Just noticed YouTube has switched to widescreen. The DVC films look pretty good as long as you click the "view in high quality" link. I hope they switch to high quality as default because I think most people will never bother, and the low quality version looks even worse stretched out over the larger screen area.

A while back I found in the preferences that you could set High quality as your default. Thay way I did not have to click to get it :) Hopefully more people do this :)

After you are logged in goto: http://www.youtube.com/account

on the left menu click on, Playback Setup

There you can set which you prefer :)

I noticed this just after youtube live. it makes some videos look a little better especially when you click "watch in high quality" or put "&fmt=18" at the end of the url.

There's a whole discussion on youtube allowing HD taking place here
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/digital-video-industry-news/138181-youtube-now-supports-high-definition-video.html

For videos that were encoded and uploaded to YouTube's HD specs, you will see "watch in HD" link instead of the typical "watch in high quality". I did a video that I'd like to share with you all. It includes all the settings (for Adobe Premire Pro CS3) necessary to encode for YouTube HD. Enjoy!

YouTube - Export HD Quality 1280x720 Widescreen Settings for YouTube HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-zzGQqGFhc)