Google Research has developed some tools that will change the aspect ratio of videos on the fly using different techniques to optimize the layout.
The idea is that users will be coming to YouTube with different screen aspect ratios. Older screens are 4:3 while most current screens are 16:10 or 16:9. But videos are uploaded at a whole other set of aspect ratios and Google researchers would like to eliminate “black boxing”.
By pinching, cropping and distorting in smart ways, Google is able to change the screen dimensions of each scene without losing the important content or distracting the user.
This should be beneficial to GoogleTV, amongst other projects where Google aims to take video from the net (YouTube mostly), and put it on home TVs.
Highly scientific video embedded below, via Twitter.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qMovlLlr_0&w=600&h=375&hd=1]