Watching YouTube videos while multitasking feels downright awful. Studies show that such multitasking can interfere with brain functions, but we still don’t want to experience FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). That’s why trying to fit your YouTube browser window into a certain corner of the screen almost always leads to disaster. Thanks to Chrome version 70’s built-in picture-in-picture support, that won’t be a problem anymore.
Forget third-party extensions or mess with experimental flags — Chrome’s support for picture-in-picture mode is ready to roll. But the ability to play video in picture-in-picture mode is still ‘hidden’, so let’s see where it is and what you should expect when using this amazing new feature.
Update Google Chrome
Picture-in-picture mode functionality is only available by default on Chrome v.70 and later, so make sure your browser is up to date. To do that, open the Chrome menu, point to Help, and then click About Google Chrome. If an update is available, the browser will automatically download it and prompt you to relaunch your browser.
Update? Then you are ready to go.
Start Picture-in-Picture mode
Turn on YouTube on Chrome, then play the video. Now right click anywhere in the playback pane – you will see a black menu show up but no option to launch the video in picture-in-picture mode. Weird.
However, right-click again and a completely different menu will show up. Looking closely, you’ll see a Picture-in-Picture option in the menu.
Just click it and you’ll see the video launch in a nifty picture-in-picture in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
You can then choose to resize the window (up to about a quarter of your screen) or place it anywhere in the screen and it will always stay on top of the other windows no matter what. How surprising!
Note:
If you’ve turned on Autoplay, the next video will start playing automatically without your input — the same goes for playlists.
However, you can’t play more than one picture-in-picture video at the same time — try doing it with another video and that will replace the video that’s playing. Regardless, that would be too good to be true, wouldn’t it?
Picture-in-Picture video control
The picture-in-picture window is pretty straightforward in terms of controls — you only have access to the Pause icon and the Exit icon. While that’s understandable, some other controls or at least a search bar would make a world of difference. And yes – you don’t have any indicator to check the progress of the video, which is stupid.
If you want to jump to a different part of the video, change the image quality, or do anything else, you need to use the controls on the actual playback pane itself. Although it appears blank when the video starts playing in picture-in-picture mode, it still has all the controls you’re familiar with. However, they feel rather odd to use when you have video playing elsewhere on the screen.
In the case of multiple YouTube tabs, there is a square indicator on the tab related to the picture-in-picture video. That is quite useful when you want to position the appropriate tab for control purposes.
Tip:
Other video streaming services
In addition to YouTube, Chrome’s picture-in-picture mode also supports a number of other video streaming sites such as DailyMotion and Twitch. And instead of having to do a double right click, most websites offer a one-click Picture-in-Picture option.
While there is no guarantee that it will work on all websites you come across, it is still worth checking out.
Hate double right click?
If you don’t like double-clicking, then the Picture-in-Picture extension will be quite useful. Unlike most Chrome Web Store extensions that claim to provide picture-in-picture functionality but are broken or outdated, Picture-in-Picture has been updated for Chrome v70 and works flawlessly.
Once installed, enable picture-in-picture when playing YouTube videos with just one click on the Picture-in-Picture icon in the URL bar.
The extension also works on other sites where Chrome offers native picture-in-picture functionality.
Congratulations, Google!
The latest Google Chrome add-on is awesome. You no longer need to mess around with tabs or stop watching videos just because you want to get work done. Yes, double right clicking feels awkward, and the lack of controls on the picture-in-picture pane can feel limiting. But with such extraordinary functionality, are you really complaining?
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
