16:9 Squashed to 4:3, then pillarboxed to 16:9 - Quick Viewing Fix?

[koberulz]

I have video. It was originally 16:9, then someone squashed it to 4:3 and pillarboxed it back to 16:9, because some people hate quality.

Is there a quick way I can stretch it back out to watch it, without having to screw around and re-encode the entire thing? I tried fiddling with the aspect ratio settings on VLC, but none are wide enough.

[jagabo]

Remux with a 2.35: display aspect ratio, or 4:3 pixel/sample aspect ratio, flagged in the header. Not all players will respond but VLC will.

[usually_quiet]

If you are willing to use a different player, PotPlayer can do what you want, assuming that you have a 16:9 monitor. Right click PotPlayer's window. Next, click Video->Crop/Extend->4:3 Cropping, then type Ctrl+Enter for "Full Screen (Stretch)".

[koberulz]

PotPlayer works perfectly, cheers.