YouTube is reportedly testing a new feature dubbed "Stable Volume," aimed at maintaining a consistent volume across different videos on its platform. The testing phase, which was discovered by a Reddit user, has been confirmed by YouTube and is being rolled out to users globally.
As the name suggests, the Stable Volume feature is intended to level the volume across YouTube videos, mitigating the issue of inconsistent volume levels. Sound leveling has been a common feature provided by several other media providers, including smart TVs, sound systems, and media players like Roku.
The Stable Volume feature's existence was highlighted when multiple users reported seeing the feature in their app. One of the users, M. Brandon Lee, a YouTube creator from the "This Is Tech Today" channel, speculated in a tweet that the feature might work as a normalizer and compressor to even out volume levels, avoiding significant volume jumps within and between videos.
YouTube now has a feature called “Stable volume.”
— M. Brandon Lee | THIS IS TECH TODAY (@thisistechtoday) July 15, 2023
I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I think it may be a normalizer and compressor that evens out the volume so you don’t have big jumps in volume between videos and even parts of a video itself.
May be problematic for music. pic.twitter.com/kh0IGoXmpe
A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the speculation, stating, "We are currently testing a new YouTube listening control feature that enables a more consistent sound for users when watching videos. The experiment is global and across mobile devices."
Users who have been granted access to the Stable Volume feature will find it on the video settings page in the YouTube app.
