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YouTube HDR content is finally available!
You will find a playlist here. However, these clips will be played as SDR on Sonys for now.
With youtube-dl you can find vp9.2 encodings for those clips:
330 webm 256x144 144p60 156k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 2.38MiB 331 webm 426x240 240p60 256k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 3.87MiB 332 webm 640x360 360p60 485k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 7.35MiB 333 webm 854x480 480p60 909k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 13.83MiB 334 webm 1280x720 720p60 1991k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 28.18MiB 335 webm 1920x1080 1080p60 3201k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 49.70MiB 336 webm 2560x1440 1440p60 11166k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 170.23MiB 337 webm 3840x2160 2160p60 20122k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 335.45MiB
Those are webm however which the native Video app won't play.
We will see whether we will get support for it soon, even for the early 2016 models with the old MediaTek SoC from last year. At least Sony promised that back at CES:
You people still don't get it????
This is as much browser as the Opera one
What is being run on the TV is the Cobalt browser.
This is not a new app!
Or update!
They killed off the YouTube app and replaced it with a shortcut for www.yoytube.com/tv see for yourself. It's the same horrible stock YouTube that u can find in 80$ Xbox 360 lol
This is just beyond me...
This is a site ...
Running on a browser window.
No 4k, no HDR, no multiple accounts options. Not blending anymore with the Android Material UI...
Awful surprise...
This has to be reported imediatelly to Sony
They promised us HDR but this site won't be able to deliver
They gotta put pressure on Google!
There is nothing wrong about a web view IMHO. Netflix is one too.
2.0 UI actually follows the material design guidelines. 4K/HDR and web view don't exclude each other. It is just a matter of the underlying player.
Given the number of platforms that content providers have to support nowadays, I would also do an easily portable web view. The reason why YouTube is ***** on Android TV is because the platform is not a significant at all. Google clearly prefers their own Chromecast device. What I don't get is why Google puts new stuff on competing platforms from LG and Samsung months before it arrives on Android TV. Suppose money has something to do with it. Clearly Android TV does not receive much love, hence the state we are currently experiencing...
I actually don't mind too much about the design guidelines. I don't think YouTube 2.0 is too bad from a UI point of view.
Android TV has much bigger problems with respect to consistent controlling and UI. Just look at Sony's tuner integration, DISCOVER and ACTION menus... or Amazon Video...
The problem content providers have to face is that they have to support a bunch of platforms with different UI design guidelines. They can't afford to reinvent the wheel for all of them. Plus they probably want to impose their own design guidelines and provide a consistent experience across platforms.
Probably one expects more from YouTube as it is a Google service on a Google OS. They however chose the "consistent UI across platforms" idea which is well understandable IMHO. The missing features and bad video playback performance are indeed a no-go though. Plus the fact that other platforms receive much more care by Google than their own TV platform.
I believe you can uninstall the update and revert to the previous version of YouTube, if you desire. At least until YouTube develop it better.
I guess you would also have to disable auto-updates in the play store too.
Yes. You can revert to the default/stock version which has been installed with the firmware I believe. Just go to the Play Store, search for YouTube and choose to uninstall updates.
Honestly, Sony Android TV is broken in so many ways, YouTube UI is really the smallest issue. I can enumerate lots of reasons why it is not worth the money. My review covers a lot of them. I am certainly not the devil's advocate. But connecting the price we paid with the UI of an app you don't like goes too far in my opinion. I agree though that the app needs serious fixing and is in a bad state today.
I can't really understand your arguments concerning design. You want to have the material design on Android TV, but you are totally OK with Tizen, webOS, Firefox OS, Xbox, PS,... not receiving an updated UI which fits the respective design guidelines of those platforms? So there would probably be more platforms to adapt than those 3 that you just mentioned.