Google last night launched an ambitious new Youtube spin-off site called Youtube XL - designed for access from web-enabled televisions or large computer screens.
The idea is that with content on demand currently revolutionising how we watch video content as entertainment on our computers - there is great potential to extend this too to the screens in our living rooms. Sounds like good sense to me...
Youtube XL features a far more de-cluttered interface than the version we are used to - with no user comments and no other recommended videos boxes for a start, which certainly helps to make it far more easily operable from one's sofa with a tv remote.
However one key issue remains for me and that is pertaining to the quality of content available on Youtube XL. For now the selection of content is identical to that of Youtube standard - which leads me to wonder just how awful some of the shakiest mobile phone-recorded footage will look once it gets shown on the bigger screens Youtube XL caters for.
Having said that though, from inital tests I have been pleasantly surprised to find not as much of a drop-off in quality with displaying low-res stuff on a big screen as I generally expected. A lot of the mid-quality stuff out there actually holds up not too badly when stretched to fit bigger formats - though of course some of the previously dodgy (in terms of video quality) handheld clips are now quite unwatchable.
All in all though a fascinating development, and one that even at this early stage is seemingly leaving users very, very satisfied... good work Google :)
Dejan Levi
