YouTube announces vertical video improvements to its mobile app, brand new VR format, and more

In a recent post on its official blog, YouTube has outlined all the new announcements it made at this year's VidCon, a conference dedicated to online video. 

The internet loves to hate on vertical video (and for good reason), yet somehow YouTube's mobile apps haven't exactly supported it that well: watching one outside of fullscreen is nearly impossible, as all video right now has a fixed vertical size, regardless of aspect ratio. This will be changing soon, however, as YouTube's mobile app will start resizing the player to fit the currently watched video (as seen to the right).

The big focus, however, was on the announcement of a brand-new VR video format, called VR180. Its defining characteristic is that it's only limited to 180 degrees of view (hence the name). What's most interesting here isn't the format itself, though, but the fact that YouTube has also committed to licensing it to camera manufacturers, with cameras from YI, Lenovo, and LG being expected to hit the shelves this winter.

Also, a new sharing feature previously soft launched to users in Canada will be making its way to Latin America and the U.S. soon. And last but not least, new markets for YouTube TV and a slew of YouTube Red originals were also announced. For the full info, however, make sure to head to the source link below.

source: YouTube