I’m not sure if this is an actual problem or just me misunderstanding how screens/resolutions work.

My issue is this; whenever I watch movies, series or just YouTube, quite often it’s at this really small rectangular resolution with black boxes all around. This will also occur in video players such as MPV and VLC when watching latest season Andor for example. However, it does not happen on all videos - which is why im confused regarding this.

My screen is an Alienware 34 Curved QD-OLED Monitor - AW3423DWF.

Is there a way I can scale the resolution up?

Let me know if I can supply any additional details and thanks for any help!

    • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      Not 100% sure but it also seems like the video in OP’s screenshot (and other videos for said movie) is fake widescreen (bars baked into the video at 16:9) which makes it worse for actual widescreen displays. This may be OP’s issue.

      EDIT: in some cases an extension/plugin may work. One I saw mentioned is Ultrawidify, though it will probably heavily depend on how you are watching (for instance if you have the file, something like handbrake might be able to auto-detect this and crop as well if you’re willing to do that). Though actual aspect mismatch will be a bigger issue depending on how often details will be cut off (crop/auto-zoom is a thing, better for a repeat watch or if you can quickly change it if needed).

    • Sips'@slrpnk.netOP
      3·
      3 days ago

      Ahhhh ofcourse, I guess I should have done a not more research regarding that before buying this screen. Otherwise I’m quite happy with it though.

      Thanks!

      • infeeeee@lemmy.zip
        2·
        3 days ago

        You will get used to it easily. I have used an ultrawide monitor for nearly a decade and I doesn’t even notice this anymore, i remember it was strange at the beginning. You can use btowser addons like this: https://uw.wtf/ if it annoys you. There are similar other addons, search for “ultrawide” in your browsers addon store. I’m sure you can zoom insimilarly in vlc some way, but then you wont see the top and bottom of the movies