Youtube Switching To Widescreen, Could Introduce 720p Videos Soon?

Google-owned video website, Youtube, has announced on the company blog on Monday evening that it will roll out widescreen functionality across the site by expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels from 425 pixels.

Although the blog post seems to have disappeared, Youtube has already started to add vertical black bars to 4:3 videos online rather than distort them - putting it on part with competitors like Vimeo or Hulu.com.

Obviously, the move is motivated by Youtube's long term goal of featuring full length movies on the website with the help of content creators worldwide, notably MGM with whom it signed an agreement earlier last month.

Intriguingly, last week, Webmonkey posted a tutorial on how to watch Youtube Movies in Full 720p HD, pointing to the fact that since May 2008, some videos were available on Youtube at this resolution, albeit requiring a Flash Player 9.

This means that, given a fast broadband connection, one should be able to stream Youtube content wirelessly or not to a large screen without noticeable lag or jagging. Now that's a thought.