Shrink but don't stretch

[Richadj4]

I'm looking for an option to shrink videos but not stretch them.

I usually have vlc open "windowed" and always on top in a particular place. I have a bunch of videos of WIDELY varying sizes. I appear to have 2 options, either resize the window to the video, or don't, And either fit the video to the window, or don't. I definitely don't want the window resized, so I've turned that one off. The problem is that when the video is smaller than my chosen window size, I DON'T want it to "zoom" the video, I want the "black bands" around the video while it plays in it's own resolution. However if the Video is larger than my chosen window size, then I DO need it "resized" to fit in the window (cropping is stupid and pointless).

I'm not sure what this option would be called, or where it is, any ideas?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Use the "o" hotkey.