Twitch is trialling a new feature that will let viewers rewind livestreams.
It'll pop the stream back by two minutes, letting you scrub through whatever happened during that time at a variety of playback speeds. It'll handily carry on playing the current livestream picture-in-picture too, so you won't be endlessly catching up (thanks, The Verge).
It's undeniably a useful feature but can bring privacy concerns. IRL streamers—those who stream out in public like Jake'n'Bake—expressed worries that it could be used to analyse streamers' locations. The privacy concerns are certainly valid in the recent context of hate raids but, thankfully, if you have VODs disabled, it'll knock the ability to rewind off as well.
🔬 Over the next month, some viewers may see up to 3 new buttons on live channels pages: Rewind the Stream, Remind Me, & Watch Trailer. This experiment will inform future features only and the buttons will be removed once it’s complete.For feedback: https://t.co/52L43BAJszOctober 20, 2021
Rewind is being rolled out to a small handful of users, along with two other buttons. A reminder button will push out a notification to remind you of an upcoming scheduled stream. The watch trailer button rather aptly lets you watch a streamer's channel trailer if they have one. All three features will be trialled for around a month, after which Twitch will remove the buttons.
Currently, the main ways to flick back through a stream is either through clips or the VODs themselves, both of which can be a pain to use at times. I've stepped away from my screen on a few occasions and missed a great moment on-stream, so this is a feature I'm excited about.
