For Better or Worse, YouTube Now Adapts to Multiple Aspect Ratios (gizmodo.com)

Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein writes: YouTube very quietly made a very cool and rather major improvement in their video players today... YouTube is now adjusting the YT player size to match videos' native aspect ratios. This is a big deal, and very much welcome.
YouTube provided some before-and-after screenshots Friday, and acknowledged that "We launched this update on mobile awhile back (both Android and iOS) so this change also aligns the desktop and mobile viewing experiences."

Gizmodo writes: Until now YouTube forced all videos into a 16:9 ratio by windowboxing them, meaning surround them with black vertical or horizontal bars like the old days of watching widescreen movies on VHS. In that sense, this isn't a huge change -- white space instead of black -- although the location of player controls moves to fit the video's size...

The aspect adjustments are apparently automatic, retroactive to all uploaded video, and if there's a way to turn the feature off in Creator Studio it's non-obvious... Update 7/27/18 7:48pm: A YouTube spokesperson has since clarified to Gizmodo that currently there is no way to disable this feature.

Comments

Why for better or worse?

[PopeRatzo]

I'm curious about the headline. Why would adjusting to different aspect ratios be a bad thing? Is there a downside to having videos adjust to aspect ratio?

Re:Why for better or worse?

[TechyImmigrant]

I'm curious about the headline. Why would adjusting to different aspect ratios be a bad thing? Is there a downside to having videos adjust to aspect ratio?

Because adjusting the aspect ratio to fill a space necessarily involves chopping off part of the picture. Adjusting the aspect ratio by filling in excess space with black bars does not.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Fly Swatter]

People generally hate change, it doesn't matter what the motives are. This seems like a logical step, although personally I think the tall skinny format brought about entirely due to phones is horrendous in general. Unless it is viewed on a phone it is painful, count me as another that hates change right there, just in a slight tangent to the original topic.

Re: Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong. The aspect ratio of the video stays the same as it originally was. It's the player that is adjusted. Nothing is cut off except the black bars. 100% of the video stays visible.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[DarkVader]

From the article, that's not at all what's happening. It's adapting the window shape to the content, so a 4:3 video gets a 4:3 player box, and a 16:9 video gets a 16:9 player box.

I would assume you still get black bars if you fullscreen it and the video aspect ratio doesn't match your monitor's aspect ratio. But it's absolutely the correct behavior if it's playing in a window to adjust that window to the source aspect ratio.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[sjames]

Youtube isn't doing that. If you upload a 4:3 video, it will be shown uncropped and without pillarbox in a 4:3 player. If you upload a 16:9 video, it will be shown in a 16:9 player.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Marc_Hawke]

If you read the comments on the thread with the pictures, one of the top ones says, "the new 16:9 window is too large. I like the smaller window better." Same shape...just a little bigger, but they don't like it.

And that's called 'hating change.'

Re:Why for better or worse?

[lannocc]

I'm curious about the headline. Why would adjusting to different aspect ratios be a bad thing? Is there a downside to having videos adjust to aspect ratio?

This will be a worse experience for me because, according to Gizmodo, "the location of player controls moves to fit the video's size..." I generally keep one browser window open in the corner of the screen for playing various videos and currently, all controls and UI features remain consistently in the same place no matter which video I'm watching. If things start moving around depending on the video, it's only going to slow down navigation and aggravate users like me.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[PopeRatzo]

"the new 16:9 window is too large. I like the smaller window better." Same shape...just a little bigger, but they don't like it.

Can't you resize the window any more?

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there's the entire opposite problem when you have a native 21:9 video that is letterboxed on the top and bottom to fit 16:9. The people doing this (and we're talking movie studios/trailers/etc.) actually encode the black blank space into the video itself. So on a 21:9 monitor, these videos are letterboxed on all 4 sides. It's beyond ridiculous.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[dissy]

This seems like a logical step, although personally I think the tall skinny format brought about entirely due to phones is horrendous in general.

