YouTube opens beta of TV-maximized site

Bringing YouTube to the living room television has been a mostly incomplete mission thus far. Series 3 and HD TiVo DVRs can browse YouTube, and Apple TV has been able to play clips from the site since 2007. Yesterday, YouTube announced youtube.com/tv, a new sub-site dedicated to bringing its content to connected devices, namely the PS3 and Wii.

"Very few...devices today contain a Web browser or provide access to YouTube," reads a YouTube Team blog post yesterday, "Our hope is that this site may help to accelerate an industry evolution towards open television access to Web video. Over time, we plan to add support for additional TV devices that provide Web browsers."

The current beta is limited to the PlayStation 3 and Wii browsers, and features a simplified interface designed for remote control or game controller access. The left side of the screen contains navigation buttons, and the right pane shows the video list. When a video is clicked, the playback window has large buttons for play/pause, fast forward and rewind, and the right of the screen shows the video description.