What Are YouTube Chapters?
Chapters are a relatively new feature for YouTube, having launched to the public in May 2020. They break a video up into sections, which gives context to the video and allows the viewer to jump to a specific part.
As a viewer, you will see the chapters represented in the video progress bar on both desktop and mobile. Hover or scrub the progress bar to see the different sections and a thumbnail preview.
Until now, chapters had to be manually added to a video by whoever uploaded it. It involves adding a list of timestamps and the respective titles for those sections.
In order to use the feature, a video must have at least three timestamps and each chapter must be at least ten seconds in length.
AI Can Now Add Chapters Automatically
As detailed on the YouTube Community, the product team are experimenting with a feature that automatically generates video chapters.
This means that creators don’t have to manually add chapters to the video once it has uploaded, which could be a great time saver.
The chapters are automatically added by machine learning, which recognizes text within the video. As such, if you’re an organized editor who already includes title scenes within your video, you should benefit well from this new feature.
The feature is currently being tested on a few videos, though no examples are provided on the update post.
If your videos are included in this feature and you wish to opt out or provide feedback, you can do so via this Google Form.
Undoubtedly, the feature isn’t going to be smooth from day one. Nonetheless, it sounds like an excellent innovation from YouTube. The company already uses automatic generation in other areas, like video captions and translation, so it makes sense that it would roll out to video chapters too.
Easily Bookmark and Share YouTube Videos
In recent years, you may have noticed a trend of YouTube videos getting longer. That’s because creators make more money the longer their videos are. As such, features like chapters, along with the ability to bookmark and share specific sections of videos, are vital for easier viewing.