What's funny is that was my initial thought regarding this change, what bizarre things will those videos do with the new player.

So I pulled one up I accidentally had saved in a playlist awhile back (don't ask) and to my surprise it still has the black bars on the side and looks as awful as it ever did, and the playback controls are still spilling over those black bars.
(and my lord, I just notice that video was uploaded as 144p too... what kind of monster does this)

Perhaps the new player isn't fully pushed out to everyone or something, but if it has then at the very least this player change hasn't made things any worse.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Junta]

This is why I miss media keys working. Web ecosystem seems to not care about doing anything to enable those once useful, but mostly neglected keys...

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Video players have been able to crop black bars on the fly for many years.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Shikaku]

[On Youtube] spacebar still works for pausing and playing, arrow up and down keys for volume and left and right arrow keys for 10ish second seeking. Am I missing something here?

Re:Why for better or worse?

[lannocc]

Media keys were great because they would control the media even when the application (web browser, in this case) was not in focus.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I really with they would re-encode lower resolutions in higher bit rates.
Old standard def videos are compressed to obviation.

Re: Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how will a 4:3 video look on a player running full screen on a 16:9 display? Hopefully the player will render black bars.

Re:Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:spacebar, it depends on the active component (video screen, or video control). For example:
* up and down keys
video control active: seeking
video screen active: volume control

What I miss from YT is shortcut key for switching between video screen and video control, at this moment I have to use mouse to do that which is annoying.

Re: Why for better or worse?

[sjames]

No idea, but I would hope so.

Re: Why for better or worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

It literally takes 2 clicks to find out.

Vertical video rubbish.

[Going_Digital]

They should have just told anyone trying to upload a vertical video that they are an idiot and they should learn how to hold their phone.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[stud9920]

True, but it could all be solved in software. Film vertically ? Your video should either be pan & scanned (more or less intelligently), or just explicitly take an horizontal frame.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[MpVpRb]

There are probably a tiny number of shots that work better in vertical format

But, yeah, most vertical videos are just quick and sloppy with no regard for proper framing or composition

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can watch a vertical video on a phone, a tablet, or a vertical monitor. Only people whose entire setup, by choice or by necessity, is composed of exclusively one or more horizontal monitors, end up not experiencing inconvenienced by youtube's old policy.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[omnichad]

At least one of their apps had an animated icon subtly indicating you should turn the phone 90 before recording. I can't remember which one.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[omnichad]

Yeah, I'll just go and mount my TV vertically then.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

holding a phone vertically while recording should put a wide screen aspect image on their own display with a meme in the letterbox. caption above it reads "who the fuck films vertically?" and below, an image taken from the front-facing camera, captioned "this moron".

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least one of their apps had an animated icon subtly indicating you should turn the phone 90 before recording.

Whose apps and why is it subtle?

I was hopeful when Apple announced they were adding a portrait video feature to the iPhone that it was some sort of blatant and obnoxious "hey, dummy, you're holding it wrong; turn your phone" notice, but unfortunately that turned out not to be the case.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[Junta]

Because we do not only consume content from a phone.

When we are not worried about the awkwardness of trying to hold a phone wide with one hand, wide format is more like the way our normal vision works.

Generally speaking we do not tilt our head sideways to make our natural view 'portrait'.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[tepples]

Say you're trying to record video demonstrating operation of a treadmill, and you discover that even at your phone's camera's minimum zoom level, a horizontal frame cannot fit both the head and feet. What's your next step? Buy another camera?

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[omnichad]

One of Google's. I can't answer the reason why it was subtle, but I can answer in what way it was subtle. It was translucent and showed a half turn with curved arrows when it detected you were in portrait. Well now I have to see if I can find it.

Here's a screen grab:
http://littlebigdetails.com/po...

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

Step back until everything you want fits in the shot. If you hit an obstacle like a wall, either the room or the camera isn't appropriate for what you're trying to accomplish.

Re:Vertical video rubbish.

[tepples]

What's your next step? Buy another camera?

