YouTube XL

It’s not the first time that YouTube has rolled out a version of the video sharing site designed specifically for viewing on a television but the application’s been given a polish and a new name to boot.

Now called ‘YouTube XL‘ the new version of the site features a ‘ten foot’ User Interface designed for viewing on a TV or large screen monitor, which despite running in a web browser, TechCrunch describes as having the look and feel of a ‘native application’. Like the previous version of YouTube optimized for the living room, XL is supported on both the PlayStation 3 and Wii games consoles, though the video quality is compromised on the Wii due to its limited processor and support for an older version of Flash video.

More interesting, however, is the release of an accompanying Android application:

YouTube has created an application called Gmote for 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.

This is very similar to existing ‘remote control’ apps on Apple’s iPhone to operate the AppleTV and Vudu set-top boxes, Sonos’ multi-room audio system, and the VLC desktop media player, to name a few.

PlayStation, PS3, Wii, YouTube