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A special app, expected to launch in March, will allow users to search for clips via their smartphones and watch them on the big screen.
The Freesat box, currently available to U.K. residents, offers TV on demand and already carries each of Britian's terrestrial channels, and it can now add YouTube to its growing list of over 160 channels.
An app on the Freesat set-top box will offer a version of YouTube optimized for HDTV and, most impressively, can be guided and controlled by the viewer's smartphone, which will work like a remote control for simplifying search options. A number of smart TVs already offer direct access to YouTube but, unfortunately, it is via a virtual on-screen keyboard and requires users to guide a cursor over each key when typing out a search term.
Since January, the YouTube for Android app has offered TV remote control functionality, but only in conjunction with a Google TV. Likewise, a special app for the Playstation 3, first trialed in June 2012, gives its users a similar level of smartphone control, but again, the feature is confined to Sony's app platform. 
