Yesterday Google unveiled YouTube’s brand new theater view and dimming function, both dead ringers for the prospect of HD video. With the new theater view, users will be able to watch videos in a widened, dimmed format that will make whatever video they’re watching the main focus of the screen, much like Hulu’s “lower lights” feature.

Theater view provides a nice break from YouTube’s plethora of ads and “what you should watch” next suggestion boxes, all without making the video fit the screen and turn what was a watchable video into a pixilated mass.

The theater view provided by YouTube currently fills the extra space on the sides of the video with red curtains. Given the HD prospect of the theater view, there’s a good chance that this will be used to make room for 16:9 videos. And if that’s not enough for you, last week YouTube’s upload limit was changed to 1GB, convinced?

Now, we just need Tay Zonday to make a HD version of Chocolate Rain, and this will really catch on.

Image Credit: Google