A relatively new feature in OTT is Pinch-to-Zoom. It enables a user on a touch screen device to make a digital Zoom-in and Zoom-out with the fingers touch during the reproduction. This feature can be useful while watching some assets when at a certain time the user wants to enhance a detail on the screen or part of the screen. Examples of such moments are streams of sport or cultural events or assets at which the camera is static because the programme producer does not have a person who would do the zoom at the moments when it would be beneficial to the customers.
Youtube has tested the Pinch to zoom functionality in a limited group of users by the early September in order to improve the quality of that functionality prior to its release to production. Later during 2022 is enabled the features to its users.
This functionality is easily activated such that the user during a reproduction in Fullscreen on a mobile device with a touchscreen, pinches the screen, touching it with two fingers and widening them to zoom in or pulling them together for zoom out. The calibration of zoom is stopped when the user removes their fingers from the screen.
Technically, it was possible to earlier implement and release Pinch to zoom on leading OTT platforms, but it was not prioritized earlier due to other more promising features in the product backlogs primarily related to the increase of asset reproduction quality. Nowadays as mobile 4G networks are widespread and as 5G mobile networks and devices are increasingly present, features such as Pinch to zoom have started to appear in order to enrich the user experience on higher bandwidths.