Stretching Videos: Good/Bad Idea?

[GrafZeppelin]

I'm just curious about what most people prefer.

Example, original video's aspect ratio is 4:3. To make it fill the whole YouTube player, it's stretched to 16:9. I understand that this is more into personal choice, and I personally don't like it because it looks weird. But it seems that more and more people do this. Is it like a trend now?

[jman98]

I can only tell you that in the USA it's most definitely the trend and everybody here seems to think that video "looks better" in 16:9, even if it results in the loss of parts of the video or making people look short and fat. As a large number of YouTube users are Americans, this is natural. Almost everybody here watches everything on their TVs in 16:9, even if it's a 4:3 image. I cannot really speak for other countries, but I've noticed this disturbing trend here since at least the mid 2000s.

[manono]

It's only done by idiots that don't know any better. Who in their right mind wants everyone to look fat? Yes, I see it more frequently too. That and chopping off heads and legs to make it 'widescreen' and fill the player. It makes me sick. But the people that do it don't know the first thing about video encoding and there's often other things wrong with the videos so it makes it easier to refuse to watch them.

[NoBuddy]

I know people, which doesn't even realize that a ball now looks like an egg on their 16:9 screen.
People aren't able to distinguish a highly compressed mp3 file from CD Audio,
Why do we get HD, BluRay, etc. when people are getting blinder each day, or going deaf ?

[GrafZeppelin]

Almost everybody here watches everything on their TVs in 16:9, even if it's a 4:3 image. I cannot really speak for other countries, but I've noticed this disturbing trend here since at least the mid 2000s.

It's awakening here since like around 2-3 years ago and still growing.

But yeah, I don't really like that idea either. It's like forcing your girlfriend to be like the way you want but totally abusing her feeling and other people's view. I won't blame them though. Just hopefully no one will say things like "your video isn't widescreen, so it's uglleeeeyyy!!!" to me if I keep the original aspect ratio. =V

[manono]

Just hopefully no one will say things like "your video isn't widescreen, so it's uglleeeeyyy!!!" to me if I keep the original aspect ratio. =V

Just reply that they're an ignorant fool. And then block them so they can't do your channel any harm.

[sanlyn]

Penelope Cruz weighting 230 pounds? Not for me. Must be a rash of gigantomastia addicts loose on the planet. Count me out.

[Clockwork]

I can't even stay in the same room if someone is watching something in the wrong aspect ratio.

It's truly vile.

[sanlyn]

Ditto. Annoying. I note that most people don't even know it's stretched.

[theewizard]

i only watch in the correct aspect ratio
stretching something sideways to make it fit is just plain UGLY

[Brad]

Some years ago there were threads on this forum decrying certain video capture chips for stretching a video line by 3%. I don't think you will find much support for 33% stretch mode among video geeks.

[mazinz]

yeah most people in the US (which is where I am) do not seem to care if the aspect ratio is wrong. Then again most of these same people are totally fine with like 400 meg divx encodes for full length films.

Things like that drive me crazy- been over too many friend's houses and say to them "you know your tv is displaying this in the wrong aspect ratio", which I then show them in their settings on how to fix it.

Of course though some tv stations also have their streams flagged wrong if you are still using a 4:3 set. I have seen a few networks (like WWOR and WPIX) that despite having "letterbox" on your cablebox display, their actual broadcast for that channel is clearly zoomed in or squished (for most shows, not all of them) on a 4:3 analog set


For the original poster, yes it is a new growing trend because most people just do not care. They see 16x9 as some super enhancement regardless of what the source format was to begin with.

[Brad]

Last month I finally taught my parents how to use the zoom mode on their TV instead of stretching letterboxed video, but no go for turning off stretch on actual 4:3 content.

[neomaine]

Last month I finally taught my parents how to use the zoom mode on their TV instead of stretching letterboxed video, but no go for turning off stretch on actual 4:3 content.

Ditto on both sides of my family here, they paid for the whole TV, they want to USE the whole TV!!!

Getting into discussion of commercials during prime time is a waste of time. The best ones are HD commercials, retransmitted to the local station, letterboxed, then retransmitted to HD leaving it letter AND pillar boxed. I love watching their faces when I explain that one.

I got a few of them talked into having the TV at pixel-to-pixel mode. They get a little grumpy with some of the local stations just rebroadcasting their SD content and having the top 4-5 lines being all crap that would normally be overscanned, but they've learned to block it out.

[suelaine]

I also can't stand watching a 4:3 picture stretched to 16x9. Most people I know think that I am nutty and they say it doesn't bother them and you "get used to it." They hate black bars on the sides more than they dislike what I call the "fat view."

I would rather have a 13 inch b/w tv with the correct aspect for the picture, than to watch a picture stretched too wide on big screen, modern TV. I am baffled how some people can spend so much for a nice modern TV and then it does not bother them to watch a severely distorted video on it. I'm actually glad to find this thread on this forum. I knew I was not "alone" in my thinking about this, but among the people I associate with in my little world, I am mostly alone on this. My husband knows by now I have absolutely no tolerance for the fat view, and he is "not allowed" to put the tv in that mode.

