Facebook announced some updates that will give Facebook users new ways to watch Facebook video. It appears that the idea is to give users more flexibility on how and when they watch videos on Facebook.
Previously, Facebook users would have videos in their News Feed that silently played. Those that wanted to hear the sound had to click on an individual video. The new update, which is slowly being brought to users, will have sound automatically start playing on the videos in your News Feed. The sound will fade in and out as you scroll through videos in your News Feed.
If you don’t like that idea, there is a way to disable it. Go into your Facebook Settings and switch off “Videos in News Feed Start With Sound.” If you view Facebook on your phone, and your phone is set to silent, the videos will not play with sound.
Facebook is now offering a larger preview of vertical videos in News Feed on mobile. The larger format is now available on both iOS and Android.
It is now possible to watch a Facebook video and scroll through your News Feed at the same time. Users can minimize the video that they want to watch to a picture-in-picture view that plays in the corner of the screen. Users can drag the video to any corner of the screen they want to. People who view Facebook on an Android device can keep the video playing as they exit the Facebook app to do something else on their phones.
The biggest part of the update is the announcement of a Facebook video app for TV, which will roll out soon to app stores for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung Smart TV (with more platforms to come.) This is an expansion upon an existing ability to stream videos from Facebook to your TV.
The Facebook video app for TV will let you watch videos shared by friends or Pages you follow. It will show you top live videos from around the world, and will recommend videos based on your interest. You can also catch up on videos that you’ve saved to watch later, or to revisit videos you already watched, shared, or uploaded.