Display of incorrect Aspect Ratio

[JayJay2026 0]

 I use Emby for Android TV app on my projector, which projects a 1920X1080 (16:9) screen. I have a lot of movies with 1920:800 however. Emby's default player automatically stretches the display to 16:9, which shows a narrower picture. I tried everything that I can but I cannot figure it out. I can use a external player for these movies which can show the correct aspect ratio. But the subtitles can not be tracked properly which is annoying. These widescreen movies are displayed well on my TV (Emby for Samsung App) and my mobile (Android App). Is this a set up issue of the Emby for Android TV App? 

[Luke 42414]

Hi.  Can you try searching for our standard android app (Just "Emby" on Amazon and "Emby for Android on Google) on the same device's app store and see how that compares?

Thanks.

 

[ebr 16411]

Hi.  Have you checked the "Zoom" setting under the cog menu during playback?

[JayJay2026 0]

20 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi.  Can you try searching for our standard android app (Just "Emby" on Amazon and "Emby for Android on Google) on the same device's app store and see how that compares?

Thanks.

 

Hi, I did try before and had another go yesterday but it doesn't work. The display is still the same and there is also no audio.

[JayJay2026 0]

4 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Have you checked the "Zoom" setting under the cog menu during playback?

Yes but the zoom is just zoom with the same aspect ratio. The display is still stretched.

[ebr 16411]

15 hours ago, JayJay2026 said:

but the zoom is just zoom with the same aspect ratio

Sorry, I don't follow that.  What is is set to exactly?  Did you try any other settings?

[le_paulo 0]

Yep - same thing happening to me this week. Not sure why as I haven't changed any settings but now the home screen and videos play with a weird letterbox configuration with zoomed text and black bars on top and bottom. Sometimes it corrects itself back and plays normally but not very often.

The problem occurs on the home screen and during playback. Doesn't seem to be anything triggering it. Same problem occurs for both Emby apps as I switched between them and got the same error. It looks like Emby is trying to run with a strange resolution like 400x300 or something bizarre because I can see the resolution resetting when I close Emby and go back to firestick home page.

Kodi plays fine on this firestick. So does VLC, Netflix Youtube etc...

Force Stop and Clear Cache make no difference.

[ebr 16411]

1 minute ago, le_paulo said:

Yep - same thing happening to me this week. Not sure why as I haven't changed any settings but now the home screen and videos play with a weird letterbox configuration with zoomed text and black bars on top and bottom. Sometimes it corrects itself back and plays normally but not very often.

The problem occurs on the home screen and during playback. Doesn't seem to be anything triggering it. Same problem occurs for both Emby apps as I switched between them and got the same error. It looks like Emby is trying to run with a strange resolution like 400x300 or something bizarre because I can see the resolution resetting when I close Emby and go back to firestick home page.

Kodi plays fine on this firestick. So does VLC, Netflix Youtube etc...

Force Stop and Clear Cache make no difference.

Exactly what Fire stick is it?

[le_paulo 0]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

Exactly what Fire stick is it?

4K Max. I'm wondering if it's a device problem as I can see it run that HDMI resolution sync when I switch apps. The whole image twists clockwise on loading app and then anti-clockwise quickly on closing the app like it's trying to sync a non-native resolution

I've just tried to delete and reinstall but Emby still isn't displaying correctly.

[ebr 16411]

It is running Fire OS not Vega OS, correct?

[JayJay2026 0]

9 hours ago, ebr said:

Sorry, I don't follow that.  What is is set to exactly?  Did you try any other settings?

Hi, the options during playback are normal / zoom / cover. Each option shows the same aspect ratio 16:9, though zoom and cover show bigger display than normal.

The 24:1 picture is still stretched to 16:9.

[ebr 16411]

On 4/19/2026 at 10:51 PM, JayJay2026 said:

 I use Emby for Android TV app on my projector

 

14 hours ago, JayJay2026 said:

the options during playback are normal / zoom / cover.

That actually sounds like you are using the standard Android app.

Just for a test, you might try installing "Emby for Android TV" and see if there is a difference. 

[JayJay2026 0]

8 hours ago, ebr said:

 

That actually sounds like you are using the standard Android app.

Just for a test, you might try installing "Emby for Android TV" and see if there is a difference. 

I did have been using "Emby for Android TV" for quite a long time on my projector with no issue until recently I started to source the widescreen movie (2.4:1) and found the display was stretched to 16:9. Most of my movies are 16:9 so I wouldn't have a change to spot this problem before. The change of aspect ratio option during playback doesn't work (normal / cover / zoom...). It's  just a change of the size but they all show a ratio of 16:9. Luke from Emby team advised above that I may try to use the standard Emby app for Android. I tried and the issue still exists + a new issue arises with the audio. To be clear, I use both Emby for Android TV App and the standard app for Android on my projector and they both have the same issue. I use Emby for Samsung TV app on my TV and the standard Android App on my mobile and there is no issue at all. What I haven't tried is the Android TV App on a Android TV which I don't have one at home, so not sure if it's the problem with the Android TV APP or my projector. Maybe they are not compatible? My projector is BenQ EH600 by the way.

