YouTube is rolling out its in-app creation tools for Shorts videos to all US users, and adding four brand new features.
Following a beta launch in March, YouTube Shorts is now ready to be used by all users across the United States.
US creators can use the Shorts camera in the YouTube mobile app to record, edit, and publish small clips.
In addition to the new creation tools, new features are getting added to the Shorts camera that give users more editing options.
Here’s more about the new updates to YouTube Shorts.
Four New YouTube Shorts Features
60 Second Recordings
When recording videos with the YouTube Shorts camera, users can toggle between a maximum duration of 15 seconds or a maximum duration of 60 seconds. This greatly extends the length of YouTube Shorts videos, which previously capped out at 15 seconds.
However, when recording Shorts videos with music from the YouTube library, videos are still capped at 15 seconds. That must be a limitation of YouTube’s music licenses, because more than 15 seconds of music can be used if the creator owns the song.
Shorts Video Filters
YouTube creators will be able to switch to different filters in the recording and editing screens within the Shorts camera. Filters enable users to color correct footage or change the look & feel of a video.
This is just the beginning, YouTube says, as a much greater selection of filters and effects will be released throughout the year.
Video Captions
In an effort to make YouTube Shorts more accessible, creators can now add captions to their videos in two different ways.
Creators can either allow YouTube to add the captions automatically, which uses speech-to-text technology. Or creators can manually add their own captions.
Since speech-to-text technology is far from perfect, the ability to add manual captions can help clear up any inaccuracies.
Users will have the option to choose between manual and automatic captions when watching a video
Shorts Tab on Home Page
In the YouTube mobile app, users can explore more Shorts content via a new tab on the bottom of the screen.
The Shorts tab appears where the Explore tab once was. YouTube is not getting rid of the Explore section, it’s being relocated to the top of the screen.
With this update, Explore can now be found as the first topic at the top of the home feed. Explore will continue to be a place where users can discover content from up and coming creators, as well as trending videos and popular topics.
YouTube says Explore is a natural fit for the top of the app’s home page, which contains a selection of curated topics to help users discover content that may be of interest to them. Explore helps users in a similar way by surfacing trending content from creators they may not have seen before.
YouTube will soon be directing everyone to this new home for Explore, and will display in-app reminders while this adjustment is made.
In addition to the Short tab and YouTube home page, Shorts can be found on creators’ channel pages. Creators can continue to edit and upload Shorts however they prefer, the Shorts camera makes the process easier for people who are not well-versed in video editing.
Source: YouTube Creator Insider
