YouTube TV’s four-at-once multiview feature just got a lot more flexible, at least for basketball fans.
Starting now, YouTube TV viewers can pick and choose which games to put in YouTube TV’s four-up multiview format, although for now, your choices are restricted to NBA League Pass and NCAA college basketball games.
The timing for the latter couldn’t be better, given that March Madness is right around the corner.
This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best live TV streaming services.
Up until now, YouTube TV viewers who wanted to watch four games at once had to settle for “curated” multiviews, meaning it was YouTube TV that decided which games would appear in a multiview. The best you could do was pick which of YouTube TV’s “curated” multiviews you wanted to watch.
While YouTube TV’s new, more flexible multiview is limited to NBA League Pass and NCAA college hoops for now, YouTube says it hopes to bring the feature to “more live sports over the next few months.”
Of course, the live sporting event that’s looming this fall is the start of the 2024 NFL season, with gridiron fans itching to build their own NFL Sunday Ticket multiviews.
To get started building your own multiview, go to the YouTube TV home screen, click into a live game, click “Watch in multiview,” then click “Build a multiview.”
YouTube TV first launched multiview back in March 2023, just before last year’s NCAA basketball tournament.
The features allows YouTube TV viewers to watch up to four streams at once, complete with the ability to switch between the audio and closed captions for each stream as well as jump in and out of full-screen mode.
Initially, though, YouTube TV users could only choose pre-made multiview mixes from the “Top Picks for You” section. The reason, YouTube said, was that the technology required for multiview necessitates “high-end” user hardware.
Instead, the streamer decided to shoulder the multiview processing “on our side,” allowing YouTube TV users to employ multiview no matter what hardware they had.
That said, there are some hardware restrictions for YouTube TV’s multiview feature—namely, it only works on smart TVs and streaming players, not mobile devices or over the web.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.