Some videos (mp4,avi,etc) do not fill the screen and some do.

[jagman]

I have a very large monitor and I hate black borders around a small picture.

I view my videos with VLC

Some MP4/AVI/ETC fill the screen and some don't and I do not understand the dynamics of the two.

I do know changing the ASPECT RATIO in VLC does not help.

I know if somethings like bit rate/frame rate/resolution/etc somehow makes the FRAME/picture larger (or smaller).

I assume the video needs to be "REMUXED"?

Some converters have ways to change the: bit rate, frame rate and resolution but I cant seem to figure it out with trial/error.

I do know it usually increases the file size but sometimes is worth it.

Can anyone help?

[jagabo]

Not all videos are supposed to fill the screen. Only those where the display aspect ratio matches the screens aspect ratio. For example, many widescreen movies are 2.35:1, not 1.78:1 like most computer monitors. Also, some videos include black borders as part of the picture. Even when those videos fill the screen you will have black borders because they are part of the picture.

[videobruger]

Some Info

http://vimeo.com/68830569

[LMotlow]

I have a very large monitor and I hate black borders around a small picture.

Darn, that's a shame. Several choices are available:

1) Change the size of your display monitor for each video. Difficult without the proper tools and hardware.

2) Or, even better, buy a different monitor for each different frame aspect ratio. You would only have to buy a handful of monitors for each aspect ratio available in TV shows and movies today:
- 4:3 (1.3333:1) produced for old TV shows. Examples I Love Lucy, All In The Family, and many many many more
- Classic 35mm movie film (1.37:1). examples Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Father Of The Bride, thousands more.
- Early VistaVision (1.66:1), examples White Christmas, Rear Window, The Searchers, North By Northwest
- TV Wide screen and HDTV 1.7778:1 (16:9): Castle, Seinfeld, Criminal Minds, American Idol, etc. etc., etc., etc.,......
- Hollywood standard "wide screen (1.86:1), examples The Godfather, Jurassic Park
- Cinemascope/wide Panavision (2.35:1) as in The Robe, Jaws
- 65mm/70mm (2.66:1 and some variations) as in Ben-Hur
You might have a little problem with a few movies, such as some Star Wars flicks filmed at 2.2:1, Cinerama, TODD-AO, IMAX, and whatnot. No real solution for those. Maybe you could live with a compromise there.

3) Use software and/or image controls to modify and distort each movie: stretching horizontally and/or vertically, zooming and/or cropping, etc. You'll need software for most of it.

4) Some ingenious geeks might have even more ideas.

I do know changing the ASPECT RATIO in VLC does not help.

Usually not. Changing the aspect ratio of the displayed image does nothing to change the aspect ratio of your monitor screen. See #1, #2, and #3, above. Ya see, jagman, in order for an image to fill a screen, the aspect ratio of the image and the aspect ratio of the display have to be the same.

I know if somethings like bit rate/frame rate/resolution/etc somehow makes the FRAME/picture larger (or smaller).

Bitrate doesn't change the frame size.
Frame rate doesn't change the frame size.
If by changing resolution you mean changing the frame dimensions, see #3. above.

I assume the video needs to be "REMUXED"?

Well, that's part of it. I think you mean resize and re-encode.

Some converters have ways to change the: bit rate, frame rate and resolution but I cant seem to figure it out with trial/error.

Guess I'll have to repeat this:
Bitrate doesn't change the frame size.
Frame rate doesn't change the frame size.
If by changing resolution you mean changing the frame dimensions, see #3. above.

Can anyone help?

Not really. The laws of physics are working against you, unless you try one of the methods mentioned earlier.

I wonder how much forum storage space is used by repetitions of this same subject, which show up here at least once a month. It's been going on every since HD showed up decodes ago. I guess some people will never get it.

[hello_hello]

I have a very large monitor and I hate black borders around a small picture.

I view my videos with VLC

Some MP4/AVI/ETC fill the screen and some don't and I do not understand the dynamics of the two.

I do know changing the ASPECT RATIO in VLC does not help.

I'll take a punt that so far everyone's misunderstood your problem and ask......
It's not a case of VLC failing to upscale video with a resolution lower than your monitor resolution is it? In other words, you're viewing video at it's original resolution rather than VLC resizing it to fill the display? If that's the case you might want to make sure the "Video/Always Fit Window" option is checked. That should ensure you don't have a little picture in the middle of the screen surrounded by black borders when you view low resolution video in fullscreen mode or with the VLC window maximised.

Much of the time there'll be some black borders because the display aspect ratio (shape) of the video won't be the same as the display aspect ratio of the display. Often you'll have some black borders top and bottom or some at the sides, depending on the aspect ratio of the video, but as a general rule you won't have both. The video should fill either the total width or the total height of the display.

If you really, really hate black borders, some media players let you zoom in on the video. I'm not sure about VLC, but MPC-HC lets you zoom in by tapping the "9" key on the numeric keypad ("1" zooms out and "5" resets it). It doesn't distort the picture that way but you can zoom in until the black bars are completely gone. The price you pay is to lose some of the picture off the edge of the display. You can also move it up and down with Ctrl+9 and Ctrl+2, or Crtl+4/6 moves it left/right etc.

Edit: I just realised VLC has a "crop" function under the Video menu. I think you could think of it as a kind of automatic zooming. Your computer monitor probably has a display aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10. If you select one of those (to match your monitor), VLC will automatically remove some of the picture until what's left has a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio. Then, if you run the video in fullscreen mode (Video/Fullscreen) it should always (or most of the time) fill the screen. You are losing some of the picture though, the way way you would by zooming in. You'd want to leave the aspect ratio set to "default" as you don't want to distort the picture.

