Some of my shows were originally filmed in 4:3. For some reason the studio decided to put black pillar boxes around them so they are still 4:3 but technically they are 16:9 because the video has black pillar boxes around the main picture.
I’m fine with that except for one minor thing. When I click on a particular season the stills that plex captures for the menu images also have the pillar boxes and when I load a show the background still image has the pillar boxes.
Anyway to crop the pillar boxes on the menu without having to physically go into each episode and take a screen shot and crop it in photoshop and insert my own image?
Again I’m totally fine with watching a show with the pillar boxes as I do not like the image to be stretched it’s just when I’m selecting episodes it doesn’t look that athestically pleasing to see the pillar boxes on the menu.
They kept it 4:3 because to edit the show to 16:9 is labor intensive and always ruins how the shot was originally framed. For example, the Seinfeld widescreen (see it on Hulu) is horrendous to watch when compared to the original. Kramer is so much taller than Elaine that in some shots his head is nearly cropped out of the shot.
And stretching it to 16:9 is just a travesty.
I would suggest learning to appreciate the format for a number of reasons. First, there are so many aspect ratios that your 16:9 TV is going to have black bars most of the time. Second, when widescreen was introduced many directors thought it was terrible and greatly preferred “Academy Ratio” which is very close to 4:3 (it’s 11:8). Lastly, those shows in 4:3 are show and framed that way.
I grew up in the 80’s, so I’m used to 4:3, the black bars just take time to get use to ignoring them.
Happy viewing.
You didn’t read my post. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s also and I know the difference between 16:9 and 4:3. Like I stated I’m totally fine with the pillar boxes on the MKV or MP4 file I just think they look terrible on the menu thumbnail images and was wondering if there’s a quick way to either crop the black bars or stretch them.
Here’s an example. All 9 of these images have the pillar boxes. I’d like to crop or stretch them on the menu but really don’t want to have to go through the trouble of taking a screen shot of each episode and cropping it as that would take forever.
There is unfortunately not.
Only the ‘manual’ way.
