YouTube is testing two new features that are aimed at helping creators and video uploaders spend less time when editing their videos. The first feature is an automatic video chapter creator and the second is a simple timestamp button, both of which are being tested right now with a small set of people.
Video chapters was first introduced back in May 29th, 2020, giving uploaders the ability to split their videos into distinct chapters, which viewers can quickly skip to when watching the video. Unfortunately, not many uploaders use video chapters as it adds time to the editing process.
YouTube wants to improve this with a new feature called automatic video chapters. What it essentially does is use machine learning to analyze the content in the video, looking for information such as text in the video, and then generate video chapters along with captions automatically.
If the feature works correctly, it can help creators save a lot of time while giving their viewers an easy way to skip to the content they want to watch. YouTube will offer be automatic video chapters as an optional feature, which is great.
The second feature is a rather simple quality of life update for users on the platform. YouTube is testing a new Timestamp button, and the way it works is when the user starts typing in, a new icon will pop-up which can be used to insert the current time of the video.
These two features are currently being tested on a small number of videos on the platform, and we expect YouTube to roll it out widely once the testing is complete and successful.