Yesterday, I tried out YouTube for Television, the new service from YouTube which offers a dynamic, lean-back, 10-foot television viewing experience through a streamlined interface that enables you to discover, watch and share YouTube videos on any TV screen with just a few quick clicks of your remote control. YouTube for Television is currently in beta and is only available through the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii game consoles.
Using YouTube for Television is easy. Just turn on your Sony PS3 or Wii and get to the browser and enter www.youtube.com/tv. You'll then get to the sleek, black homepage of YouTube for Television. Navigation icons are on the left side. You can click on Featured videos, Top Rated videos and Most Viewed videos. You can also do a simple search and go to your YouTube account and customise the settings. There are also the arrow up and down bars for scrolling down and up the list of videos. Over at My Account, you have access to My Videos, Favourites and Playlists.
I think YouTube for Television is a great idea. More and more people are using their TVs to surf the internet and having a dedicated YouTube site for easy playback of videos on the TV is a step in the right direction but the beta service of YouTube for Television suffers from a few flaws. The biggest flaw is the poor quality of videos. Videos look more pixelated than those found on the normal (web version) YouTube site. The quality is much worse when you maximise videos to full screen. Next, when you are on a video page and if it is accompanied by a long info about the video, clicking More Info doesn't allow you to scroll down to read the extended info. There is also no way for you to go to the YouTube page belonging to the user who submitted the video. The video page also lacks a "More From" icon to allow you to look at other videos submitted by the user. Lastly, on My Account, you don't have access to your subscriptions!
Here's a video of YouTube for Television in action.
More photos here.
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