# Eliminate YouTube thumbnail black bars

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/eliminate-youtube-thumbnail-black-bars/319936>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [August 3, 2024, 5:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/eliminate-youtube-thumbnail-black-bars/319936 "2024-08-03T05:37:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![merefield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/merefield/32/176214_2.png) [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 5:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/eliminate-youtube-thumbnail-black-bars/319936/5 "2024-08-13T05:06:34Z")

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> [@jancernik](#):
>
> We don’t store the thumbnails for these embeds, we fetch them directly from YouTube when we need them.

But core does create and store irs own derived thumbnails at various resolutions as part of the cooking post process?

This is where the black bars are retained.

> [@jancernik](#):
>
> `hqdefault`
> 
> - It’s always 4:3.
> - If the original video is 16:9, it adds black bars.

Bingo!

But in any case that’s super helpful information which I may be able to use to improve my plugin. Thanks a lot!

That’s a lot more straightforward than asking GPT-4 Vision if there are black bars or using image magick to detect them.

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