HBO’s marketing team can take a break, because one enthusiastic Game of Thrones fan is helping them do their job. Recycling the season 7 footage released so far, YouTube user Sebastian Hughes has created the “ultimate trailer” — a preview that absolutely lives up to its name.
Hughes had great source material to work with, thanks to HBO, but there is no arguing that the trailer is compelling in its own right. By combining footage from multiple previews, it is able to offer a more comprehensive look at the upcoming season than any of the previous ones have. The mashup is done very logically, too, with each individual character’s scenes cut together in a way that, in most cases, lays out their season 7 goals and/or motivations. That is helpful, considering how many key players are involved and the fact that a year has now passed since the season 6 finale aired.
Another interesting element of Hughes’ trailer is that it reorganizes the content, which means we see it from a different perspective. For example, the most recent trailer had a quote from Sansa (Sophie Turner) in voiceover about the “lone wolf” dying. The line coincided with footage of Jon (Kit Harington), so it seemed to possibly foreshadow his death, as the wolf is a symbol of the Stark family. However, Hughes chose to use that particular line with Arya (Maisie Williams) instead, reminding us that it could just as easily refer to another Stark.
While there aren’t necessarily any new insights to draw from the unofficial trailer and we could be reading way too much into it, analyzing the video is interesting nonetheless. Fans do have a knack for uncovering the truth from time to time, and considering different theories could well pay off. That said, Hughes describes the trailer as being made “just for fun,” so the intent may not actually have been to inspire so much obsessing. Whatever the case, official season 7 news isn’t enough to satisfy our appetite, so we’ll enjoy any Game of Thrones developments and tidbits that come our way.
Game of Thrones (finally!) returns July 16 on HBO, kicking off the penultimate season.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.