YouTube in your Living Room

We've heard many users say, "YouTube is the new TV!". Well, the YouTube Syndication team is excited to now offer a number of options to actually consume YouTube on your television sets. We're also proud to have helped many leaders in the consumer electronics space create YouTube experiences on TV.



Getting YouTube right on TV is extremely challenging from both a design and technology perspective. Each of our partners' engineering and design teams had similar questions:



- What would users, accustomed to a simple remote control interface for their TVs, expect given their typically much richer interaction options when surfing youtube.com?


- How could the YouTube experience be personalized for TV?


- How could the extra computing power and memory often required to make this work on their devices be added effectively?


- What were the most important YouTube features to retain, and how would they translate to a 10-feet user experience?



All these partners used the YouTube APIs to build their products. One partner's summary of their experience with the APIs: "The YouTube API was very simple, but powerful. It enabled us to develop our user interface flexibly and quickly." Music to our ears!



Here's a quick overview of some products that enable you to access YouTube from your living room...or anywhere else you may have your television(s)!

• AppleTV: In June 2007 this became the first product to offer a way to watch YouTube on your TV.
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• Sony Bravia Internet Video Link: Last week, Sony announced the general availability of YouTube content on their Bravia TVs via the Internet Video Link. Some clips from the YouTube team at the event are linked below. Nice tie, Brent!
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• HP MediaSmart: HP announced availability of YouTube as part of the HP MediaSmart platform.
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• Panasonic: At CES 2008, Panasonic announced VieraCast, which allows you to access YouTube directly from your TV. The device will be available later this month.
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• Samsung: Samsung launched their IPTV device which supports YouTube (currently only available in South Korea) in early May.
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• TiVo: Announced that YouTube would be available on their devices.
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• Verismo: A startup in the IPTV space, has announced availability of a YouTube-enabled device.
  

Videos from the Sony announcement in NYC:







We're excited that the YouTube APIs have enabled these products and look forward to sharing information about even more products, upgrades and innovations from our partners. We're determined to see more devices and applications "Powered by YouTube" so that our vision of "YouTube Everywhere" feels even more real to our users. Head over to the API Blog to read more about where you can expect to see YouTube other than youtube.com!



The YouTube Team