If you hit an obstacle like a wall, either the room or the camera isn't appropriate for what you're trying to accomplish.

In my experience, vertical video is far less expensive than buying a camera with a wider angle lens or buying a larger room.

Sign of the end times

[OrangeTide]

Because we're doomed once society accepts portrait videos as OK.

Re:Sign of the end times

[KiloByte]

Because we're doomed once society accepts portrait videos as OK.

Can't wait till we're doomed, then. You really need to rotate one of your monitors -- portrait is drastically better for working with code, sysadmin/etc work in a terminal, web page reading, etc. I keep one monitor in landscape only because some crap assumes that bad orientation.

Another problem is that 16x9 monitors are unfit for rotation, and to get one with a sane aspect ratio you pretty much need to buy used.

Re:Sign of the end times

[bjwest]

Because we're doomed once society accepts portrait videos as OK.

Can't wait till we're doomed, then. You really need to rotate one of your monitors -- portrait is drastically better for working with code, sysadmin/etc work in a terminal, web page reading, etc. I keep one monitor in landscape only because some crap assumes that bad orientation.

Why does one need to rotate one monitor to portrait mode, especially with multiple monitors? I have duel 23" monitors, and I have no problem editing code in a window of appropriate size on one monitor, a terminal or two on the "empty" space on that monitor (unless I'm using an IDE, in which case portrait mode would really suck) and documentation, web browser, or whatever I need on the other monitor. If you need to full screen your code editor, you're doing something wrong, because on a decent sized monitor, even in portrait mode, you have a lot of dead space if utilizing proper line lengths.

I purchased large monitors for this reason. Plenty of room in both directions without having to worry about, as you put it, "some crap assumes that bad orientation".

Another problem is that 16x9 monitors are unfit for rotation, and to get one with a sane aspect ratio you pretty much need to buy used.

How are they unfit for rotation? The only thing they would be unfit to rotate would be videos and games. Text/code editing, web browsing (unless you go full-screen on a video) and shell windows do just fine in portrait mode on 16:9.

Re:Sign of the end times

[Junta]

There's of course a lot of subjective going on here, but...

To me wide screen is more comfortable. It's how my vision naturally works. Field of view is wider than it is tall. The one case I'll pivot my screen for is a word doc or PDF, because it won't wrap lines for wider formats (well in Word I *could* change the page layout, but it's a crapshoot with many documents because they are particular about the layout). Occasionally a web page will go nuts with the CSS to get that 'print' feel and waste a lot of screen in wide format, so that too will have me pivot a screen for the content.

I suspect print gravitated toward portrait to accommodate being held in one hand better. Fixed screens don't have that problem, so widescreen dominated.

Then came phones. Once again the comfort of balancing portrait wins over landscape.

Re:Sign of the end times

[OrangeTide]

Maybe it is subjective but I'm not a voyeur. Watching a vertical video of a baby or kitten doing hilarious things feels a bit like viewing through a key hole.

Reading across the narrow end of a scroll is easier than unrolling the entire scroll to read a line, so some writing systems developed around that.

Re:Sign of the end times

[KiloByte]

Tiny terminals work as long as you're a kid and don't value your eyesight. After three or so decades of staring at tiny letters, you'll want full-screen.

Yeah, a big monitor of big resolution can emulate two portrait ones, but that's 35" not 23". And those that are not repurposed TVs with shitty blurry pixels are extremely expensive compared to regular rotated monitors.

As for 16x9, they're too narrow. I'd say 16x12 is optimal for both portrait and landscape.

Re:Sign of the end times

[Anonymous Coward]

I have duel 23" monitors

So, pistols or rapiers?

Re:Sign of the end times

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to rotate one of your monitors -- portrait is drastically better for working with code, sysadmin/etc work in a terminal, web page reading, etc.

And I sure hope you didn't skimp on your monitor purchase by buying one with a TN panel.

Only PVA / MVA / IPS panels have passable-to-good viewing angles when rotated. With a TN panel, you'll only get distorted colours. Unless you position your head veery carefully.

