YouTube TV Introduces Feature for Reducing Broadcast Delays, Crucial for Watching Live Sports
As the home of NFL Sunday Ticket, it behooves YouTube TV to stay as close to the live broadcast of a channel as possible.
Latency is a word no streaming customer wants to hear. That’s the technical term for the delay between a TV signal’s transmission and its reception by your device, and YouTube TV has a new feature available designed to help subscribers bring latency times down.
- YouTube TV’s ‘Reduce broadcast delay’ feature will help users bring their signal as close to live as possible.
- Reduce broadcast delay can be found in the three-dot more menu.
- As the NFL regular season is winding down and College Football Playoff approaches, cutting down on broadcast delays will be crucial for YouTube TV.
What is Reduce Broadcast Delay Feature?
YouTube TV’s new reduce broadcast delay feature allows the user to watch their given channel as close to live as possible. It’s the best way for viewers of live events to ensure they don’t see a critical moment 20-30 seconds after it’s occurred on the live broadcast.
To find the reduce broadcast delay feature, YouTube TV users need only click the three-dot more menu, select the “Broadcast Delay” option, and choose either “Decrease for 48 Hours” — which reduces broadcast delays for a two-day stretch — or “Default.” Currently, there is no option for subscribers to turn on the feature permanently.
There are definite trade-offs YouTube TV customers should be aware of before using the option to reduce broadcasting delays. The biggest one is that with less broadcast delay, there’s less time to buffer the signal from the channel being watched, which can lead to transmission interruptions. Default is the best option for minimizing signal interruption, while the reduced delay choice is best for watching as close to live as possible.
Lowering Latency Critical for Live Sports
Lowering the amount of time between the transmission of a signal and its reception is good for viewers of all live TV events, but especially live sports. YouTube TV experienced significant issues with latency during Super Bowl LVII in February, lagging around 54 seconds behind the live TV broadcast.
That, of course, means streaming audiences had to make sure they weren’t scrolling social media or reading texts from friends while watching, lest the action on their screen be spoiled by someone watching the live broadcast. With this year’s NFL playoffs approaching, as well as the College Football Playoff, it’s massive that YouTube TV is able to launch this reduce delays feature when it is.
It’s unfortunate that the feature wasn’t available earlier in the football season, however. YouTube TV is in its first year as host of NFL Sunday Ticket, and from a numbers standpoint it could have gone better. As of October NFL Sunday Ticket had only attracted 1.3 million customers, a far cry from the amount of users it will need to be a profitable acquisition for YouTube.
The ability to reduce latency is a highly valuable feature for YouTube TV customers nevertheless, and customers can look in the three-dot menu to find and test it out for themselves.
YouTube TV
YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service with more than 60 channels for $72.99/month. This plan includes local channels, 32 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs) in select markets. The service includes an unlimited DVR.