The new standard YouTube video player is now widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio). YouTube increased the width of their site to accomodate the new player size, but now old videos will play with black bars on the left and right side of the player. But the widescreen versions look great:
Hopefully this will spur the adoption of widescreen technologies (monitors, video cameras, etc.), but in the meantime, expect most videos to have those ugly, distracting bars on the side. Luckily, many older videos that were filmed in widescreen were automatically upgraded. However, embedded videos are still stuck in the 4:3 player even if they are actually 16:9.
I’d like to say the YouTube is moving things forward by switching to widescreen mode, but in fact they’re just keeping up. But since YouTube is the king of online video this is great news for people looking for higher quality, larger-sized videos on the web. Combined with YouTube’s high-res mode, the video quality of the site is finally crawling into the 21st century.