You've done it.  I've done it.  Almost everyone's done it.

Yeah, that's right.  I've spent hours and hours and hours on YouTube.  When I'm in the mood for random, funny videos or maybe keen on learning something new, I'll sit in front of my computer just... watching... videos.

For all of those YouTube addicts out there on a TouchSmart, your're about to get hooked even further with Proxure's new TouchCenter application, which makes finding and watching your favorite (and undiscovered) Internet videos even easier.

The Interface

Immediately after launching the app, you're met with a screen that should be very familiar and welcome to TouchSmart users.  I picked it up instantly and think it's likely that most users will have the same experience.

At the top of the screen, you can tap on what videos you'd like to see; i.e., recent, YouTube featured, top rated, etc.  TouchSmart Internet TV will automatically refresh and display the newest videos in each category, and you can browse through them by dragging the graphic video display bar in the middle.

Playing Videos

Once you find a video that you'd like to play, tap on it.  The video will populate into the player below and begin playing for you.

In the player view, you have the ability to start and stop the video, increase or reduce the volume, mute the video, and skip to a different location in the video.  Note that the slider bars have large buttons - to make it easy to slide them with your finger.

As seen in the photo above, you can also easily increase it to a full screen view, and back to regular view, with the icon all the way to the right (which is a familiar "fullscreen" icon.)

Searching for Videos on YouTube

Built into TouchSmart Internet TV is a handy search feature, which is as easy to use as you would expect.

Click on the search field and enter a keyword for the video you'd like to see, and click the Search button.

As you can see from the photo above, the application will automagically dig into the depths of YouTube and pluck the videos that most closely match your search, displaying them in the navigation bar for your enjoyment.

Pros and Cons

There are many things to like about TouchSmart Internet TV, with only a few minor issues.  Overall, the application gives you a slick, fun, easy to use window into YouTube - and can easily suck you in for hours on end.  Here are some few minor improvements that I'm hoping will be included in future releases:

•  The ability to keep a "favorites" list to easily access and save videos you find while browsing, as you can in the YouTube browser application
• Speed up the navigation bar scrolling
• Have the slider bar for video playback update as the video progresses, rather than the counter sticking at zero - leaving you to guess where you are in the video before rewinding/fast forwarding

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