YouTube is testing multiple audio tracks, Courses, searches across video transcripts

Google mentioned that it is developing a way that will make the search on YouTube videos easier. It will also integrate the ability to create educational courses. These educational courses will have several audio tracks. Thus, making it easier to present content in different languages. The features are in the testing phase, so they are not completely available to all users.

The company states that it is piloting a new feature that will enable users to search in a video via its Search app. Let’s say you Google something and end up with video results. You can tap on the “search in video” button. This button enables the users to type in a phrase to view if the audio transcript has that particular phrase or not. According to Google India, if the video contains that phrase, users will be taken to that exact moment where the phrase is quoted in the video.

Searching through a video via its auto or manually-generated transcripts is not a new feature. Desktop provides this feature for quite some time now. Although, the desktop feature was a manual process. It required opening the video and transcript followed by utilizing the browser’s search on-page function. As of October 2021, YouTube announced that it will introduce a similar feature for its mobile app. The ability to view the transcript has been rolled out on iOS and Android. Whereas the ability to search is not available on a mass scale.

Furthermore, the company has announced another feature named Courses. This feature will permit the creators to sell a series of educational videos and supplemental materials like PDFs or images. The supplemental material would be available under the particular videos. Using the Courses feature YouTubers might be better equipped to compete with other educational services like Skillshare, MasterClass, and others. Although they could be provided free of charge based on the specialized UI.

Furthermore, Google is making efforts to offer wide availability of Videos and Courses across different languages. It will introduce the capability of multiple audio tracks in different languages. This feature is similar to the one provided by other streaming services and movies. As per the company this feature is in the beta testing phase in collaboration with some healthcare companies and hospitals in India. It operates in a similar manner to the captions system. Click on Settings, and then on the Audio Track menu. You can select any preferred language from the list.

Google mentioned that the tests involve third-party AI translation and dubbing services. Although YouTube already has the auto-transcribe and translate captions feature. So, it won’t be surprising if in the future we come across a built-in text-to-speech feature.

The features were announced at the Google for India presentation. However, this is uncertain whether the ability to search across YouTube transcripts will be available on the YouTube app or it will be limited to the Google app.