Syabas, makers of the Popcorn Hour media players is telling its users that “As of Wednesday, December 2, 2009, YouTube will no longer be available to Popcorn Hour users.” This is a move by Google to push CE makers to use the XL version of YouTube instead of the existing API method. While I would imagine Syabas (and other CE companies) will work to build the XL version into their media players eventually, it will likely take a while.
It’s very likely we’ll begin to see this with other Media Players and consumer electric devices that have been implementing a YouTube app on the device via the API. Google is doing this likely to control the content that is used and allow for advertisements and control of the YouTube UI itself.
From the consumers perspective this is not a good move by Google. Then again, viewing YouTube videos on the TV or even PC has become a rare occasion by me – this will likely make it even more infrequent.
