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Understanding Video Aspect Ratios

The Video Aspect Ratio is the Ratio between the Width and Height of an Image as it is being displayed on your screen.

Most display devices available today sport the 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio while older CRT monitors mostly used the 4:3 (fullscreen) aspect ratio. Other ultra-widescreen models exist, but are far less popular.

Derived mode

When Zoom Player is set to the "Derived" Aspect Ratio mode (Under "Advanced Options / Playback / Video / Aspect Ratio"), it tries to automatically adjust the display to the Video's best Aspect Ratio (as long as it was properly encoded).

Widescreen Displays, Cropping vs. Black Bars:

An important Aspect Ratio issue you is how to handle 4:3 (fullscreen) content on a 16:9 (widescreen) screen. By default, Zoom Player will Crop the top/bottom parts of the screen so that the image will cover the entire screen. Some users may prefer that Zoom Player will add black bars to the left/right sides of the screen and squeeze the height of the video so none of it is cropped. To do this, you must uncheck "Advanced Options / Playback / Video / Aspect Ratio - Restrict AR Adjustments to Height in Fullscreen / Zoom mode".

Handling displays with Non-Square Pixels:

Another element to pay attention to is display devices with non-square pixels. For example, a display which is 48x27cm (16:9) with a resolution of 1500x1000 pixels. Under such conditions, the pixel is not a square, so Zoom Player must be made aware of this and allowed to compensate.

Using the pixel aspect ratio calculator

Within the "Advanced Options / Playback / Video / Aspect Ratio" dialog, you can find the "Aspect Ratio - Relative Stretch Calculator". Using the calculator allows you to specify the dimensions of your screen (in cm or inches) and the actual resolution of the display device in pixels. By pressing the "Calculate Source Relative Stretch" button, Zoom Player automatically feeds the compensation value into the "Source Relative Stretch" entry. Finally, enable the "Use Source Relative Stretch" setting on the same page as the calculator.

Automatically applying Aspect Ratio changes in DVD Mode:

DVD Content has only 3 Aspect Ratio modes, regardless of the actual content of the DVD. Even if a DVD has an Aspect Ratio of 1:2.35, some of the black bars are actually encoded into the video.

The 3 DVD Aspect Ratio modes are:

  1. Full-Frame (4:3)
  2. Letterbox Widescreen (4:3 with all the black bars encoded into the video)
  3. Anamorphic Widescreen (16:9 with some of the black bars encoded into the video)

Automatic DVD aspect ratio

Zoom Player can automatically detect each Aspect Ratio change and act upon it using a series of actions. Open "Advanced Options / Playback / DVD / Auto AR" to review the actions you can take based on the aspect ratio options listed above.

For each category, Zoom Player can automatically set a Video Positioning preset, a Blanking Preset, an Aspect Ratio mode and run an external program.

Presets

Video Positioning presets ("Advanced Options / Playback / Video / Presets - Position") allow you to define where the video display rectangle is displayed on your screen, Blanking Presets ("Presets - Blanking") allow you to blank-out part of the screen, Aspect Ratio modes allow you to compensate for special cases where you would want a non-standard Aspect Ratio and the execution of an external programs allows you to perform special effects such as calling an external application that will close the blinds, turn off the lights, etc...