Droppin' some knowledge on YouTube

I get YouTube. I really do. I get its user-friendly methods, and the necessity to shrink video file sizes in order to post the millions of closeups from desktop Webcams of preteen pontificators.

It's a money-generating machine for Google, which bought it last year. And darn if it's not fun.

That's what makes me think that somewhere at the YouTube home office there is a room full of monkeys at typewriters trying to conjure a solution to the aspect ratio issue.

Of what do I speak? Well, we recently bought our wedding videographer - I say "bought" because we plunked the $700 the pro wanted into buying our very own Hitachi HD and DVD camcorder. It's pretty sweet - it has its own hard drive, which can keep something like 4-5 hours of video, but also can burn 30 minutes directly to a tiny DVD for immaediate viewing.

I tested the camera last week at work, and kept the letterbox aspect ratio. But when the video showed up on YouTube, Youtube automatically added the black bars at the top and bottom but, as you can see, still squished it a bit on the left and right sides.

I'm not complaining. It's an uber cool free service, and technology is only now outpacing it. The only question I have is: When will the monkeys launch V 2.0 to give us bigger picture capability?