The VideoLAN Forums

I would need help. I would like to CROP away left and right black stripes and then to change aspect ratio to 4:3 to properly fit a full screen of my monitor. I tried following settings:
1.) button: "Show extended settings" > Adjustments and Effects window > Video Effects tab > Crop tab
2.) hotkey "a" or Video > Aspect Ratio
Changing aspect ratio forgets previous cropping.
Is there a way just to stretch the picture to fill completely the full screen?
Thanks in advance for advices.

o and z hotkeys can be used for scaling and zooming.

o and z do not help me very much.
I meant effect like in MPC homecinema, when in full screen mode, key NUMPAD6 increases width and CTRL+NUMPAD6 and 4 adjust a position. It is not perfect because it is done in certain steps, not in single pixels, but a result is still very good and easy to do.

So if it is not possible to get rid of black borders and stretch a picture to edges of a screen in VLC, then it could be a new Feature Request, couldn't it?

Alt+o and alt+Shift+O, a, c, z should do it.

to crop ans streach one can use the option 'a'. use it in the keyboard in the time of vedio playing itself

I am sorry I still don't know how to do it.
Here I have prepared a test picture similar to situation in video screen that I would like to adjust:
test 720x576 - how to crop and stretch.jpg

Please open it in VLC and pause playback immediately to keep it on a screen (use SPACEBAR to play and pause). Then press F for full screen mode. If your monitor is widescreen one then try to display the green area in 16:9 format without red borders on the screen.
So what exactly should I press? Or what to set up in preferences (video filters)? Please help me to find some way.

In MPC I just open the picture, then I press LEFTALT+ENTER or doubleclick on the screen for fullscreen mode, then 5 times NUMPAD6 and then 1 time CTRL+NUMPAD4. A result is not perfect but it is still quite satisfactory.
I like VLC so I also would like to help to improve it at least with some ideas.
Thanks in advance.

Just to inform other users who are interested in a solution of my problem.
I have just tried nightly build of VLC (version 1.2.0) where everything works as should, exactly in two steps as described in my first post here - first to crop, then to change aspect ratio to 4:3 of the cropped video.
Can anybody tell me why is buggy VLC 1.1.x still updated and when can we expect 1.2.x officialy to be released?
Thanks.

Can anybody tell me why is buggy VLC 1.1.x still updated and when can we expect 1.2.x officialy to be released?

VLC 1.1.x is updated because 1.2 is not ready.
VLC 1.2.x will be officially released, when it's ready.

All right, here comes the solution for VLC 1.1.x
A goal is to calculate a global aspect ratio for the whole picture (720x576) so that the green area whithin it will have the desired (4:3) format.
- use Cropping Tool ("Show extended settings" button > Adjustments and Effects window > Video Effects tab > Crop subtab) to find out dimensions of green area: CROP-Left=18px, -Top=2px, -Right=6px
=> 720-(18+6)x576-2 => 696x574
4/3=1.33333 => 574x1.3333=765 => (765:574)=(4:3)
765/696=1.09914
720x1.09914=791
=> (791:576) will be the global aspect ratio.
- now to add it on a list of aspect ratios: Tools > Preferences (Show settings - All) > Video: Custom aspect ratios list: 791:576
- Save settings + annoying restart of the player
- open the sample picture and set the custom aspect ratio: Video > Aspect Ratio. There should be our 791:576 available.
- use Cropping Tool to crop out the green area, then Fullscreen mode (F or doubleclick) and that's it.

I also encounter the same issue that I have a 16:9 video that has been captured and saved as 4:3, with the excess space just being black with the capturer's logo. I now want to play this on a 16:9 screen (my new Apple display ) and have the black bars that are part of the capture cropped off (a zoom function would be nice...) but instead vlc plays the video with a black border all the way round.
Hope the final solution stated here can fix it!