This morning YouTube invited a small group of press to unveil the latest evolution of the site’s viewing experience. It’s called YouTube XL, and it’s going to bring the vast majority of YouTube’s content to your TV or large-screen computer monitor. It’s already live, and you can check it out here.
At its core YouTube XL is basically a redesigned version of the YouTube website. It’s still run in the browser, and you don’t have to download anything to get it working (assuming you have Flash installed). It looks (and according to the demo, feels) like a native application.
One of the first things you’ll notice about the interface is that it’s very clean. This is due in no small part to the fact that it currently doesn’t have any ads (we can probably expect this to change). But YouTube has stripped out many of the suggested videos, comments, and other content that clutters the main site in favor of a much more streamlined interface that is usable from across the room.
One of the most appealing aspects of XL is that it will work on nearly any device that has a browser and can connect to the TV. That means you’ll be able to use it though your PS3 (though it sounds like there are some limitations – for example, the PS3 doesn’t support HD YouTube videos yet). Likewise the Wii will be able to use the new site, but because of its lower hardware capabilities it outputs at at a lower resolution.
Of course, one of the most key elements to offering a TV-like experience is the abiity to control the application remotely. You can use a wireless keyboard, but YouTube has developed found something a bit more practical called Gmote, a remote control app that runs on Android phones. You can scroll around menus, and also input text if you’d like to search. It’s only on Android so far, but because it’s open source you can potentially develop for other devices as well. The input is sent over your Wi-Fi network.
Update: Gmote is actually a third party application that works well with YouTube XL, but YouTube didn’t develop it in-house.
With Hulu’s release of Hulu Desktop earlier this week, and today’s release of YouTube XL, it’s clear that the video wars are going to be fought in the living room over the next few years. YouTube XL definitely has potential, especially with its integration with the PS3 and the Wii (Hulu Desktop only works on computers). Now the site just needs to work on bringing more premium content to YouTube – it’s fun to watch silly user-generated videos on my computer, but if I’m going to couch surf through YouTube on my big screen TV, I’d rather watch content that’s a little more polished.
This is a smart move to start to generate more revenue for a website that costs Google a lot of money. I expect more to come from this.
Bill Gates prophesied this war years ago:
http://www.micr...orldin2003.mspx
Microsoft and Apple have been bringing digital content to TVs for some time; adding to the mix Hulu and YouTube, and this space might finally get interesting!
YouHulu, yep. VOD as has been kicking around forever, but now with the quality and reliability of the internet.
“YouHulu”, is that Hawaiian for “IP video on your TV”?
Yes, whatever Bill Gates prophesied, will most probably become the truth, as you know he was the one who predicted most household will want to own one computer and he did!
I find the Youtube new website a bit restricting not so user friendly like the present one.
That’s a damn ugly design tbh. Yellow, blue, and red? Wtf?
I personally think that video (and just the video, not the site) cannot be monetized any way in its present form without irritating elements like ad rolls. Shifting to the TV is a good idea, but who is gonna sit before the couch to watch the neighbors pet cat on a treadmill? They need better content, and more importantly, longer content.
All they have to get going now are playlists. Stick up a playlist of sport highlights (or anime episodes, or video blogs, or news clips, ad nauseum), interspersed with mandatory ads. JUST LIKE TV, with the exception that you get to choose your playlist on demand.
Then watch as the news broadcasters sue Google for stealing viewship.
~ Wogan
For fun I tried this on the Wii to test. It worked very well. I then tried Hulu, VH1 on wii it needed flash upgrade.
YouTube already has a similar interface on the Apple TV.
Big deal, I already get YouTube through my TiVo.
I can do the same thing with XBMC…
i tryed dhs video for cheked,look vise design is ok, viewing side is also fine.soundtrack is also good but it dsnt give dh suggestion even related searches instead of like you tube older design giving.may be youtube xl is better for large screen watching videos but not good for searching related videos.
Nice. Now I’ll be watching YouTube on my TV: PCTVCables.com
Kinda cool, but they need premium content to make it work… I currently use Hulu on my 46″ HD happiness TV and its great… but some crappy UGC vids are just going to be a waste of TV viewing time.
I dont see how this is gonna monitize youtube,instead of coming up with this dum ideas,they should concetrate more on trying to come up with ways that will genarate revenue…and i dont mean just revenue..some profits for gudness sake!!!!!microsoft,waste of time with bing,we all know google is no force to be reckoned with for the mean time.
