YouTube announced today that they have updated their video player to a new, bigger format in order to accommodate widescreen (16:9) videos.

From the YouTube blog:

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. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.

We noticed this while uploading the newest video for NARAL Pro-Choice’s free.will.power initiative. The video,”Will” was shot in regular 4:3 in anticipation of it being uploaded to YouTube. But with this new change, the video appears on the YouTube page with areas of black on either side:

But as you can see, the videos still embed in the normal size: