How do I watch Movies without letterbox?

[AndrewL920]

Hi! How do I watch movies without letterbox? Are there any solution for this? Tapping the Full-Screen mode will fill the screen but the left and right part of the video cannot be seen.

 

[jojoe42]

Hi! How do I watch movies without letterbox? Are there any solution for this? Tapping the Full-Screen mode will fill the screen but the left and right part of the video cannot be seen.

There is no end solution for this - either you have a little bit of black bars at the bottom or you have a bit of video cut out on the sides. The Lumia 920 does not have a 16:9 display hence why there are black bars; if you had an HTC 8X there wouldn't be any as it has a resolution of 1280x720 in 16:9 whereas the Lumia 920 has a resolution of 1280x768

 

[AndrewL920]

There is no end solution for this - either you have a little bit of black bars at the bottom or you have a bit of video cut out on the sides. The Lumia 920 does not have a 16:9 display hence why there are black bars; if you had an HTC 8X there wouldn't be any as it has a resolution of 1280x720 in 16:9 whereas the Lumia 920 has a resolution of 1280x768

Thanks! Well that's bad. Most of my movies on my PC has black bars. It is to painful to watch it on my phone.

 

[Localhorst86]

Why are the black bars painful to you? Your movies and your screen simply have a different aspect ratio so you either have to live with the black bars (which I do not see the problem with, it's not that they are gray but almost completely black so they don't even stand out compared to the bezel) or with your left and right sides of the image cut off.

A third, but by far the worst alternative, would be to stretch the movie full screen, breaking the aspect ratio of the video image. But no one in their right mind would want to watch a movie with a "squished" image like that. ��

 

[AndrewL920]

Why are the black bars painful to you? Your movies and your screen simply have a different aspect ratio so you either have to live with the black bars (which I do not see the problem with, it's not that they are gray but almost completely black so they don't even stand out compared to the bezel) or with your left and right sides of the image cut off.

A third, but by far the worst alternative, would be to stretch the movie full screen, breaking the aspect ratio of the video image. But no one in their right mind would want to watch a movie with a "squished" image like that. ��

Yes squished movie is really terrible. Are not there any video player that can fit to screen the video while maintaining the aspect ratio?

 

[Localhorst86]

Yes squished movie is really terrible. Are not there any video player that can fit to screen the video while maintaining the aspect ratio?

Yes there is. The built in video player does just that: it preserves the aspect ratio. Either with black bars or with image information cut off left and right.

The "issue" here is that the 16:10 devices have more vertical pixels (in landscape view) than the 16:9 devices. Movies are 16:9.


Sent from my Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

 

[AndrewL920]

Yes there is. The built in video player does just that: it preserves the aspect ratio. Either with black bars or with image information cut off left and right.

The "issue" here is that the 16:10 devices have more vertical pixels (in landscape view) than the 16:9 devices. Movies are 16:9.


Sent from my Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

The full screen mode using default video player works fine but the left and right image of the movie are being cut. Why?

 

[Localhorst86]

because that's the way 16:9 content has to be displayed on a 16:10 screen.

There's three ways to handle 16:9 content on a 16:10 screen:

1. You display the picture undistorted in full width. This will result in black bars on the top/bottom as the movie does not contain information for that part of the screen.
- source video is 1280x720 (16:9 aspect ratio)
- screen size is 1280x768 (16:10 aspect ratio)
- image will be displayed as 1280x720 with black bars on top


2. You display the picture across the full height of the screen. Since the image will now be wider than the display, you will have parts of the picture cropped left and right.
-source video is 1280x720 (16:9 aspect ratio)
- screen size is 1280x768 (16:10 aspect ratio)
- image will be displayed as 1366x768 with the picture cut off left/right to fit the width of the screen (1280 pixels)

3. You display the image distorted across the full screen. A picture that's 1280x720 will now be stretched to 1280x768. So a shape that would be circular in the source would be stretched to an oval. As this is the absolute worst way to handle video that doesn't match with the screen aspect ratio it is clear why this is not an option in the built in video player.
-source video is 1280x720 (16:9 aspect ratio)
- screen size is 1280x768 (16:10 aspect ratio)
- image will be displayed as 1280x768 with stretched image information



These are the only three ways non-matching aspect ratios can be handled. If none of these is what you want, what exactly is your take on how it could be handled?