display aspect ratio.

[paul jarvis]

Hello.

when I watch tv shows or movies through BBC iplayer VLC player or Windows media player in full screen mode I get a black line at the top and bottom of the screen about an inch each. is there a way of sorting this? or this this because of the 3.2 aspect ratio?

thank you

 

[surfdock]

Yes it is because of the SP3's 3:2 aspect ratio.

With VLC, there may be plugins that allow you to stretch and zoom the video to fill the screen just like on Televisions prior to the broad adoption of "HD" and widescreen 16:9 formats. Pleas see the VLC forum for more info such as this thread: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=72727

Windows app store video players will just play the video in its native aspect ratio. I don't know of any players that provide the option to stretch/zoom.

Hope that helps.

 

[drolem]

You can actually get those black bars for at least 2 reasons:
a) the aspect ratio doesn't match, and the above poster already mentioned that. I don't think you need a plugin since in VLC under Video -> Aspect Ratio you can force different aspect ratios, and possibly get rid of the black bars, but the display may look a bit distorted. (stretched)
b) however, in some other cases the movie already contains black bars because the original movie is in a cinematic ratio, and it was fitted into 16:9. You can't do diddly squat about those bars, although in theory it's possible to remove them from the movie with some SW such as mencoder.

 

[bluegrass]

I watch movies using a wide screen projector & screen at home. I constantly run into movies that were much wider than todays widescreen standard. They of course have black bands. Some wider then others, depending on the ratio the film was created in. I'm sure movie houses also had blank areas top and bottom on some movies in their day.

 

[paul jarvis]

if I change VLC to 16:10 it is a little stretched and the black lines are only about 1/4 of an inch but is there a way to make VLC remember this choice so I don't have to do it every time?

Cheers

 

[Liam2349]

Personally I say leave it be, by stretching the video you're ruining the image.

 

[kundas1]

yea why does it bother you so much? lol I watch tons of movies as well as everyone I know and it doesn't seem to bother anyone? but for vlc yes right click on the screen when the movie is playing then choose video and then choose aspect ratio and choose the one that you like.