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Breaking: YouTube TV Testing Multiview Expansion for up to 5 News, Sports, Weather Channels at a Time

Matt Tamanini
Matt is The Streamable's News Editor and resident Ohio State fan. You can find him covering everything from breaking news to streaming comparisons to sporting events. Matt is extremely well-rounded, having worked for the Big Ten Conference, BroadwayWorld, True Crime Obsessed, and Land-Grant Holy Land before joining TS. He cut the cord in 2014, streams with a Fire TV, and his favorite titles include "The Bear," "The Great British Bake Off," "Mrs. Davis," and anything on the Hallmark Channel.
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Matt Tamanini

It has been a slow, but exciting tease over the past three months as YouTube TV has worked out the kinks of its new Multiview feature which allows customers to watch multiple streams at the same time. Tests originally launched in March in time for the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments and have happened occasionally in the subsequent months, with the ultimate goal of being ready for a full launch in the fall when the live TV streaming service becomes the new home for the NFL Sunday Ticket.

On Wednesday, the streamer announced that a small number of subscribers would be part of a test that would allow them to view up to five streams at the same time from across a variety of news, sports, and weather channels. Previous Multiview tests had been limited to two, three, or four simultaneous streams.

Following the original tweet announcing the movies, the service confirmed that it would be rolling out the streams gradually throughout the summer, so more information on what is included, and which customers will be able to see them, should be available in the coming weeks.

The picture-in-picture function is an extremely popular feature for sports fans, especially as they sit down to enjoy a Sunday afternoon of non-stop football action. However, the power required to stream multiple feeds at the same time far exceeds the capabilities of most smart TVs or connected devices. To minimize the technological requirements to stream multiple feeds at a time, YouTube TV is not allowing viewers to select the different channels that are a part of their Multiview feature. Instead, the service picks the channels to include and allows each viewer to pick the collection they want to watch.

This allows YouTube TV to turn the multiple channels into a single feed, eliminating the need for additional power on the user’s end. Sports-focused streaming service Fubo has long had a similar feature, but it had only been available to Apple TV owners. This week, however, the service announced that it was expanding its picture-in-picture functionality to [Amazon Fire TVs] and [Android TVs]. The original Multiview function allowed Apple TV users the chance to watch up to four streams, while the new Splitscreen function on Fire and Android TVs only allows for two side-by-side streams. Like its predecessor, this new option relies on the devices to provide the power needed to allow viewers to select the streams that they want to watch without any involvement from Fubo.

YouTube TV’s March Madness Multiview test was originally billed as being limited to a select group of users, but quickly expanded to all customers. Only time will tell how quickly the new five-stream option will be available to all YouTube TV subscribers, but more details will undoubtedly become available throughout the summer.

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Matt Tamanini
Matt is The Streamable's News Editor and resident Ohio State fan. You can find him covering everything from breaking news to streaming comparisons to sporting events. Matt is extremely well-rounded, having worked for the Big Ten Conference, BroadwayWorld, True Crime Obsessed, and Land-Grant Holy Land before joining TS. He cut the cord in 2014, streams with a Fire TV, and his favorite titles include "The Bear," "The Great British Bake Off," "Mrs. Davis," and anything on the Hallmark Channel.
Read full bio ›
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