http://www.keohi.com/keohiHDTV/htpc/yxy/yxy.html

YXY is a free aspect ratio controller program that is used with Intervideo's WinDVD DVD Player. With YXY you can position the WinDVD window to precise locations on the screen, and save those locations for future use. The program should work with other software DVD players as well, or other applications such as software TV players. My primary testing has been done with WinDVD however.

The main benefit of this tool is if you have a front projection system, you can leave your projector memory set up for anamorphic sources (i.e. vertically squeezed.) When playing non-anamorphic DVD's you can simply size the window of the DVD player 33% taller than normal. It will then look like an anamorphic DVD to your projector. Similarly you can shrink a 4:3 shaped movie to take up the center portion of the 16:9 screen shape.

In addition the program can be used to save a variety of custom settings. The settings that I use handle:

1.66:1 movies that take the full height of the screen, but have small bars on the sides

1.37:1 full-screen material positioned to the left or to the right within the 16:9 anamorphic window, to avoid burning in the image

2.35:1 movies positioned at the top or bottom of the screen, to avoid burning in the image

Slightly expand the window of some underscanned movies
Reposition the window of some non-anamorphic letterboxed movies which have their subtitles beneath the image

Crop full-frame unmatted movies back to their correct aspect ratio. Instead of just taking a "slice out of the middle" I can take the top portion of the image for those movies that are shot with the common-top-line method, where most of the unmatting is done at the bottom.

Other program features include:

Resize the application window larger than the actual screen without requiring a virtual window program such as WinSpace.

Automatic blanking calculation (to hide the DVD player caption and borders) with custom overrides

Orbiting (move the window around on the screen in small increments to avoid screen burn-in)

Button repeat function for easy interactive screen positioning. Just hold the Moving and Sizing buttons down, and after a short delay, the action will repeat until the button is released.

Proportionally move the window up, down, left, and right; proportionally shrink or expand the window height and width, separately, or together

Command line startup options to select a particular setting

Global hotkey support for selecting settings. Works even when the YXY window is hidden or in the background.

Playlist feature lets you associate particular DVD's or other titles with a specific setting

When a DVD is inserted that is on the PlayList, automatically switch to the correct aspect ratio
When an unknown DVD is inserted, automatically add it to the PlayList using default settings

Ability to disable the PC Friendly DVD-ROM program from launching when loading a DVD.