I was watching a 1920:720 movie (so 2.67 / 24:9 aspect ratio) and the picture is distorted vertically. It appears to be showing in 21:9 aspect ratio.
I tried playing around with ‘Aspect mode’, changing the setting from ‘automatic’ to ‘original’ but the picture stays the same. When cycling through the options, I noticed 21:9 shows the same picture so it seems that is what the Plex app is using to display the movie.
The image is fine on the computer, or even on the TV through a firestick (but then it needs to transcode b/c of the audio, which through the Plex app is not necessary, it direct plays).
Transcoding through the Plex app also shows the same distorted image.
Does anyone know whether this is just a limitation of the app, that it cannot play correctly anything above 21:9? If yes, any workarounds?
I’ve thought of putting the movie image inside a 21:9 format (with black bars above and below the original image), probably using Handbrake, but haven’t yet tried to see if this is even feasible.
Yes absolutely I am aware of that. But long after Orca stopped being involved (health issues if I remember correctly), the community of users remained very active, using his original app and posting in the forum.
Thanks for jumping in. Let me clarify: I am of course not expecting a new version of the app. Just two things I am after:
Check that the limitation is indeed with the app, not potentially with that particular file, my set-up, my TV…
If the issue is with the app, I would expect that to be well known and then I will just know what to expect when I have a movie with aspect ratio higher than 21:9, instead of tinkering with settings etc. to see if I can easily fix the issue.
If the issue is with the app, maybe some people have found some clever workarounds, and I would like to know what they are!
I am just now trying to insert the movie in a 21:9 file, will confirm if that works. In any case, a bit long and complicated though…
Plex no longer supports that app so they will not check for you. In surprise the app can even access pms still. Have you tried playing the video in an official Plex app? I can play other aspect ratio files in the Android mobile and TV apps and the LG app, so there isn’t any limitations within the plex system.
When playing in the samsung app, did your server show the file is being direct played or transcoded?
Edit - Can you post the xml for that video? It’s also possible pms is seeing the file as having a 21:9 aspect ratio so it’s just playing it the way it’s suppose to.
You hit it with the xml. It states aspect ratio as 2.35. I looked at a couple of other movies with higher aspect ratios too (2.55, 2.4), and again, the xml states 2.35.
(It shows the correct width and height.)
Odd thing is that the Plex database (opened with DB Browser for SQL) shows the correct
aspect ratios (same as calculated from width and height, same as ‘Display aspect ratio’ in Mediainfo). I thought the xml showed info from that same database?
So the issue seem to be with PMS. But what??
I tested padding the movie above and below with enough pixels to make the file 21:9, and it works fine. Obviously would be better to make sure PMS gives the correct aspect ratio in the first place…
Other than the issue itself, and purely for background:
You’re absolutely right that Plex is not going to help with the old app I am using. Over the years though, there’s still been regular postings relating to Orca’s app, with the user community helping each other out. I haven’t been in the forum for a while so maybe now I am the last remaining user…
My TV is too old for the official Plex app, hence I am still using Orca’s… And as said above, with a firestick (which I generally don’t use anyway), this particular file needs transcoding (b/c of the audio), which is tough on my PC.
In any case, aside from this new issue (which now looks like it might not be related to the app after all), the app works absolutely fine.
I checked a couple of high aspect ratio files i have and i think you are right that Plex seems to max out at 2.35. It also seems to group ratios in that general range to 2.35. This might actually be a PMS issue.
Well, that was unexpected. At least we found where the issue is coming from.
I wonder if it might be a bug in a recent PMS version, I can’t believe no one would have noticed before since it should impact a lot of people (aspect ratios > 2.35 are not that rare).
So now it is up to Plex to fix it, after all. You seem much more used to the forum than me: what would you advise to make sure it gets noticed, that I open a new thread specifically for this issue? In which category?
