The VideoLAN Forums

Hi all,

For years I've been using ZOOM only, and didn't even know there was such a thing as SCALE, even though I knew VLC is stuffed with features I'm not using, but today I finally looked into it when I tried to find out how to set up a CUSTOM ZOOM LIST… the idea being to see more than just "quarter", "half", "original", and "double" in the zoom menu.

Well, I never did do that, because during my search I saw some discussion about the SCALE feature and decided to try it out for myself, and I saw that, without my changing anything in preferences, it seems to offer me 9 levels of zoom. Only, since I'm using SCALE, I should say that it's showing me 9 scale levels, but what I'm seeing also looks exactly like 9 zoom levels, and is pretty much exactly what I was looking to set up in the first place when I said "custom zoom list".

So, two questions: what exactly are the differences, if any, between those two words, and secondly, is it possible to fine-tune the 9 levels I'm seeing, either with more levels, or by defining custom levels for the 9 I am seeing? I'm not a VLC noob but I'm a zoom/scale noob

ADDENDUM to ⇑⇑

Since writing the OP I saw in another video that it isn't necessarily "9" levels… there were a lot more in this other video, like around 15–20. But the two basic questions I asked are still valid… anyone?

Anybody? No one knows?

Which "SCALE feature" do you mean?

Zoom affects the window size, whereas scale does not. In principles. This stuff has been pretty broken since VLC 1.1 or so.

"This stuff" (the "Zoom" in the Video-Preferences) was redundant with 2.0.
"Video scaling factor" in the video Preferensces works very well.
Since 2.1 "Video scaling factor" is not working.
"Zoom" is a substitute for "Video scaling factor".
But now the height and width do not work anymore.
Although the video window gets the height and width, but is circumcised.

Maybe it's because there's a lot of "this works in this version but that doesn't work in that version" that no one is giving this issue much mind, but it's a shame because this is an incredibly useful thing to be able to control at a snap using the keyboard, and judging from the feedback, seems to be an all-but-undocumented feature of VLC. I have it in my preferences so that the 'S' key performs "scale" and Shift-S will undo it, and I'm constantly using it to resize whatever I have playing in the corner while I do other work ( on the same monitor obviously ) : tap 'S' a few times and the VLC window gets about 10% bigger with each tap, or tap Shift-S to scale the VLC window back 10% ( i.e. − 10% ). So useful when shuffling app windows around. By the way scale does indeed affect the window size, contrary to what someone stated—it resizes the clip and the window it's in.

That's why I asked the question in the first place—some would say I just basically described what "zoom" is supposed to be/do. So far as I can tell, "scale" is just a way more functional "zoom"—it seems to function like a zoom feature that simply doesn't need to have any of the zoom levels ( percentages ) defined anywhere; rather, it seems to be pre-set to ≈ 10% steps. The exact number is bound to be somewhere in the preferences of course, but I see no need to look for it as 10%, or wtv it actually is, is a very nice, very workable increment. I'd wager that if I walked up to anyone ( hypothetically speaking ) who has something playing in a VLC window off to the side to serve as background while they do other stuff, and said to them "Here, check it out : you can do this and this to gently resize it up or down a bit, to better serve your needs", they'd start using it from that day forth.

Thanks to those who took the time to reply.