UPDATE: YouTube has now officially released their new widescreen player, and the method I describe in the original post is obsolete, albeit still functional.

However, the embed code that YouTube provides doesn’t actually account for the fact that your video is widescreen. In other words, unless you change the height of the player that you embed in your website/blog, you will still get the black bars at the top and bottom of your video.

To fix this, you will need to change the height of your video in both the embed and object tags. While the dimensions of your video may vary, I’ve found that a 260 pixel height is the magic number for a standard widescreen video.

You can also embed higher quality videos by adding either “&fmt=18″ (for good quality) or “&fmt=22″ (for HD quality) to the end of the URL.

For example:
<object width="425" height="290"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3PDLsJQcGI&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3PDLsJQcGI&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="290"></embed></object>

Of course, when you embed the higher quality videos, you can make the player you embed larger without artifacting. Be warned, however, that the HD quality videos don’t necessarily download very quickly. Your viewers may get frustrated while waiting for YouTube to buffer the video.

—

You may have noticed a link reading “Try the New YouTube Player Beta!” under videos on YouTube.  The new player is pretty sharp looking. Moreover, it has a sweet widescreen version. Unfortunately, YouTube provides no instructions on embedding the new player on your blog/website. I searched Google and didn’t find any instructions anywhere, so after I figured it out, I thought I should share with the world.

To embed a regular 4:3 video, use the following code.
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/swf/watch.swf?video_id=YOUR-VIDEO-ID-HERE"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/swf/watch.swf?video_id=YOUR-VIDEO-ID-HERE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

There is one caveat when using the new player: the videos start automatically whether you want them to or not. I’m sure this is something YouTube will deal with once the player comes out of beta, but for now, we’re stuck with it how it is. At least, I think so. I couldn’t find any way to stop it, although I didn’t try using the API. If you know how to stop it from auto-playing, let me know in the comments.

To embed a widescreen video you must add &vq=2&fmt_map=6/720000/7/0/0 to the end of the URL (shown in the following code box). However, there is an additional caveat when using the widescreen player. Most videos, even widescreen videos, will not work with it. If you get a message saying, “This video is no longer available,” and you’re sure you copied the code correctly, it means that the video will not work with the widescreen player. If you’re having trouble, you can test your code with the video id X13o3efXTmk , which is the video I have embedded below. If it still doesn’t work, your code may be slightly off. Unfortunately, it’s very finicky and breaks at the drop of a hat.

I can’t promise this is repeatable, but I did upload one video that worked with the widescreen player. It had a 1.8:1 ratio (864×480) letterboxed into a 640×480 Quicktime video. I’m sure other ratios/sizes would work as well. The video below has an even wider radio, but 1.8:1 and 640×480 worked for me.

<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/swf/watch.swf?video_id=YOUR-VIDEO-ID-HERE&vq=2&fmt_map=6/720000/7/0/0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/swf/watch.swf?video_id=YOUR-VIDEO-ID-HERE&vq=2&fmt_map=6/720000/7/0/0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>
Read the rest of this entry »

---

Or at least those willing do some research. Brian Stelter of the New York Times is something of a phenom when it comes to news about the TV industry, having started the influential blog tvnewser.com and subsequently being hired by the New York Times straight out of college, but his article on the “It’s 3 AM and I’m ready to be President” campaign ads of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (embedded below – hat tip to TechPresident) shows that being an expert on one medium doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re qualified to discuss other types of media.

Mr. Stelter states that “Three days after it made its television debut, the Clinton commercial had registered more than 600,000 views on YouTube, and Mr. Obama’s recorded over 200,000, making the dueling advertisements the first breakout hits of the YouTube campaign. (Some campaign videos are lucky to receive 10,000 views.)”

While it may be true that some campaign videos don’t hit 10,000 views, I’m not sure what metric that Mr. Stelter is using to determine what makes a YouTube video a “breakout hit.” By far, the biggest video of the campaign season is “Yes We Can” by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, having received over 12 million views spread across the numerous copies posted to YouTube, but we can look back much farther for breakout hits. Perhaps the first big hit of the 2008 Presidential election was 1984/Vote Different by Phil de Vellis with over 5 million views (again over multiple uploads), and who could forget Obama Girl. None of these are candidate produced videos, but we need only go to Obama’s response to the State of the Union (1.3 million), Obama’s victory speech in Iowa (1 million), and many others to find videos that have been viewed many more times than either of these. In fact, Obama’s SOTU response has been watched more times than both of those ads put together.

I’ll admit that I may be overly defensive of new forms of media, be it blogs, online video, or social networks, but it irks me when someone in the mainstream press makes a blatantly untrue statement that trivializes the revolution that is taking place in the field of communications.

Since this is my blog, I’m also going to take the opportunity to editorialize on the videos just a bit and note that YouTube users have rated Clinton’s “3 AM” video with one star out of a possible five (Obama’s version has four) and that tens of thousands of her views have come from an extremely heavily trafficked DailyKos post slamming the ad.

Hillary’s 3 AM Ad

[youtube]M70emIFxETs[/youtube]

Obama’s 3 AM Ad

[youtube]879o1_pxO0c[/youtube]

Yes We Can

[youtube]jjXyqcx-mYY[/youtube]

1984

[youtube]6h3G-lMZxjo[/youtube]

Obama’s SOTU Response

[youtube]cmNCALGHOC4[/youtube]

Obama’s Iowa Speech

[youtube]yqoFwZUp5vc[/youtube]

Obama’s New Hampshire Speech (Just because I love it and because it’s been viewed more times than Hillary’s 3 AM ad.)

[youtube]Fe751kMBwms[/youtube]

---