Re:Sign of the end times

[bjwest]

Flintlock. None of this fancy-smancy cartridge crap for me.

Re:Sign of the end times

[sglewis100]

As for 16x9, they're too narrow. I'd say 16x12 is optimal for both portrait and landscape.

I prefer 4:3 to 16:12 ;)

Re:Sign of the end times

[KiloByte]

I prefer 4:3 to 16:12 ;)

But then, Gemini is marketed praising a novel idea of 18:9 instead of lousy 16:8 or even 2:1...

Re:Sign of the end times

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you guys realize that 1:1 is the perfect aspect ratio?
You don't need to physically rotate a display.
Compression blocks don't need to be split in images and videos, giving you more efficient compression.

Re:Sign of the end times

[Anonymous Coward]

> Flintlock. None of this fancy-smancy cartridge crap for me.

Teach your grandmother to suck eggs!

I told you I'd shoot--but you didn't believe me. WHY didn't you believe me??

How can I browse comments without losing video?

[bogaboga]

For me and as far as the desktop version of YouTube is concerned, I would rather be able to scroll through comments or even related video without losing visual of a playing video.

Is this possible at all, or through an extension or hack?

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[110010001000]

You would think Google would have figured this out already, and they could inject ads in the comment stream.

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[Junta]

Well, they do it in mobile...

But in the browser, if there's an extension, I don't know, but you can hit ctrl-shift-c, click the video, then go up to the element for div id 'player':
div id="player"...

And then after selecting that, add to the 'element.style' section on the right:
position: fixed
width: 100%
z-index: 1000

And the player will no longer scroll with the page.

I imagine an extension to detect the page and modify the css would be easy to make...

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're looking for is Iridium. https://github.com/ParticleCore/Iridium

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[antdude]

Can we get the old fast YouTube design back without any lame hacks?

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[bogaboga]

Exactly as requested. Thanks a lot.

Question is: Does google see this as a disadvantage in some way? They should have implemented it long ago in my opinion.

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me and as far as the desktop version of YouTube is concerned, I would rather be able to scroll through comments or even related video without losing visual of a playing video.

Why in the name of all that is holy would one want to read youtube comments? The comments section was a mistake and whoever thought that was a good idea should be tried for crimes against humanity.

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[dinfinity]

Alternative for if you are comfortable with CSS (install a browser extension like Stylish):

ytd-watch[theater] #top #player.ytd-watch {
        position: relative;
}
ytd-watch[theater] #top #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
        margin-top: 0;
}
ytd-watch[theater] #top #playlist.style-scope.ytd-watch {
        top: 0;
}
ytd-watch[theater] #top #related.style-scope.ytd-watch {
        top: 0;
} /**********/

@media (min-width: 1200px) {
        ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
                position: fixed;
                z-index: 3;
        }
        ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                margin-top: 960px;
        }
        ytd-watch #items.style-scope.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer {
                margin-top: 480px;
        }
} /**********/

@media (min-width: 1000px) and (max-width: 1200px) {
        ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
                position: fixed;
                z-index: 3;
        }
        ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                margin-top: 720px;
        }
        ytd-watch #items.style-scope.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer {
                margin-top: 360px;
        }
} /**********/

@media (min-height: 630px) and (min-width: 1294px) {
        ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
                position: fixed;
                z-index: 3;
        }
        ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                margin-top: 960px;
        }
        ytd-watch #items.style-scope.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer {
                margin-top: 720px;
        }
} /**********/

@media (min-height: 980px) and (min-width: 1720px) {
        ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
                position: fixed;
                z-index: 3;
        }
        ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                margin-top: 1440px;
        }
        ytd-watch #top #related.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                top: 0;
        }
        ytd-watch #top #playlist.style-scope.ytd-watch {
                top: 720px;
        }
}

Disclaimer: it's not perfect.

Re:How can I browse comments without losing video?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me and as far as the desktop version of YouTube is concerned, I would rather be able to scroll through comments or even related video without losing visual of a playing video.

