Probably working on removing the option to choose quality altogether

Sep 13, 2013 08:01 GMT  ·  By

YouTube has rolled out a new set of compact controls for the video player, which you've probably noticed by now, since they're used both on the site and in the embedded player.

Now, instead of separate controls for player size, quality, and annotations, you only get one gear button that contains them all.

"Notice something a little different about YouTube videos? We've just launched a new version of the player with improved caption controls and a cleaner look," YouTube announced.

"If you're looking for the annotations switch, just click the gear button - you'll find size and quality controls there too," it added.

What this means is that all the features people use are now harder to reach. If you want to disable annotations, since the vast majority of them are annoying and spammy, you'll have to first click the gear icon and then on the Annotations button.

Same goes for the video quality button. If you're not satisfied with the poor quality that YouTube picks by default, you'll have to make a couple of clicks just to do that. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that you'll get the better quality video, thanks to YouTube's adaptive streaming technology.

The new controls are available for the HTML5 player as well as the Flash-based one. They show up on YouTube.com, as well as on all embedded videos. Google has been testing the compact controls, but it went from small scale experiment to full roll out almost instantly.

As for why would YouTube purposefully make it harder to reach the controls without the change having any benefit, well, that’s not easy to answer. The "cleanness" of the player is obviously a misdirection, as no one was feeling overwhelmed by having a few buttons where it makes sense to have them.

However, the change does make sense if the plan is to remove the quality options altogether, as the Google Operating System speculates. This way, the quality of the video would vary automatically, based on bandwidth available, player size, and so on.