I agree with your first statement, They do need to monetize as YouTube has been non-revenue generator since they bought it off, but what they also need is premium good quality content and longer clips. I am not gona be watching some guy doing belly dancing.
As for your comment on Bing, i do not agree with you. Google is great but there is alot of room for improvement and competition is always good for the market place. In the past, when Yahoo was the search king, and if Sergy and Larry had thought the same we would not have Google and still be spending hours searching.
As for Bing, I did some tests on both browsers and the results on both are very similar But Bing has a few more features that gives it a nice touch and helps to drill down on the content to get what you want. So i have been using Bing alot more than Google.
this has been around for 6 months, why is it being posted now?
Looks nice, simple and effective for watching videos on a larger screen. The mobile YouTube site also has a similar looking web design.
Youtube is so amazing.
Hi folks,
I test YouTube XL and I noticed if you do a search it fetches none HD video too, witch the resolution is not high quality if you want to watch it like TV/full screen etc…
The Search Need to filter out only HD videos and only show only HD etc.
OMG! The ugliest interface EVER! Frack! You would think the “creatives” at YouTube would have a clue. But no. Horrific, I will have nightmares. Such an amatuer job, shiny plastic buttons and wallpaper. Come on guys! Hire some DESIGNERS! Hire ME!
I am not a designer but I do have eyes and yea thats ugly. But i think we are forgetting that its Google not Apple.
Google leads the race for bad design. Nothing new here.
Are you kidding me? The whole reason Google got off the ground in the first place is because people liked the home page’s clean design. Apple has way too much colors and fade effects in their stuff. In terms of an actual user interface, as opposed to something that looks artistic, Google for a long time has been pretty much the only major company that seems to know what they’re doing.
hopefully no skipping, no lag times, and no pixelation.
I’m hoping that this new design will have a good audio and nice video capture. thanks for the post.
Where the heck did they put my subscriptions?
Can’t people already see youtube on TV with the webtv thing?
bah i been watching Internet TV for a long time now using the Saturn Liberty site
they did this with the xbox 360 since it came out and they have HD720 and FullHD channels on…
i dont know why google took so long…
http://www.ardcorp.tv/liberty
for those who want the site…
or you can just use google….
Cool feature. I like Youtube!
This is crazy cool. They are just making surfers more and more addictive to on-demand video thingy!
But who cares? YouTube is at best only useful for catching up on TV moments you missed and can’t find anywhere else or as a casual distraction when you’re bored. Why would I want this on my TV?
I’d love to see something like this up and running on Xbox Live. With Facebook, Last.fm and Twitter now on Xbox Live it seems that this would be a good fit.
This will really come in to effect when TV’s are built with internet browsers as standard. I know some are now but when they all do, digital content like this will really take off.
It’s hideous
Macintosh remote compatiblity!!!
Or else… I think I’ll try it on my new Sony Ericsson.
Jomar
OH DEAR. YoutubIt works with my Sony Ericsson Bluetooth App. This means, people can now open XL, stand back from the computer and just BROWSE BROWSE BROWSE. Now if it can only work on Google Video with its 1 hour content…oh wait SOFA CONTROL can do that, but not everybody uses SOFA CONTROL a cellphone is readily available!
It’s about time that this trend finally picked up. I remember watching YouTube videos on the Wii a couple of years ago, and the novelty of it never broke the surface of mainstream media.
I’m genuinely looking forward to YouTube XL though. It’s revolutionizing how everyone consumes media, but it’s only adapting to how young people have always consumed content.
- Yvonne Leow from http://www.yvonnereports.com.
The Qwiji search gives you youtube in XL for long time time, only instead of getting search results you instantly get the best videos.
http://www.qwiji.com/
Tv’s will be browser enabled as standard in the not so distant future, check out alio.com.
Developers will only need to optemise their work to allow scale-up for TV that’s all,
On youtubes behalf this is just wasted development time to appease their advertisement partners, you would think that in an economic downturn the hardware guy’s would roll-out internet TV’s as standard, but I guess when your big it’s hard to move quickly.
I suppose this will fit into YT’s Vevo offering, but what about the UGC little people how do they fare?
I have a terrific idea for online video sites to make money…now just need some developers and some funding to see it become real