TIP_Force_Aspect_Ratio_On_Widescreen_TV

Introduction

My widescreen TV is connected to my laptop with a VGA cable, so the TV is seen as a second monitor. The widescreen TV's screen resolution is 1024x768, so when I play a video it appears to be horizontaly stretched with black bars on top and bottom. This can be fixed by forcing the aspect ratio of video players.

Forcing Aspect Ratio

MPlayer

open ~/.mplayer/config

aspect=4:3

Another method for MPLayer would be to tell mplayer what the aspect ratio of the actual screen is:

open ~/.mplayer/config

 monitoraspect=16:9

Added bonus: if the video-file is in 4:3, it won't be stretched, but it will have black bars left/right.

Totem (GNOME Movie Player)

open gconf-editor, the GNOME configuration editor
go to /system/gstreamer/xx/default/
set videosink to

xvimagesink pixel-aspect-ratio=4/3

VLC

go to Settings > Preferences > Video
scroll down to "source aspect ratio" and type 4:3 in the box,