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full screen browsing on YouTube.

  • 6 ŋuɖoɖowo
  • 2 masɔmasɔ sia le wosi
  • 6 views
  • Nuɖoɖo mlɔetɔ RicketyKrikket

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Fullscreen mode on youtube.com will not fit to screen. It will become larger, but there are black bars on the sides of the screen. Pinch to zoom will not work. I'm using a Samsung Note 9. Thanks.

Fullscreen mode on youtube.com will not fit to screen. It will become larger, but there are black bars on the sides of the screen. Pinch to zoom will not work. I'm using a Samsung Note 9. Thanks.

All Replies (6)

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Im using Samsung E5

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Hi RicketyKrikket, there sometimes are black bars due to a difference between the aspect ratio of the video and the aspect ratio of the screen.

Full HD (1920 x 1080) has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (width:height)

The Galaxy Note 9 has an aspect ratio of 18.5:9 so it is wider than needed to display Full HD.

Some videos probably will fit better, if they have a more cinematic aspect ratio, but I suspect most will be boxed.

Does Chrome do it differently?

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Sorry, I'm not familiar. Could you elaborate?

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I have tried roughly 5 or 6 different browsers on my phone to test it. Chrome doesn't work either. The only browser that will make any video fullscreen is Samsung's built in browser. I have also tried playing 4k videos from YouTube to see of they will fit to screen and have has no success outside of Samsung's browser. Thanks for your reply.

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I don't know whether this is determined by the browser or by the web page, but if the shapes don't match, the options are:

  • letterbox the sides
  • stretch the video to fit
  • cut off the sides that are longer

None of those are really ideal; I wonder which method the Samsung browser is using?

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I haven't a clue, I'm afraid. It's just a bit frustrating. Firefox allows more extensions but video playback is an obvious nuisance. Perhaps, it's to do with the larger screen on the Note 9 and the browsers haven't caught up yet.