Consistent Cross-Platform "Stretch to Fit Window"

[mattisking]

I'd really like the ability to force the video into whatever aspect ratio I choose by simply resizing the window. mplayer and Media Player Classic are both capable of this but except for a very well hidden option for Mac OSX, I've been unable to find this option in either Windows or Linux.

I'm working with a program called webXKiosk which generally runs a webpage of your choice in a borderless fullscreen "kiosk" mode. The webpage that it displays uses a couple of different plugins, two of which are VLC and Flash. The screen layout is paneled so there is more than one kind of content on the screen at a time in different screen regions. The VLC plugin doesn't want to let me play the content in my slightly off aspect ratio even though the content in question wouldn't really be noticeable stretched like this. The result is black bars. If this exists somehow, please tell me, because I've hit a wall.

[CloudStalker]

I’m not sure if this is what you want, but if you go to the preferences menu and the “Video” tab, under “General video settings” you should be able to force the source aspect ratio to whatever you want, and once you’re settings are saved all you’re videos should automatically play using that aspect ratio.

[mattisking]

My problem is doing it from within the VLC plugin. It maintains aspect ratio and doesn't want to let me put in weird values.

Real world scenario:
15 inch LCD running at 1024x768 showing a MPEG2 video at 4:3 aspect ratio will play nicely fullscreen with no bars around it. Now, stick a banner across the bottom of the page that's 80 pixels high and your video region is now 1024x688. I want the video to completely fill that region, to break it's aspect ratio. I'm comfortable with the fact that the video will look stretched. I can do this in VLC (I think) from the command line using the --aspect-ration option and figuring out the correct fraction... I suppose it's 1.488 or something. However, I don't see a way to accomplish the same thing using the VLC plugin.

The newer consolidated interface DOES offer up the aspect-ratio option but it seems to only take a few "standards". I could be wrong about that but I couldn't get it to work.

[CloudStalker]

Within that same menu you should be able to use the “costume aspect ratios list” and input your own aspect ratio. You’ll have to do the math though to figure out what that aspect ratio should be in order for it to fill-out you’re screen. If you manage to get the video to look like a square box within your monitor, then you can crop the video to fill-out the screen.

An example of this is: Watching a standard DVD (Cars) with the default 221:100 aspect ratio. To watch this video on a fullscreen monitor with no borders, you’ll have to change the aspect ratio to 1:1 and crop the video to 4:3 (5:4 if you’re desktop resolution is something like 1280x1024).

[mattisking]

Are there some simple formulas available for this?

Here's an example. I'm running VLC on a Mac Mini with a fairly standard NON-widescreen 15 inch LCD. I have an MPEG2 video. Using GSpot I get 3 different aspect-ratios:
Storage Aspect Ratio (SAR): 1.782 (41:23)
Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) 0.748
Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) 1.333 (4:3)
It's actual width and height are 720x404.

A calculator tells me that at 4:3, 720 pixels across should equal 540 pixels high. I chose 4:3 there because of the listed DAR above. But if I choose 16:9 instead, the math is about right, 720x405. So... which is it? Is this just a strangely rendered video? Also, if I wanted this to fill a vlc window measuring 1024x688 (the bottom 80 pixels are for something else) what custom ratio should I choose? Am I just totally off?

[BorisQueue]

I think I understand what you mean, and I requested the same thing a long time ago. If I'm watching a video, and I feel (rightly or wrongly) that the aspect ratio isn't quite correct, I want to be able to just grab the corner of the window and do a "shift-drag" (or some other modifier) that will change the aspect ratio dynamically to whatever looks good to me.

In the meantime, I offer a workaround: just put the following text all on one single long line (the forums aren't displaying it right so I broke it up) into the Video Preferences for both "Custom Crop Ratios List" and "Custom Aspect Ratios List" and then use the hotkeys to change aspect ratios (or crops) up or down:

130:100,135:100,140:100,145:100,150:100,155:100,160:100,165:100,170:100,175:100,
180:100,185:100,190:100,195:100,200:100,210:100,220:100,230:100,240:100,250:100,
260:100,270:100,280:100,290:100,300:100