Are You Seeing Changes To The YouTube Video Player? [Updated]

Earlier this year, YouTube launched a new video player with an upgraded design, and it appears that they are on the verge of rolling out even more changes to their video player. Online sources are reporting the observance of a new “post-screen”, the screen that shows up after the video has stopped playing. Check out screenshots after the jump and let us know if you’ve seen any changes to the YouTube player.

Eric Calouro from Erictric.com published a screenshot last night of what appears to be a redesigned “post-screen”, as he referred to it. As you can see from the screenshot below, the new screen makes the related video choices much more prominent, repositions the share and replay buttons and looks entirely different than the post-screen YouTube greeted us with previously.

I was curious if this post-screen would show up for me, so I checked it out on a few videos. Unfortunately I didn’t get the same screen as Calouro. However, I did notice that YouTube’s video player was not consistent from video to video. As you can see in the screenshot below, I watched one video (on the left) that gave me the option to Share, Replay or respond, with no related videos listed. The other video that I watched (on the right) gave me the option to Share or Replay, along with a couple of related video suggestions. I also noticed that the time bar on the right was more reminiscent of the old YouTube player than the one on the left.

When I clicked to “respond” on the first video it opened up a Flash dialogue box allowing me to record a video response directly, using my Web cam.

These subtle and inconsistent changes to YouTube’s video player come on the heels of YouTube announcing a lot of new changes to the site, including local music listings, a new “Playlist Bar”, a redesigned video manager, annotations upgrades, promotional badges and the ability to embed videos in different ways, including with YouTube’s Flash or HTML5 players.

Have you noticed any changes to the YouTube video player in the last few days? Please let us know if you’ve seen anything or have any information on YouTube’s potential video player upgrade.

UPDATE: As of this morning, August 12, 2010, YouTube appears to have rolled out the new post-screen on all videos. I have been seeing post-screens like the screenshot below on every YouTube video that I have watched today. If you aren’t seeing this screen yet, let us know in the comments. What do you think of the new design? How does it compare to the previous post-screen?

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.