[sanlyn]

I also can't stand watching a 4:3 picture stretched to 16x9. Most people I know think that I am nutty and they say it doesn't bother them and you "get used to it."

Why should they have to "get used to it"? Sounds like an excuse to cover their ignorance about how to set a display to work properly. You're not nutty. They are.

They hate black bars on the sides more than they dislike what I call the "fat view."

Keep the black bars. Tell them they'll have to get used to it.

My husband knows by now I have absolutely no tolerance for the fat view, and he is "not allowed" to put the tv in that mode.

Tell him he can get used to normal mode, too.

[lingyi]

I shudder at the thought of "modernizing" Kurosawa's Seven Samurai or Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by cropping it to 16:9.

I think part of the willingness to watch a "stretched" or cropped video is because few modern directors fill the screen with images that are truly integral to the film. "Let's put lots of action and 3D effects in the middle forefront of the screen" so people don't notice that the background is computer generated and poorly composed.

I have a TV on somewhere in the house virtually every waking hour that I'm at home providing background noise and theres a few minutes of actual "viewing" for every 10 that it's on. But when I'm ready to "watch" a movie or video, the lights go out, THX mode and the soundbar goes on and I'm immersed in the glory of the filmmaker's art, not bothered by the top or sidebars that disappear into the darkness of the room!

[sanlyn]

Something like Seven Samurai is classic stuff that plays as "action" and as photo-art as well, not to forget performance art and editing art. The photogs and art directors in those 4:3 movies knew exactly what they were doing. The studios didn't pay big bucks or import big names from overseas just because those people could turn a camera on and off. Everything that's in the frame belongs there; nothing is there that shouldn't be. Old Technicolor was the same way: every object in the frame of a well-made Technicolor film had to be "exactly" a certain hue, lighted in an exact way. IF on location, every view was carefully chosen and set up. If the light wasn't right, you waited. Remember Robin Hood ? (1938). In the woods where they shot the movie, the leaves weren't the right green -- so they painted them. With lesser films, crews just shot whatever was in front of the camera -- and let's face it, not every movie had the time, budget, skill or intentions for being a classic.

I fear today's audience is not just visually illiterate but becoming more passive and media-trained to accept whatever is on the plastic screen full of tiny jelly cells in front of them. Anyone who notices or complains is subversive. Guess that makes me an outlaw (again). Might as well have fun with it before tv and movies get more and more content-free and start telling the viewer what's what, instead of the other way around.

[fritzi93]

I fear today's audience is not just visually illiterate but becoming more passive and media-trained to accept whatever is on the plastic screen full of tiny jelly cells in front of them.

That's just terrible.

I also think they are unable to appreciate really fine old films, that don't have frenetic pacing. Sensibilities change, and sometimes not for the better. But I guess I'm going a little OT now.

[_Al_]

I would not say they are illiterate, they just simply ignore some technical aspects of our lives, they don't care if they have latest firmware, right aspect ratio or to have their computer updated or cleaned etc. Sort of enough, self defense , let me live a nice human life without technical stuff constantly bugging it and overriding it. Sure they might be some who stretch to fill screen on purpose, sure, but this is one of those things for them to watch not mine...

[lingyi]

A bit OT, but I come back on topic, I promise!

I recently swapped my LCD HDTV for a plasma (Panasonic VT50, widely rated the best HDTV of 2012) and was initially underwhelmed at the picture. My LCD was brighter, "sharper" and "clearer" than my new plasma.

It was while watching a Korean horror film that I suddenly realized what "true picture quality" was all about. The film had a lot of dark scenes in a morgue and I was thinking to myself, "Boy, this director really likes his dark scenes". Then it dawned it me. The THX cinema mode allowed me to actually see what was going on the dark! Something my brighter, "sharper", "clearer" LCD wouldn't have allowed.

I watched three full movies that night, stopping half-way through a fourth because it was 2AM and I didn't want to wake the neighbors. My eyes weren't tired because I was watching movies as the director's intended, catching nuances that were hidden in the too bright, sharp, clear picture that I'd been watching. In a few months, I'll spend several hundred dollars to have my plasma professiionally calibrated to get even closer to the director's visual intent.

