YouTube brings 4K thumbnails, and AI upscaling to the big screen

YouTube has recently announced a suite of new tools designed to enhance the viewing experience on television screens, introducing 4K thumbnails, AI-powered video upscaling, and improved shopping features. 

The updates come as the platform reports a 45% increase in the number of channels earning six figures or more from TV views in the past year.

According to a recent blog by YouTube, the video-sharing platform is expanding its thumbnail file limit from 2 MB to 50 MB, enabling creators to use ultra-high-resolution images that appear sharper on large screens. It has also begun testing larger video uploads with selected creators to support higher-quality original content.

YouTube is also rolling out an AI upscaling feature that automatically enhances videos uploaded below 1080p, improving them from standard to high definition (HD). The company plans to extend this capability to 4K resolutions in the future. YouTube said creators will maintain full control over their content, with the ability to opt out of upscaling to super resolution, and retain their original files and resolutions. Videos enhanced through AI will also be clearly labelled for viewers, as per YouTube.

YouTube is further redesigning how content is discovered and organised on TVs. A new immersive homepage preview will allow users to browse channels more easily, while the updated "Shows" layout will group videos into collections suited for longer viewing sessions. 

"We've also updated how content gets discovered with contextual search on TVs. When a viewer initiates a search from a creator's channel page, they will now see videos from the channel prioritized at the top of the results instead of getting lost in content from across all of YouTube," the company said in a blog.

Stating that viewers watched 35 billion hours of shopping-related videos on YouTube over the past 12 months, the company said it will soon allow users to scan QR codes on tagged shopping videos to instantly open product pages on their phones. YouTube added that it is also testing a feature that lets creators highlight products at specific, timed moments within videos.