Youtube Goes 16:9

Youtube or Google just recently and quietly for the most part released their new widescreen video player  The update came out without any front page news and it came out fast.  First there was the old school square box player that everyone is accustomed to and in the next hour, the widescreen player shows up.  It just appeared out of no where without any explanation, even though you don’t really need the explanation as to why.  They pretty much made the viewing box wider.  It is better for the human eye to watch things in widescreen becasue that is what we see naturally and things are less distorted that way.

The implementation of the new wide screen is very nice and thought out well.  The viewing box is about 30% bigger, or longer.  The size of the new player is perfect because it actually does not affect the rest of the page.  The screen is not too big for the user as it does not take up the whole entire page and it spaces the comment area more so the comments are easier to view.  Looking at the new player could get the user confused as many people are already used to the square box but after a few seconds, the whole confusion dies down and people will adapt quickly to it.  Most people these days now have widescreen televisions, so it does not take a while for the user to adapt to the new settings.  The new video player, has kindly spaced out the commenting system and the comments do now look more appealing to read.  They do not looked bunched up together and only taking up one small column of the layout.  Instead the comments now take up about half the page underneath the video player.  The only other thing that people will look through in Youtube after they watch the video are the comments, which are pretty important…for people to call other people n00bs and just to make fun of in general.  There was no major change to Youtube’s layout with the release of the new video player so people can adapt slowly towards the new player.  Good thing there was no major layout change or else there would be another ‘Marc Zomberg’ fiasco on our hands which would piss A LOT of people off including me.  Well not the actual layout change but the people who get pissed off about the change and start posting up video responses or join groups on Facebook to get the old layout back.

Anyways, the layout is pretty good and more spacious.  It actually somehow seems more viewable and more aesthetically pleasing compared to the old video player.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that many people who post up videos do not have access to video cameras that record in widescreen mode and as well as video editing tools that will convert 4:3 to 16:9 (even though that could get very messy).  Dam you Window’s Movie Maker, DAM YOU!  As a result, the user will see the awful dead space that occurs when you view a 4:3 video resolution in a 16:9 resolution, it looks awful and the dead space can be distracting.  It is a new step for Google though as they will be changing things up a bit in the industry.  Youtube has become the norm for video watching these days that pretty much whatever Youtube will do, other video hosting sites will do the same.  It will be no surprise that other video sites will copy Youtube and modify their players to naturally go widescreen to make things look better. In a few months, every single video player on the internet will have 16:9 capabilities (even though a couple of them already had it before Youtube).  Video editing programs will now all have widescreen resolution features.  Actually they already do, but the ones for free..no they don’t, but they soon will.  Then people will be able to post up videos of themselves ranting about in 16:9 and we get to see more of how dirty their house is.