I don't think it's a matter of people being visually illiterate, rather we live in a time when "good enough" is the norm. Movie screens are getting smaller, home screens are getting larger (while often failing to maintain visual accuracy) and people are settling for less. I wonder how many young people have ever seen a live play or a live (i.e. real musicans and live singers, not pre-taped, lip-synced) concert. Even fewer have ever experienced the glory of a Technicolor, Cinerama film with all the direct sound (gasp!) coming from the fronf the theatre, but wonderfully reverberating thoughout all the seats because of the carefully designed room. SIGH*

[sanlyn]

Depending on the settings used for different tv's, a plasma TV is as capable of bright display as other TV's. However, similar to the image-fading of CRT phosphors (and film projection as well), plasma has a similar flicker or fade cycle. In a brightly lightedn room, this can make the image look dimmer, and your eyes adjust to the greater brightness of the lighting. I have an LCD in a living room that during the day is brightly lighted with spill from large windows with thin curtains. During the day the LCD looks bright, certainly, but the image is washed-out. The same for the plasma, but it doesn't "look" as bright. In many respects the operation and performance of plasma displays are more like CRT's, which I'd prefer anyway.

LCD's suck IMO. Period. Trying to get dim-level detail out of a backlighted machine simply defies the laws of physics. Some LCD's are better at it than others. I have a pretty good one that does a decent job with classic movies and after calibration it looks OK with most DVD's and HD -- that is, if it's receiving a perfect signal. A digital source with out-of-range blacks (very common) or noisy signal (ditto) looks like complete crap on any LCD, far worse than on a CRT or plasma. Several years ago, Phillips found a way to cure the motion blur problem on LCD's, which back then was worse than today because of slower LCD technology. What Phillips did was design a backlight that dimmed cyclically ("flicker") like a CRT or a movie theater. Unfortunately, in a bright showroom the Phillips TV's looked dimmer than the others. Rather than understand the optical illusion, John Q. Public picked the usual quantity over quality, and now pays bigger bucks for nonsense like 240hz display and other junk gimmicks that ruin images in the ways that Mr/Mrs Public prefer and have been trained to recognize.

BTW, I don't know where people got the idea that THX is some kind of calibration "standard". It's an extremely simple set of adjustments, but certainly better than the often-insane factory display modes supplied with TV's.

[yellowjessy]

hi, 16:9 it is the right actual and for me even the future trend. Keep doing on it...

[sanlyn]

What doers "right actual" mean. Right for what? You are allowed to keep right on doing it. But you're cheating yourself. Some of the stuff you watch must look really odd.
https://www.google.com/search?q=film+aspect+ratios&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa...w=1425&bih=797

[yellowjessy]

I mean, 16:9 is the modern and best way for video, but of course, this is just my opinion...

[sanlyn]

I think you refer to the standard physical screen size ratio for home TV displays made today. That's probably true, but no one is debating that.

[Cauptain]

I'm just curious about what most people prefer.

Example, original video's aspect ratio is 4:3. To make it fill the whole YouTube player, it's stretched to 16:9. I understand that this is more into personal choice, and I personally don't like it because it looks weird. But it seems that more and more people do this. Is it like a trend now?

Youtube currently takes several nonstandard resolutions.

I use some stretch HD 4:3 with a resolution of 1080x720 and is not so bad.

Below watch a video stretched (original is 384x288 4:3 on monitor arcade cabinet).







Claudio

[manono]

I use some stretch HD 4:3 with a resolution of 1080x720 and is not so bad.

And not so good either. There's no 'almost' here. There's no 'wiggle room'. You either show it in the original aspect ratio or you don't. If you don't then you have no claim to being a good encoder, no matter what 'tricks' you use to make it look 'not so bad'.

[SoupOrJuice]

OK so I've skimmed some of your later posts here, but my question is this: If you're watching on a widescreen monitor (my monitor is an old LCD, not HD, and 16:9 physical ratio), how are you SUPPOSED to watch 4:3 videos? There's no way to watch them without A) Squishing the picture or B) having black bars on the side of the screen, which to me is actually more noticeable than any squishing coming from forcing a widescreen ratio. Maybe that's just my "becoming blind" or "ignorant eye sight" as you guys have said...

And also, I read somewhere that your eye can't even determine the difference between regular DVD and Blu-Ray quality, so I can only assume that the same goes with quality (like maybe 720p vs 1080p, etc.) Also, someone said there's a noticeable quality difference between CD Audio and .digital audio that iTunes spits out? I haven't honestly compared the two side by side but to me, audio is audio. Sure, record/vinyl vs CD can be easily determined, but minute changes in quality, sharpness, etc. aren't as noticeable as say, changing settings on an EQ.

Just my two cents, coming from a "Mr Public"

[Cauptain]

And not so good either. There's no 'almost' here. There's no 'wiggle room'. You either show it in the original aspect ratio or you don't. If you don't then you have no claim to being a good encoder, no matter what 'tricks' you use to make it look 'not so bad'.

I Disagree.

My post is based on Youtube videos only.

Anytime was told that the "right" or "wrong".

We arent talking about "encodes" but about being good or bad to watch. Only this.

Look and tell me:

Original (384x288 - DAR 12:7)


Resize1 ( 960x720 - DAR 4:3)


Resize2 ( 1080x720 - DAR 3:2)


Whats better for YT??



Claudio