All video content I’m playing through the PLEX app that is built into my Vizio TV has a crushed aspect ratio (black bars on top and bottom). It happens for me in both the early access (5.1.3) and the reverted version (3.13.13). The interface for the app looks fine- even during playback but all video content comes through crushed.
My TV model is a Vizio M558-G1. I read in another thread that a possible fix might be to update the firmware in the TV. After resetting the TV back to factory settings and updating the firmware again, the app still crushes the content on local content and remote. I finally gave up today and switched to a different device- seems to display correctly through the PS4, just not the app in the TV right now.
It seems to be necessary to trigger Plex’s built in ExoPlayer to recalculate the current TV-screen and/or video-file dimensions. It’s as if the initial viewport/screen calculation fails to return the correct screen/video (ratio) dimensions. Just randomly sliding the view-modus slider (the letterbox/zoom/stretched/etc slider.) in one of those menu’s while playing a video all the way to the right and back again does the trick, for me, It triggers a screen ratio recalculation, so it seems. In a instant the aspect ratio is fixed. But I have to do this every time I start a video.
because:
As of today I’ve got a similar issue … again. This time with the Plex App for Android TV after I (auto) updated the firmware/software for my Philips Android TV (65PUS7304). I had this issue before with various other video-player apps ever since I bought this TV. Apps such as NOVA Video Player always played videos with certain dimensions with an incorrect aspect ratio, vertically squashed. Now - as of today - all these other apps seem to suddenly be fixed, which is unbelievable after a year. But now Plex suddenly behaves strangely. And then to think that I started using Plex mainly for that reason, Plex was the only 3rd party app that worked okay, until now… And so as of today Plex seems to be the only app that has this issue…
When I play a video that has a resolution such as 1920 x <800. So where the height is less then 800px, when the width is approx. 1920px. The video plays vertically squashed. Everything is wide, people are all fat. And the black bottom/top bars are way to big (high).
While playing a video that has the wrong aspect ratio. Somewhere is a zoom/letterbox/stretch etc slider. On my TV it helps to just slide this all the way right and back again. When sliding back to the setting is was on, in an instant the aspect ratio will be corrected… So it’s not that you change this setting, but it probably triggers Plex’s built in ExoPlayer to recalculate the current (TV) dimensions. It’s as if the initial viewport calculation fails to return the correct dimensions. Every time I start the video I have to do that again.
I know it probably seems obvious, but when you understand what I’m saying you will agree that it isn’t. It’s too simple.
Thanks for sharing your info, but that doesn’t apply to the app on Vizio TVs as it doesn’t use ExoPlayer. Generally, it’s a safe bet to assume that every platform has a different player, because there’s very little overlap between them.