Is this possible at all, or through an extension or hack?

Yea this is annoying AF. People should be able to choose how their video is presented to them I don't think its hard for them to put a button that switches it back to the original ratio. They don't have to force people into getting used to it.

On desktop app only?

[110010001000]

It seems to indicate this for the desktop app only. Does anyone use a desktop app to view Youtube? How would you block ads?

Re:On desktop app only?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you block ads?

I think that there's a guy on this site who goes by the name "APK" that could help you out in that area.

Re: How can I browse comments without losing video

[Anonymous Coward]

Picture-in-picture in Safari works on my machine.

Watch it on 20% of a phone or tablet. Waste 80%

[raymorris]

> You can watch a vertical video on a phone, a tablet, or a vertical monitor

More specifically, you can watch it on the bottom 20% of your phone, while the top 80% of the screen is wasted. That's for most videos filmed vertically. Far into the sky normally isn't interesting, nor do I need to see somebody's feet while you're interviewing them.

Re:Watch it on 20% of a phone or tablet. Waste 80%

[sjames]

OTOH, a rocket launch, football (either kind) elevated from the end zone, and such make more sense to shoot vertically.

With Youtube no longer forcing the aspect ratio, that will work better.

Why did it take them so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have had CSS and media queries for quite some time now. No need for rigid pixel-defined layouts.
Anyway I don't get why people would watch video in anything other than fullscreen.

Re:Why did it take them so long?

[Desler]

Anyway I don't get why people would watch video in anything other than fullscreen.

Because they are doing more than one thing at a time?

This is a big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cancer research is a big deal. Renewable energy is a big deal. This is a slightly less annoying way to distract and entertain yourself.

Vertical Video Syndrome

[DontBeAMoran]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Vertical Video Syndrome

[chapstercni]

Hilarious. Thanks. :)

Desktop? Get a Second Display

[Kunedog]

Personally, I have two monitors, and i drag the URL to a second browser window on the second one (in portrait mode). Then I can easily read/scroll comments without affecting the video at all.

Game Boy is 144p

[tepples]

(and my lord, I just notice that video was uploaded as 144p too... what kind of monster does this)

Game Boy game developer perhaps? The native resolution of both the Game Boy and the Game Gear is 160x144 pixels.

Re:Game Boy is 144p

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't classic game systems' frame rates fall between 50 and 62 Hz though? You'd want 720p minimum on YouTube to preserve the full motion of your retro games without being capped to 25 or 30 frames per second.

Yay, more dynamic HTML

[Waccoon]

My biggest problem with this move is their insistence on using dynamic HTML loading. The video window loads and starts playing immediately, which is nice, but the sidebar and page styling gets loaded dynamically, so the recommended thumbnails tend to overlap and obscure the video until the whole page loads. It would be nice if the player could better cache the dimensions of the video to make sure the page layout doesn't have to be scaled multiple times and cause everything to go haywire and jump all over the place.

But then, obscuring content is the way the web works these days. I'm pissed that annotations are still on by default and the video controls overlay the video.

Slow LCD compensation

[tepples]

Don't classic game systems' frame rates fall between 50 and 62 Hz though?

Game Boy games are often intentionally limited to 15, 20, or 30 frames per second in order to compensate for the slow pixel response time of the STN passive matrix LCD of the monochrome Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket systems. Even for games without intentional low FPS, how does upscaling a 160x144 video by a factor of 5 in each direction (to 800x720) in order to make it "720p minimum" not make it take 25 times the CPU power and (often pay-per-bit) bandwidth to view? In fact, I was under the impression that 720p took so much bandwidth that most cellular ISPs were throttling video to bitrates typical of 480p.

Re:Slow LCD compensation

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it didn't increase storage/processing/bandwidth usage? It totally does, but that's what you've gotta do to in order to accurately represent the source material on the aformentioned platform.

Took me by suprise

[Headw1nd]

The first time I encountered this I thought I was missing the top section of the video and I kept trying to scroll up.