[visproduction 351]

Of interest:  Apparently Ctrl and Mouse wheel down is also a hidden aspect ratio adjustment. 

Other related info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jba6L48UW7s

https://pointerclicker.com/how-to-change-aspect-ratio-on-benq-projector/#google_vignette

[ebr 16411]

14 hours ago, JayJay2026 said:

The change of aspect ratio option during playback doesn't work (normal / cover / zoom...).

Those options are the ones in the standard app.  The Android TV app has more options and they are named a little differently.

[le_paulo 0]

I've concluded that Emby is not the source of the problem because even the Amazon Stick's own settings render incorrectly (but only on the 2nd level menu selections). Kodi and most of my other apps run fine - Emby still renders incorrectly unfortunately, so I've installed the Emby add-on in Kodi and managed to get access to my files and view all videos correctly.

[visproduction 351]

LeP,

Check and see if the original content is saved with an adjusted aspect ratio, that is not the original.  Maybe playback aspect ratio preference is set with metadata in the media file.  This is possible with HEVC inside of .mkv container.  It's hit and miss, if a particular player recognizes this aspect ratio preference and uses it for playback.  No browser does this.  I doubt any TV App does it.  I suspect Emby may not take that "change the aspect ratio" metadata info and make any change.  Maybe someone here knows if that is possible with Emby.  VLC might do it, and perhaps that is something that can be picked up with your Plex account player.

I personally have all original media encoded with the correct aspect ratio and I never see an issue, but I am not using your setup.  I also see a lot of content from old DVD's and media from the wild and even online in social media, where the aspect ratio is just wrong.  DVD content use to have this built in.  The original media were encoded with a different aspect ratio and DVD players adjusted automatically.  In fact, any full frame content directly from a DVD has the wrong aspect ratio because it is set for interlaced TV.  Aspect ratio can become wrong just running it through Handbreak, which has default settings to tweak it to fit 16:9 or average out 2.35 and 2.39 to 2.37, which makes them both incorrect.

Hope that helps.

 

Edited April 26 by visproduction

[JayJay2026 0]

On 4/23/2026 at 11:35 PM, ebr said:

Those options are the ones in the standard app.  The Android TV app has more options and they are named a little differently.

I indeed installed the Emby for Android TV App on my projector and the options are only Normal / Stretch / Zoom. I however tried to install the same version of the TV App on my mobile, and there are more options as you mentioned: Normal / Horizontal Stretch / Horizontal Squeeze / Vertical Stretch / Zoom. The Playback setting menu is different also, while I have "Match Video Resolution" & "Enable Refresh Rate Switching" options on my mobile, but not on the projector. I'm not sure how this happens. When I use other player like MX Player on my projector, there is no issue at all. I would say there might be a compatible issue of the TV app with my projector. A couple of functions and setting options lack which causes the problem.

[visproduction 351]

Jay,

All the Normal / Stretch / Zoom are more patch fixes to get you closer to the correct Aspect Ratio.  The Match Video and Enabe Refresh are the settings that pick between whatever the actual media is saved as and that extra metadata option setting inside .mkv containers that can force an Aspect change.

All those settings only will fix an aspect ratio correctly if the original or the metadata tweak numbers are correct.  Otherwise, any media that was saved incorrectly with a wrong Aspect Ratio and easily stay wrong with any of these adjustments.  That's why I asked to go look at the original pixel sizes of your media.  If there are black bars encoded into the media, then crop those out and find the pixel size of what is left, the actual video image size.  You can find this using VLC and a screen image grab and then measure the image pixel size.  That ratio will tell you if the original is one of the correct aspect ratio sizes or not.  Now look up the correct size on IMDB.com if you are a member, the aspect ratio can be found at the bottom of the info.  Usually that is correct, but even then it's sometimes wrong.

If the end size is an acceptable aspect ratio, but has black bars, then it's probably black barred out to fit 16:9.  Anything is possible. Usually anyone making a copy from original master of the media can just have a setting off and then the copy aspect ratio is wrong.  This happens all the time, especially with Handbreak which actually uses numbers to average out Aspect ratios and defaults to stretching content to 16:9, which is really bad choice.  Obviously some people like that.  Handbreak almost always makes copies with the wrong Aspect Ratio, which is why I never use it.

Unless you dig down into your media to find these answers, you really don't know what is happening.  Just full size screen shots from VLC can get these numbers.

Hope that helps.

[ebr 16411]

17 hours ago, JayJay2026 said:

options as you mentioned: Normal / Horizontal Stretch / Horizontal Squeeze / Vertical Stretch / Zoom

Those are the options in the Android TV app and they don't change based on device and haven't changed in a very long time.

This leads me to believe that you actually have "Emby for Android" installed on your projector.