YouTube TV

YouTube TV gets progressive fast-forward, bigger thumbnails, UI refresh, more

Ben Schoon | Jul 1 2019 - 10:25 am PT

Over the past week, YouTube TV has started a wide rollout of an updated “Now Playing” UI on all platforms. The new YouTube TV UI brings larger thumbnails, progressive fast-forward, and more to whatever you’re watching on the service.

This updated interface for YouTube TV only affects the “Now Playing” screen. In other words, the UI elements that appear when scrubbing through or interacting with a show or movie that you’re watching. From what we can tell, the update is rolling out to all platforms including Android TV, Roku, Apple TV, consoles, and more. Apparently, 50% of users were getting the updated UI as of the end of last week.

What’s changed in this new UI for YouTube TV? Firstly, those using the service will notice that the interface around their content is less obtrusive. The bottom portion of the display only shows a seek bar, the name of the program, the rating, and a few other small buttons. It’s a much cleaner look now that the recommendation row along the bottom has been buried.

However, nothing has been removed. Scrolling down within the interface reveals the program information, and there’s a “Networks” section for seeing what else is on TV. Another section, “More to Watch,” will show recommendations for similar content available on-demand.

The biggest update for YouTube TV with this new UI, though, is how it treats seeking within a program. Preview thumbnails have increased in size considerably, and scrolling itself is now faster. This YouTube TV update delivers progressive fast-forward, which means holding down the button for longer will skip portions of the program faster. Specifically, it will skip 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and 1 minute the longer you hold down the button. It makes skipping commercials or longer portions of the program considerably easier than before.

As previously mentioned, this update is rolling out to all YouTube TV users on all platforms. If you’ve not gotten it yet, one trick that seems to be working for some subscribers is to uninstall and reinstall the application.