change initial display resolution WITHOUT re-encoding?

[pxstein]

It happens occasionally that I have videos with a small resolution (e.g. 352x264 pixel).
I can run them with a videoplayer like VLC.

But in order to view them in a comfortable way I have always to manually resize the VLC window.

Isn't it possible to change somewhere in the video container header the initial display resolution?
That should be done WITHOUT completely re-encode the video.

Just an embedded simulation of the manual window resize.

How can I do this for *.avi and for *.MP4 containers?

Or is it codec dependent?

[Brad]

There is a video renderer that will double-size or half-size things as necessary to maintain a fairly comfortable initial experience. Haali I think? For usage with MPC, not VLC.

[jagabo]

Some players have a setting where small videos are automatically rendered at 2x, 3x, whatever. Some players also have the ability to open all videos at some percentage of the Desktop size. VLC has a size multiplier but it's not sensitive to the source frame size. You can set it to 2x but then it will render all videos at 2x, even HD videos.

The MKV container appears to have a "suggested output frame size" option -- at least MMG lets you specify a frame size. I haven't seen a player that supports it though.