YouTube is using AI to change how videos look on your TV

If you spend a lot of time watching YouTube on your living room TV, it will soon look very different. This is because Google is about to roll out a major update for its YouTube app for smart TVs, aimed at enhancing video quality and the browsing experience.

YouTube announced all the changes it’s about to make in a recent blog post, with the highlight of the update being a new AI-powered feature called Super Resolution, which automatically upscales the video you’re watching to a higher resolution.

For example, if you’re watching a YouTube video on your TV that was originally uploaded in 480p, YouTube will use its new AI upscaling tool to increase the resolution to 1080p, making the video appear less pixelated on the big screen.

For now, YouTube says it will apply Super Resolution only to videos uploaded in 1080p or lower, such as 240p, 480p, or 720p, with plans to support 4K upscaling in the future. For creators concerned about the effect this AI upscaling tool could have on their videos, YouTube is thankfully giving them the option to disable it entirely. For viewers, when they check the video quality on their TV, any resolution with AI upscaling applied will be marked as Super Resolution, so if you still want to watch the video in its original quality, you can.

The YouTube homepage on TV is also evolving

Automatic video playback is coming, for better or worse

As part of this update, YouTube is also making changes to the homepage of its TV app that eerily remind me of other streaming services, like Netflix, by adding automatic video previews for channels you frequently watch or have been recommended.

“Viewers will be able to see and flip through their favorite YouTube channels with immersive previews on the homepage, enhancing content discovery and engagement,” explained Kurt Wilms, the senior director of product management for YouTube on TV.

YouTube is also updating how search functions in its TV app by introducing “contextual search on TVs.” Essentially, this means the search feature is now more intelligent and will display results that are better tailored to what you’re looking for. For instance, YouTube mentioned in its blog post that if you’re on a creator’s channel page and search for something, you’ll see results from that channel first before other content available on YouTube, making it easier to find a specific video from them.

Turning back to visual quality, YouTube is also increasing the thumbnail size limit from 2MB to 50MB soon, which will allow creators to upload higher-quality thumbnails for videos. Over time, this should improve how thumbnails look on TVs.

Looking ahead, YouTube plans to add new shopping features to its TV app that will include the ability to scan a QR code on your TV to open a product page and for creators to “feature products at specific, timed moments within videos.” To me, this seems like a way for YouTube to increase revenue rather than actually enhancing the app experience.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this update. While Super Resolution seems useful for improving the clarity of older videos, I’m still cautious about how AI upscaling might affect quality, with the potential for something like over-smoothing possibly ruining the look of older videos. But it’s too early to tell how it will look, and I can’t make a definitive judgment until I see it in action. And this might just be a personal thing, but I find the lower resolution quality of older videos charming, and it’s an easy way to tell they’re actually old. I don’t need to see “Me at the zoo” in 1080p.