YouTube upgrades to widescreen web vids

YouTube is a site that needs no introduction. This week the popular web video service is rolling out a big -- and, some say, long overdue -- update to its site, stretching the aspect ratio of the videos it serves from the "traditional" 4:3 to "widescreen" 16:9. Virtually all consumer electronics have jumped to the widescreen aspect ratio in the last few years, including most camcorders and some digital still cameras.

You'll immediately notice the difference when you visit the site now: The playing window is considerably larger than it was before, now a full 640 pixels across. Note that YouTube isn't high-definition (though the "watch in high quality" option does up the clarity a bit), but is merely stretched a bit at the sides.

Don't worry about old videos being "stretched" into unrecognizability to fit the new aspect ratio. Vids already on the site that are in the 4:3 aspect ratio (the vast majority of what's currently up) are letterboxed with black bars on either side of the screen. In fact, many older widescreen videos on the site are not expanded to fit the new aspect ratio, either. Some now fill the full frame, some are now letterboxed on all sides.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land also notes that the embedding code is still converting videos of any size and shape into the 4:3 aspect ratio, too, with widescreen videos letterboxed at top and bottom. No news on when or if the embeddable videos will be upgraded to widescreen, but I presume that will happen fairly soon.

Also: Want to get better overall quality out of the videos you upload to YouTube, no matter what their aspect ratio? Check out this document which offers some helpful encoding and recording tips.