVs can be a pain. You have to stay really close to the TV to watch videos or make adjustments to the videos. YouTube TV (formerly Leanback) is a cool YouTube user interface that can be used to watch and control YouTube videos on your TV screen. YouTube TV displays full-screen videos that have been adjusted for bigger screens, giving you the same experience you’d get from watching regular TV or movies on your TV screen. You can also pair your TV with an android or iOS mobile device to control the videos, which is pretty awesome for those of us with a deep relationship with the couch.
4. Customize Playback Settings
One of the reasons why YouTube is such as popular social platform is its user-friendly and feature-filled interface. One of its recent updates enables you to deactivate captions and annotations that usually appear during playback. These can sometimes get annoying because they tend to create unnecessary distractions during playback. You can remove these by navigating to your YouTube account and selecting the Playback option. You can then hide or unhide annotations, in-video notifications, and captions during playback. Early versions of YouTube also let you set video quality preferences from your account, but these have since shifted to the video playback menu for each YouTube video.
5. YouTube Live Stream
Since its launch in 2011, YouTube live streaming has been undergoing changes to improve user experience and compete with the likes of Facebook Live. If you haven’t tried YouTube’s live streaming feature yet, you are missing out on a whole world of opportunity. Contrary to popular belief, this feature isn’t restricted to news channels and other commercial outfits. It is an awesome platform for vlogging and broadcasting live events on personal channels. Live streaming has become significantly important for YouTube YouTube’s inbuilt features are always receiving tweaks and updates, so be sure to check out YouTube’s community and help center regularly for the latest tips and tricks. And if you are looking to further customize your experience on YouTube, there are a handful of third-party applications you can use to perform a variety of functions. Some enable you to slow, fast-forward, or repeat YouTube videos. Others enable you to download YouTube videos or convert them to other formats such as GIF. While many work well for the specific task you want them to accomplish, a number of them can be quite disappointing.To protect yourself from mediocre apps on your YouTube channel, read the software reviews and use the trial versions before making a purchase