How can you control your video viewing experience on YouTube?

Users watch more than one billion hours of videos every day on YouTube, which is a popular video-sharing and social media platform. It is a vast database of knowledge, fun, and a diverse range of other material. A user needs to be familiar with YouTube settings to fully utilize these resources. YouTube improves the quality of the video depending on the viewing circumstances to provide the user with the best viewing experience.

You can adjust numerous settings on YouTube videos to suit your preferences. You may easily adjust playback quality and quality, enable closed captions, change between full screen and theatre modes, and even watch in virtual reality while you are watching a video.

The speed of the internet connection, video player, screen size, and the quality of the originally uploaded video all influence the video quality. Higher-quality videos play better on large screens. A standard-definition video will not be accessible in high definition. When you are on a computer, TV, or mobile gadget, you may also adjust the video quality manually.

Control your video viewing experience on YouTube

To control the video viewing experience, you need to open a video of your choice on YouTube.

The video will start playing on the screen.

Optimize videos for quality or performance

Almost every YouTube video's quality may be adjusted with ease. YouTube makes a video accessible in varying resolutions depending on the speed and size of the internet connection when someone posts a high-definition video to the site. Try lowering the video quality to reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded if your connection or device slows down and the video, you are watching pauses to buffer. You can also try increasing the quality of the video looks grainy or blurry. You would not be able to view the video in HD if the person who created it did not post it in a high-definition format such as 1080p or better.

To change the quality, follow the steps −

Click the gear icon on the video, and select Quality.

Choose your preferred resolution. The higher the number of resolutions, the better the quality.

Watch in full-screen mode

On your computer, phone, or tablet, you may watch any YouTube video in full-screen, mini player, and theatre mode. the three options are available in every video.

Select according to your choice.

Click the dashed square at the bottom-right corner of a video to make it full screen.

The video is playing in full screen. To exit the full screen, just press the Esc key.

You may also select Theatre Mode, which enlarges the video without occupying your entire display. At the bottom of the video, beneath Theatre Mode, click a rectangle.

The video will start playing in theatre mode.

Click on default view to return.

You may also select the mini player mode which shrinks the screen size and minimizes the screen to the bottom right of the screen. that screen will keep on playing even if you are working on another window.

The video will start playing in a mini player.

Click on the arrow on the top left to return to normal view.

Watch with captions

Captions are useful whether you are deaf or trying to learn a new language, or simply watching a video without sound. This feature is very useful and most used. You can enable captioning for supported videos on mobile YouTube and the web, captions are not available for all videos.

To turn on the website, click or tap CC on the video. Click or tap CC again to turn captions on or off.

On a computer, click on the CC icon at the bottom of the video, select Subtitles/CC.

The red line is shown under CC, it is enabled now. You can see the subtitles in the video.

Speed up or slow down the playback speed

For videos that are progressing too slowly for your liking, you may easily speed up playback. When you need more time to digest information, you may also slow down videos.

Click the gear icon, select Playback speed.

Choose a speed.

You can also select the custom speed.

I have set it at .8x.

Loop videos to watch them on repeat

Loop plays your favorite videos repeatedly. You may automatically repeat any video after it has finished.

Right-click the video and select Loop.

You can see a tick is there, which means loop is enabled.

Cast videos on your TV to see them on a big screen.

You may watch YouTube on your TV easily if you own a Chromecast or Airplay-compatible television, streaming device, or gaming system.

On the video, just click or tap the Cast icon.

Choose your Chromecast-enabled device.

It will appear to be a square with three curved lines at the bottom-left corner.

To stop casting, click on casting icon and click on Stop Casting.

Autoplay videos

When you finish watching the current video, YouTube Autoplay begins playing a new one automatically. Autoplay videos help you discover additional material by linking to your viewing history.

You can see the icon in image below with small play button.

Autoplay is off now, as a pause sign is there on Autoplay icon.

Use Google Cardboard to experience virtual reality

You can watch VR180 and 360-degree videos in the mobile app if you have Google Cardboard. Tap the three dots in the top right corner of the video, pick Watch in VR or Watch in Cardboard, and follow the on-screen instructions to put your phone inside your Cardboard viewer.

Cardboard is a VR headset that is made from cardboard and is powered by VR. You can check it out at https://arvr.google.com/cardboard/get-cardboard But in the browser, you can see a directional arrow sign. You can drag and drop the mouse over the video, to see a three-dimensional video.

Tips

To prevent your viewing experience from being interrupted, click the video to pause when you change the viewing settings.

While streaming high-resolution video over a cellular network, be aware of your data restrictions. It is possible to use a large amount of bandwidth in a short time.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you can now watch YouTube videos in the quality that you want. Remember that you cannot watch a video in a higher resolution than the one it was uploaded in. This indicates that it is impossible to watch the video in 720p or 1080p if it was uploaded at 480p. It can be difficult to understand YouTube's video quality options at first. You can, however, watch videos that suit your preferences if you follow the tips above. So, just open the YouTube and get ready to change your viewing preferences accordingly.