YouTube now offering full widescreen format videos.
Pretty exciting stuff when you consider what the goal of YouTube and ultimately its parent company Google Inc. is for this type of formatting. There is a move amongst technology based companies to make interent based television a reality and perhaps a lot sooner than most of us think. Not long from now a consumer will be able to watch real time tv on their cell-phone via next generation high speed wireless or plunk down on the couch and type e-mails, surf and watch a live ball game on their interenet based giant Plasma or LCD TVs. I guess now might be a good time to sell my old school tv/stereo combo unit with the manual channel changer on the front.
YouTube is taking another step in transitioning from computer monitors to television screens by displaying its videos in full widescreen format.
The website, owned by Google Inc., announced the change on Tuesday through its blog. The new format will make it easier to view YouTube videos on wide-screen flat-panel televisions and monitors.
"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," the posting said. "This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience."
YouTube will continue displaying older videos in the original square 4:3 aspect ratio that they were uploaded in, but the majority of future clips are likely to be in the widescreen format.
Viewership of the website's videos is increasingly migrating from computer monitors in the den to television screens in the living room. A number of internet-enabled consumer electronics devices, including the Apple TV and the TiVo personal video recorder, connect to YouTube and display videos on TV screens.
Google, which bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion US, is positioning the website as an advertising-driven online video portal. While the website rose to prominence through hosting user-generated videos, over recent months Google has been adding YouTube "channels" from broadcasters that host both television shows and ads.
Full CBC.ca Story
Posted by Jason Neumann
on November 25, 2008