YouTube Shorts Coming to Your Smart TV: All You Need to Know

YouTube Shorts is coming to smart TV screens with a player that is optimised for the big screen. Alphabet-owned YouTube has explained that the YouTube Shorts on TV will come with the video centered with a white border along with a background theme that is based on the Shorts clip’s main colour. The details about the particular Shorts will appear on the side of the video. A few months ago, YouTube Shorts got a new Green Screen tool that let creators remix their Shorts by adding clips from other Videos.

YouTube Shorts is launching for the big screen with a design that is created to help it adapt to for the TV screen, YouTube explained in a recent blog post. As mentioned earlier, the vertical Shorts will be placed towards the centre of the screen with a white border. The background theme of the screen will be based on the main colour of the YouTube Shorts clip.

Details of the Shorts including audio details, buttons to thumbs up/down, creator name, and overflow menu will appear on the sides of the video. “The customised Shorts experience delivers the best of both worlds: a clean design while making the most of the wide screen’s additional space,” the company said in the blog post.

YouTube Shorts on on a smart TV will not autoplay videos and users will have to manually go the next Shorts by using the remote.

The company tested multiple designs like the Jukebox style where multiple Shorts would fill the screen at the same time. This was ruled out as the design option strayed too far from the essence of Shorts, which features one video at a time.

YouTube Shorts will roll out over the coming weeks for smart TV models (2019 and later) and on newer game consoles.

The Shorts feature recently got a new Green Screen tool that let creators remix their Shorts by adding clips from other Videos in May. With this feature, creators can use up to a 60-second video from any eligible YouTube video or YouTube Shorts as the background for their new original Shorts video.