[LMotlow]

I'm not sure about VLC, but MPC-HC lets you zoom in by tapping the "9" key on the numeric keypad ("1" zooms out and "5" resets it). It doesn't distort the picture that way but you can zoom in until the black bars are completely gone. The price you pay is to lose some of the picture off the edge of the display. You can also move it up and down with Ctrl+9 and Ctrl+2, or Crtl+4/6 moves it left/right etc.

VLC has a zoom control, but it's in preset increments (.5x, 1x, 2x, etc). For VLC, your suggestion to use Fit Window and Maximize at the same time usually works. Of course, many images will be distorted.

[hello_hello]

For VLC, your suggestion to use Fit Window and Maximize at the same time usually works. Of course, many images will be distorted.

You sure about that? "Fit Window" should just mean the video is resized to fill the VLC window, or to fill the display in fullscreen mode, but it'll add black bars as required. It doesn't seem to stretch the picture as long as the aspect ratio is set to "default".

I edited my previous post to add some info about VLC's crop function. The way it appears to work is to automatically crop the video to match the specified aspect ratio, so if the specified aspect ratio is the same as the display aspect ratio...... no black bars and no distortion. It's effectively an automatic zoom.

[jagman]

Thanks all for the 'serious' response. Even the smart-@ss answers from the guy from Tennessee had some "nuggets".

I should have explained better. I understand aspect ratios somewhat, but what I am attempting to do is fill the Horizontal black areas (right and left) by increasing the Vertical size in the SAME ratio.

I experimented with a program called "Aiseesoft Total Video Converter" and was able to 'fill out the screen MORE on all sides" of a couple of videos but really did not understand what I did but yes, there was still some black border. It did make the picture larger on the screen and eliminated some black space. It also increased the size of the file, and the resolution dropped a little . It was like a ZOOM and I diddled with various parameters on the "Aiseesoft Total Video Converter" and made a satisfactory picture for watching with changing lots of settings each time.

My monitor is a 40" TV, I run in 1920x1080. When watching cable or a movie/DVD/etc, the TV can change the ratio by chopping but I dont want to keep changing the TV setting when I THOUGHT it made sense to change the Video's size displayed on the screen?

I know if you stretch a 4.3 (or whatever) to a 16.9 you have to chop off some vertical as the Movie Production/DVD people do but expanding into the black space until you FILL the screen the BEST you can, can give good results.

VLC is set to DEFAULT on aspect ratio and does the best it can and in most cases, fills the screen. But some videos seems to be high resolution but just small and in a 4.3 and "fit to screen" is not help, and black areas on top/bottom and right/left. It just seems wasteful not to expand the video into those areas, loss of resolution or not.

Surely some of you have diddled with those parameters producing a larger, lower resolution screen but today the size of some of the files and my screens 1920x1080 is forgiving and the pixel loss is negligible.

It just SEEMS, with a file over a gigabyte in size, and MP4, why have a black border on TOP and SIDES when it seems you can expand the video in the same ratio to resize it to a larger size.

I just assumed there was software available, a 'scientific approach" available to change a video size to fit on a screen better and, a rule of thumb documented someplace that:

" adjusting the yyyy, the xxxx increases the vertical and vvvv changes the horizontal OR doing this, increases the size in the same ratio"


IF that makes sense, I know how to "make a "picture" larger to fill the screen (at the same aspect ratio), but not sure about the parameters on a video.

Again, Thanks, I guess it is impossible to make a video larger in the same aspect, so I need, as the guy from Tennessee says, just buy a hundred more TV's/monitors all set to a different aspect........

[jagabo]

Do what they do in a movie theater -- adjust curtains to cover the unused portion of the screen.

[jagabo]

Damn it. Wrong thread.

[El Heggunte]

I don't use VLC, I use only MPC-HC, MPC-BE or MPlayer, and this is what always happens:

Aspect Ratio of the Video > Aspect Ratio of the Monitor => Letterboxing

Aspect Ratio of the Video = Aspect Ratio of the Monitor => "Full Screen"

Aspect Ratio of the Video < Aspect Ratio of the Monitor => Pillarboxing

It's easier to just open the file at the end of the vdscript.

[hello_hello]

MPC-HC has all sort of pan and scan adjustment options, so you can take a video of any size or aspect ratio and zoom in and/or move it up and down or sideways until it fills the screen. You may lose some of the picture off the sides due to the zooming, but it can be done. I watch 4:3 video on my 16:9 TV that way quite a bit. I zoom in until it fills the screen, then move the picture down so peoples heads aren't being cut off. VLC doesn't have the same panning and scanning.

Normally though, if you use VLC's crop function and run the video full screen, you should be able to fill it. The exception might be, and it might be the type of video you're referring to, where you have video with a 4:3 aspect ratio with a widescreen picture in the middle. So the widescreen picture would have black bars hardcoded top and bottom to make the total aspect ratio 4:3. The player though, has no way of knowing the 4:3 picture isn't all picture. It displays it as it normally would, but the end result.... a picture is probably easier....

The greenish area in the middle is the picture. The dark grey top and bottom would be black bars top and bottom. Green + dark grey = 4:3. The player displays the 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen by adding black bars down each side as it normally would. The end result is a small image in the midle surrounded by black. Is that what you're seeing?