Well said. Once the TV (or whats hooked up to it) becomes "another computer", the same way our phones became "another computer", this will be a very very big issue.
I knew a guy who connected his laptop to a 72" HDTV when he came home and used that. He even streamed some Netflix onto it.
I know tons of people who connect a Mac Mini to their TV, too.
I don't own a TV, just a MacBook connected to an external screen that my couch is pointed at. I watch Hulu on it. I guess my screen doesn't have any kind of receiver for cable or anything though.
Yeah. Just great. Granted, I use my Popcorn Hour mostly for watching MKVs and playing music, but I have watched the occasional YouTube clip fairly often.
Obviously, the real problem is that the API-based access is ad-free. It is not really that surprising that Google would prevent the circumvention of its ads.
I wonder if alternate schemes such as PlayOn will continue to work? Using PlayOn, I can still watch Hulu on my PCH. They have a YouTube plugin, but I am guessing that they are relying upon the same API that the MSP folks used.
Why couldn't it be copyright concerns? YouTube has negotiated deals with different copyright holders. We don't know all the provisions of those deals. One provision might be "no playing videos on set top boxes." Instead of trying to explicitly mark which videos have this restriction and which don't, they could opt to just disallow TV viewing entirely -- and try to drive views to the XL product as a replacement for people who still really want to see YouTube on the TV.
That being said, the points made elsewhere in the thread about the line being blurry are valid. My phone (HTC Touch Pro 2) has TV out and explicitly lists YouTube as a video source for that TV out. Does that count?
My pirated videos continue to be ad-free and work fine on my TV. When will the media companies learn that you can't punish your customers when they can get better versions of your product for free!?
Drat! I'll no longer be able to watch 320px-wide video on my 40" TV! Do people really watch YouTube on their televisions? It seems like a terrible waste to me.
I spend most of my time watching things like hulu/cnn from the net over UGC internet content on my TV, but having youtube is nice. I'd certainly rather have it than not have it. The 1080p and 720p content changes the usefulness of it quite a bit though. I hope Boxee doesn't get banned. If it does, there will be a work around within 24 hours.
This also reinforces my hypothesis that going with "toy" boxes like roku, popcorn hour,etc. are a bad idea. We don't need to dumb down the hardware that's connected to our tv, but adapt it's purpose/interface. We have "OS'" for our 3 inch screens. We need one for our 50 inch screens.
In defense of the Roku boxes, they do have their place. I dropped Dish a few months back for 100% Roku based tv viewing. The box just works. Yeah, it is a bit limited, and with a queue of 250 movies it becomes difficult to find things.
But my 7yo can operate it with no problems. It doesn't (hasn't) crash, and I don't have to screw around with it like I would a MythTV system.
The so called "toy" boxes may be a bad idea in theory, but until something significantly better comes along they're hard to fault. I replaced an old PC with a popcorn hour box and I couldn't be happier. It does what I need, it's silent, it start up faster, it's more aesthetically pleasing, it's much easier for everybody to use and it's super cheap.
I do something similar and it's amazing. I cannot live without it. Costs will go down. Mac minis START at 599. This is a good price point for a full fledged HD capable computer.
I claim the essential difference is whether or not you're sitting on a couch when you watch it. Good luck writing a contract that bans that.