It’s official: 16:9 is the aspect ratio of the future. And here at Yahoo! Video, the future is now (at other video sites the future is still just in the future, but they don’t have a suped-up Delorean like we do). We embrace the wide-screen aesthetic, so how can video uploaders make the most out of the 16:9 experience?

The general rule is: export the video in its native aspect ratio, and be sure to enable any function that preserves that aspect ratio. If you look at your original movie file and see black bars on the top and bottom, those black bars will be encoded, and your video will shrink. Just check out these illustrations (using Blender Foundation’s Big Buck Bunny):

It’s the difference between this:

and this:

The first one was exported as 4:3, even though the video was in 16:9. Hence the squishing.

Secondly, for best quality your video should be at least 576 x 324 pixels. This is the size of our player. Uploading at that size means your video won’t have to be scaled up, and you’ll maintain optimum resolution. After all, no one likes a chunky video.

If you’re not making videos at 16:9, that’s totally fine. But the same ideas apply: export the video in its native aspect ratio (be it 4:3, 2.39:1, 1.85:1 or whatever)), and keep the video as close to—or even larger than—the size of our player. Any letterboxing or windowboxing will be applied automatically at the time of playback.

-Kent, Yahoo! Video Team