YouTube has finally moved to a default widescreen player with an HD-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the announcement follows the video sharing giant’s recent decision to start hosting full-length Hollywood movies.
Not that anyone will be complaining.
YouTube has long lagged behind competitors such as Vimeo and Blip.tv.
They have offered HD and widescreen players for some time now – but they don’t have the audience figures of YouTube.
So this certainly opens up the options for video fans that steadfastly refused to compromise on quality by submitting to YouTube.
A YouTube spokesman said that by expanding the page width to 960 pixels the new, wider player would provide viewers with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.
The change does mean that since the majority of videos on the site were uploaded as 4:3, they will now appear with black bars on the sides.
Quite why YouTube hasn’t either given users the option to select a player depending on aspect ratio or, better still, to auto-detect it, is anyone’s guess.
Comments