Sony PlayStation Vue gets television channel multi-view for March Madness and more

Watching two television channels at once is hardly new -- picture-in-picture has been an option on some televisions for years. Many people misunderstand the benefits of watching multiple channels at once, however. Obviously you wouldn't want to watch two movies or two sitcoms at once -- that would be maddening. Where this feature shines, however, is with sports, and to a lesser extent, news.

If you are a fan of two or more sporting teams that play at the same time, watching several games at once can be great. Today, Sony's PlayStation Vue gets simultaneous multi-view -- the ability two watch up to three live television channels at once. This is perfectly timed for the upcoming March Madness basketball tournament, but it can be used for any combination of channels on the service.

"Multi-view will be available on PS4 starting today. The new feature gives you the option to watch and listen to a main TV channel and view up to two additional channels at the same time. Keep an eye on all the action and enjoy mixing and matching your favorite channels," says Dan Myers, Head of Product, PlayStation Vue.

Myers further explains, "To use this feature, just press and hold X on any live TV program from the Guide or Live TV row of the home screen to open up the selection screen for multi-view. A menu will pop up to give you an option of using either two or three multi-view screens. You can select any other live programing from the Live TV strand and start viewing multiple programs at once. The main screen in multi-view will contain audio of the programming."

Sony is wise not to mix the audio of all three channels, as that would obviously be headache-inducing. Instead, sports fans can stay focused on the main game, and then switch to the others during commercials or if they see something exciting. Sports aside, I can also see this being good for consuming news -- keeping a few channels going at once.

While sports fans should really appreciate this new feature, Sony is not stopping there. In addition, the PlayStation 4-maker promises to introduce real-time sports scores and spoiler-protection in the future too.