Request that episode artwork be able to support 4:3 aspect ratio.
Plex only supports episode artwork in a 16:9 format. There were 50 years of television in 4:3 before 16:9 started really becoming a thing on television. I’d like to have 4:3 episode artwork supported for television shows. TheTVDB.com requires that episode images reflect the aspect ratio of the episode. This means the content is already available online for use. Even local media assets aren’t supported in this aspect ratio. Currently, if you use a 4:3 image, Plex will center and crop the image. Can we at least get it to center and resize the image? I have so many episodes where people are being cutoff, and it’s quite frustrating when you know that you have an actual screen capture there. I could doorframe the pictures, but then there are black bars on the images and you lose the background artwork.
Old tv shows and movies were filmed in standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio.
Plex is built for film buffs and aspect ratio connoisseurs, so of course Plex handles viewing 4:3 content in an acceptable fashion. On modern 16:9 displays the content is letterboxed by default, rather than solutions like pan and scan or zoom that would crop video content.
However Plex handles the episode artwork / thumbnails / posters / title cards for 4:3 content poorly. Many old shows contain beautiful title cards that I would love to use as the episode image:
However in Plex these thumbnails are butchered and displayed as if they are 16:9 content:
The Plex UI instead should use a 4:3 “tv frame” to display the thumbnails of 4:3 content:
Episode Artwork
Each episode can have its own artwork. Typically, this will be a representative screenshot from the actual episode itself. These are usually displayed on the details page for an episode. As episode art typically comes from the episode itself, it will usually be either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. The artwork to display for an episode can be specified using an image file named identically to the episode file and placed alongside it:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220717-local-media-assets-tv-shows/
Displaying 4:3 content as 4:3 thumbnails is a no-brainer improvement for the Plex interface.
