Video-sharing site Vimeo, the classier YouTube, has added a “Couch Mode” to let you kick back and enjoy movies on the big-screen. It was designed for watching on your giant television using Google TV, but will work anywhere friendly to fancy HTML5 code. Right now that means the Chrome and Safari browsers.
To try it out, head to vimeo.com/couchmode and tell your browser to go full screen (this doesn’t work yet in Safari). From there, you can control the video with your keyboard (likely a horrible, zillion-key QWERTY remote if you have bought an actual Google TV box), browse video via on-screen thumbnails and even access your own videos and playlists once you’ve signed in.
It’s very slick, if a little buggy. When switching to full-screen in Chrome, one video got stuttery and another didn’t, but these are just kinks to be worked out. It even works in Safari on the iPad, kinda: you get the navigation, but I couldn’t get a video to play.
The best part of writing this post was cruising around Vimeo. The movies over there are actually worth watching, with lots of very creative and well made short films. The difference between Vimeo and YouTube is like the difference between watching a movie at a beautiful arts cinema and watching the shopping channel through a TV-store window, whilst sitting on a urine soaked couch and sipping Thunderbird.
Introducing Couch Mode… get comfy! [Vimeo blog]
See Also:
- Google Introduces Google TV, New Android OS
- Google TV: Google, Sony, Intel Team-Up to Make Television
- Logitech Box Brings Google TV to Living Rooms
- Sony Google TV Remote Leaked, Designed in 1980?
- Logitech Google TV Box Embarrasses Apple TV
- Sony Announces Details, Prices of Google TV Lineup
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