The largest video library and service on the Web just went up one size, to the TV set. In January, YouTube released a beta of its YouTube for Television service for Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PS3, and the service has just been officially released under the name YouTube XL.
The second go-round shows a service with the same impressive feel and a few tweaks that make it run smoother and enhance the user experience.
It still lacks premium content, but YouTube has said that at least some is coming, the question is when.
The service has been updated with a lot of the fixes the beta needed and some nice additions. The best thing is a progress bar for videos and the ability to move forward or backward in the video by clicking the bar.
Another improvement is the ability to look at a video’s information while it’s playing on the Wii or PS3 and not cause any choppiness or video pixilation.
YouTube kept its continuous-play option, which works great for the TV viewing experience. Users no longer need to continually click when a video is done, as the next piece of content in search results plays automatically. The feature works well for searches for a genre of video or music videos from an artist, but specific searches mean the user will be watching a couple of versions of the same content in a row.
That being said, searching for “music videos” or for a specific genre of music seems to turn YouTube into one of the best music TV “channels” in the US. All of these controls work with the Wii and PS3 controllers, but YouTube has also added remote support for some Bluetooth-enabled remotes and Android mobile phones.
YouTube has also said that it wants to expand the new service to every TV-connected device – think TiVo, VUDU, Roku and maybe even Apple TV – which is a very big deal. The current offering on these platforms works alright for the TV screen but never felt optimized.
A YouTube version which supports HD content and can be streamed from all of these platforms is a huge step forward. One that gets even the slightest bit of professionally created TV or movie content will end up owning the market.