YouTube has launched a special version of its video website that makes it possible to watch the clips on a regular TV screen.
“Last January we introduced a video website especially for people who wanted to access YouTube videos through their Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii game consoles.” wrote Kuan Yong on the company’s blog.
“You could say we’ve now “expanded” on that. Just as there’s a YouTube browser for mobile devices, the new YouTube XL is optimized for watching YouTube videos on any large screen.”
In addition to an all new design offering large text and simplified navigation, YouTube XL offers a continuous play feature, which lets you search for a topic on YouTube and then press “play” once to watch all of the videos sequentially on that topic.
Also, getting from one video to the next takes just a few clicks, and viewers can control the action with a blue tooth enabled remote control, or even some mobile phones. However, first test showed that this feature doesn’t work with a Mac remote.
The announcement by YouTube follows the introduction of the Hulu Desktop, which allows viewers to watch Hulu clips and programmes full screen. However, the Hulu solution requires an application to be downloaded to the PC or Mac first, while YouTube XL can be accessed using any browser.
The development of a dedicated site for viewing videos on large screen is very interesting, as it makes it easy for people to simply hook up their PC or laptop to a flat screen TV set and watch the content without the need for a dedicated Connected TV set, such as the Philips NetTV or the Yahoo/Intel TV widgets.
