I have been using the Plex app more and more with my Samsung TVs, but I am coming across movies that are defaulting to 16x9 playback when they should really be 2.35:1. I suspect this is an issue with the file or stream itself, but my Samsung TVs dont support making the correct aspect ratio adjustment, and neither does Plex as far as I can tell. With Kodi this is very easy to adjust this on the fly, per movie; would be great if Plex could do this.
I don’t have a Samsung TV, but I’ve never seen Plex get this wrong.
I have seen a lot of bad rips from DVD though. DVD is a weird format, squished and squashed and letterboxed. Files need to be encoded with accurate dimensions and aspect ratio.
Can you share the XML info for one of your files?
@Volts, Thanks for your comment and your offer. I put this out as a feature suggestion because I don’t think Plex is playing the video back incorrectly vs. the encoding. For me, it’s not that Plex is “wrong,” but it would make lives better / easier if Plex had this feature.
The video files I am talking about also play back in the wrong proportions in Kodi, but in Kodi I can easily modify the aspect ratio using the “pixel ratio” settings in the video player. This is a very easy fix that enables me to easily resolve the problem on the fly, rather than having to deal with it as an encoding problem, or an xml problem, or an equipment problem, or whatever. (E.g., if I’m sitting down to watch a video, the last thing I want to do is stop and re-encode it, or go through my TV and AVR settings to see if somewhere there’s an upscaling setting that I don’t actually want/need for this file, or troubleshoot Plex’s xml file…)
Because nowadays there are so many places in the chain where a video can get distorted due to settings (original encoding, playback device interpretation of xml, AVR processing, TV processing…) having a way to easily adjust aspect ratio manually in Plex – ideally during playback – would make life much easier in those real world situations where humans have made imperfect choices that interfere with ideal playback.
Ahhh! I understand. That makes sense.
I think TVs aren’t offering the zoom/scale/squash/stretch options any more because VHS is dead, any DVD player can do zooming, and any digital source is expected to be “correct”.
Good luck!
Thanks. Actually, my 2018 Samsung TVs do offer this, but the feature is disabled when certain smart tv apps are playing, including Plex. Also, as far as I can tell it supports enlarging the image on either axis in arbitrary amounts, but not shrinking below 100% on either axis. Anyway, I appreciate your commentary.
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One of my TVs is exactly how you describe. It can scale inputs but not digital apps.
I think that’s for the same reason. The TV assumes an app will be responsible for formatting - and doesn’t want to cut off any menus. So either fix files, or your feature suggestion. 
Arbitrary zoom? That’s interesting and kinda cool. I’m used to “width to fit, proportional zoom” and “stretch to fit both directions”. And the occasional faux-overscan and faux-underscan modes. Monitors are more likely to have a 1:1 pixel “shrink” mode than TVs.
