YouTube Goes Widescreen: Bigger Is Better

Finally the widescreen has arrived at YouTube. After years of complaints over the size of its video player, YouTube has expanded the size of its screen to 16x9 widescreen over the standard 4x3 aspect ratio.

"We're expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them," from a recent posting on the official YouTube blog.

This new, bigger and wider video player is in a widescreen aspect ratio of 16x9 that will provide viewers with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And you don't have to worry about your old videos. All your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.

The 4x3 (sometimes referred to as 12x9 or 1.33:1) is the standard television format used throughout the second half of the 20th Century. Now, the 16x9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio format has been widely accepted as the new standard for widescreen TV, computer monitors, DVDs and high-definition video. 16x9 is the default aspect ratio for HDTV formats and has become the norm for home video cameras and most digital cameras.

Is widescreen better than the 4x3 aspect ratio format?

The answer is yes even though not everyone will totally agree as it is a very subjective question. Widescreen is widely considered to be a more natural view for humans. It closely simulates the way we see things in a wide view as compared to the narrower view of 4:3.

Actually, 16x9 is something of a compromise between 4x3 and much wider ratios like 29x9 aspect ratio for Cinemascope which is used for theatrical shows. If you watch movies on a widescreen 16x9 TV set in their native aspect ratio, you may still see the familiar black letterbox bars above and below the picture.

However, many types of program will benefit from the extra screen space of widescreen. If you watch a lot of DVDs, especially feature films, you'll certainly love widescreen. And many sports shows are well-suited to widescreen especially for split-screen images, for example, two simultaneous camera views of your favourite sports or a part of the screen is devoted to graphics or scores.

Whether you like it or not, widescreen will be the new standard and everyone will eventually be using it. It's just a matter of time.

If you are into making videos, you should either be using widescreen already or planning for it