YouTube turns on widescreen format

Hot off the heels of the news that YouTube will stream full-length movies, comes this week’s announcement that the video-sharing site is switching to a widescreen format.

The change allows higher-quality videos to be viewed as originally intended.

The new format has an aspect ratio of 16:9, whereas past YouTube videos were condensed into 4:3.

That is why some YouTube clips may have appeared distorted in the past.

The new YouTube player enlarges 4:3 clips, placing the video in between two large black bars.

This isn’t sitting well with some users, who would like to see their 4:3 videos restored to their original setting.

One commenter on the YouTube blog post announcing the change wrote: “Yea, 4:3 videos look uninspiring like that. Please, return the old player or make 16:9 only on videos who supports 16:9 resolution, not the 4:3 ones!”

Hop on over to YouTube and check out the change for yourself.

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