Here’s some good news for those spending huge data on video streaming on YouTube. The video sharing network has announced an ‘offline’ feature for its Indian users which let them download the video through their data plans or Wi-Fi and keep it with them for unlimited viewing for the next 48 years. The announcement has brought a big respite for the mobile users who had to spend big tariff on data if they utilize their data for watching videos on YouTube.
“If not fully but it will help them partially curb their data costs as the viewers would be able to watch the video unlimited for the next 48 years and that too at one time download,” quips Vikas Harwani a mobile store and data retailer having his shop near Janki Talkies in Nagpur.
But there’s a catch! This feature will not be applicable for all videos however. Only videos which enable this feature will be available for offline viewing. You will have to simply tap on the offline button under the video frame to download the video.
According to YouTube’s vice president of engineering, John Harding around 40 per cent of YouTube’s traffic in India comes from mobile devices. Content providers such as T-series, Saregama and Yashraj Films will have their content available in the offline-mode.
YouTube has around 10,000 films and 250,000 Indian songs. According to YouTube, Indian users watch around 5 billion videos on YouTube per month. It expects this number to keep growing and India is expected to be the second largest market for video content by 2015.
