Reviews for Ultrawidify
Ultrawidify by Tamius Han
Response by Tamius Han
Developer response
posted 8 years agoShort answer: no. (Unless you want to always cut off top and bottom, even when top and bottom aren't useless black bars, then yeah. I can do that. You probably don't want that, though, in which case it's 'no'.)
Long, technical answer: if you want to auto-fit video, as in "16:9 videos stay the way they are, but 21:9 videos should fit the screen" ... this actually looks potentially possible in theory and I might do it (but absolutely no guarantees that I'll actually do it), but there's a few problems I can see right off the bat:
0. I'd obviously need to have a way to read a column of pixels from the video. Our lord and saviour HTML5/Canvas apparently can do it, but is it even possible to get youtube video to a HTML5 canvas? So far, quick snooping suggest this is possible, but I haven't had any time to actually look at how this is done.
1. Detecting aspect ratio seems simple enough on the surface. Take couple of columns, compare if all columns have an equal amount of black pixels on the top or on the bottom. If yes - congrats, you detected black bars, proceed to correct the aspect ratio.
But there's a problem - a couple of them, in fact. If video starts completely black, you have no way of telling whether the video has the black bars or not. If you watch a movie trailer, should you trust the "This video is rated that" screen for aspect ratio? What about if the bars aren't pitch black, but greyish instead? What if video features two completely solid, horizontal objects at the beginning - imagine a camera looking through a horizontal square hole in the wall? How long and how often you try to detect the aspect ratio when the video is playing? What if video changes aspect ratios midway through, like in the first Hunger Games movie? Or in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4InaygqShwA (starts in 16:9, then goes to 21:9)
Or like in the Dark Souls III trailer, where trailer was 21:9 but got to 16:9 for about 10 seconds at the end of the video (obviously NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zDZYrIUgKE
2. Effect on performance. Autodetection could potentially require quite a bit of processing power. This in turn could make the video (or even the browser) to lag.
Now, I've actually been thinking about implementing this feature before, but the problems outlined above are the reason I haven't actually pinky-promised that feature in the "plans for the future" section. I can't guarantee it'll do it, I can't guarantee it'll work at all and I can't guarantee it'll work well.
Besides, my current priorities are:
* making a 'settings' page + configurable shortcuts (hopefully by the end of the month, but currently things aren't going exactly the way I've planned)
* Netflix support (probably by the end of the year, because December looks like a nice month to take advantage of their "you can try it for free for one month" offer)
E: sorry for this wall of text, but Moz seemingly doesn't allow any formatting in the text.
Long, technical answer: if you want to auto-fit video, as in "16:9 videos stay the way they are, but 21:9 videos should fit the screen" ... this actually looks potentially possible in theory and I might do it (but absolutely no guarantees that I'll actually do it), but there's a few problems I can see right off the bat:
0. I'd obviously need to have a way to read a column of pixels from the video. Our lord and saviour HTML5/Canvas apparently can do it, but is it even possible to get youtube video to a HTML5 canvas? So far, quick snooping suggest this is possible, but I haven't had any time to actually look at how this is done.
1. Detecting aspect ratio seems simple enough on the surface. Take couple of columns, compare if all columns have an equal amount of black pixels on the top or on the bottom. If yes - congrats, you detected black bars, proceed to correct the aspect ratio.
But there's a problem - a couple of them, in fact. If video starts completely black, you have no way of telling whether the video has the black bars or not. If you watch a movie trailer, should you trust the "This video is rated that" screen for aspect ratio? What about if the bars aren't pitch black, but greyish instead? What if video features two completely solid, horizontal objects at the beginning - imagine a camera looking through a horizontal square hole in the wall? How long and how often you try to detect the aspect ratio when the video is playing? What if video changes aspect ratios midway through, like in the first Hunger Games movie? Or in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4InaygqShwA (starts in 16:9, then goes to 21:9)
Or like in the Dark Souls III trailer, where trailer was 21:9 but got to 16:9 for about 10 seconds at the end of the video (obviously NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zDZYrIUgKE
2. Effect on performance. Autodetection could potentially require quite a bit of processing power. This in turn could make the video (or even the browser) to lag.
Now, I've actually been thinking about implementing this feature before, but the problems outlined above are the reason I haven't actually pinky-promised that feature in the "plans for the future" section. I can't guarantee it'll do it, I can't guarantee it'll work at all and I can't guarantee it'll work well.
Besides, my current priorities are:
* making a 'settings' page + configurable shortcuts (hopefully by the end of the month, but currently things aren't going exactly the way I've planned)
* Netflix support (probably by the end of the year, because December looks like a nice month to take advantage of their "you can try it for free for one month" offer)
E: sorry for this wall of text, but Moz seemingly doesn't allow any formatting in the text.
112 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by must0, 18 days ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by vandim, 2 months agoWorked great until recently. After watching videos for a while (not using fullscreen) the whole window turns grey and the audio keeps playing but the tab becomes completely unresponsive and can only be fixed by closing the browser
- Rated 5 out of 5by Tiger II, 3 months agoWorks perfectly, using it to stretch youtube videos to 16:9 in fullscreen (no cropping), because some videos have black bars on the left and right sides when in fullscreen, but Ultrawidify fixes that automatically, all you have to do is go into settings and select 16:9 stretch hybrid.
- Rated 1 out of 5by wando, 5 months agoLags out on some videos, making them unable to be normally watched.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18430449, 8 months agoPLS BRING THIS TO OPERA GX, we need it sooooo bad
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18389140, 9 months agoFixed my twitch and youtube, saved my marriage, cured my stomach ache and drove my kids to lacrosse practice every day. Not a single add on does that, but if you believe in yourself and in Tamius, it is possible. Dont let your memes be dreams!
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14797343, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Robbie Khan, a year ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 14302851, a year agoFunktioniert zwar, aber flackert bzw. ist langsam wenn man in Fullscreen geht und zurück. Die ganzen Optionen sind für mich auch schwer zu erklären.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Braix, a year agoWorks well. Ironically, I'm using it to stretch 4:3 to widescreen so it looks correct on my crt (adapter shenanigans)
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18158200, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Osang, a year agoI constantly watch web streaming, whether they are of individuals or movies. With the help of this add-on, the black bar issue was resolved. I'd want to thank the developer.
- Rated 1 out of 5by dumbo, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Luca, 2 years agoKeeps bugging lately and videos are stuck on the sides or corner of the screen. Older versions were far far better but not downloadable anymore
- Rated 5 out of 5by Artyom, 2 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 12900474, 2 years agoworks similar to madvr's black bars cropping, mpv player's autocrop script is better to cut black bars because it uses less pc resources, this extension for some reason only cuts the top and bottom black bars the side bars don't crop, screen 1366x768 youtube
- Rated 5 out of 5by Melor, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by CookieButter, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by kk, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Bernhard, 2 years agoGreat addon, but only for technophile users. Again and again the addon has to be readjusted on different levels. Usually, the addon works without major readjustments across all major streaming services. Sometimes, often with DisneyPlus or PrimeVideo, I have to readjust certain settings via "Site Settings" (Enable/Persist) and "Advanced Setting" (Limit Zoom) so that I can restore a 21:9 image via VideoSettings. After a lot of trial and error with the settings at the beginning, I can now almost always change the picture to 21:9 without any loss. Knowing this, the addon is indispensable for 21:9 fans. Thanks to the developer!
- Rated 5 out of 5by h4zmat, 2 years agoPerfect for my use case. Most other ultrawide video addons don't have an option for 18:9 and this has that and more.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 16002417, 2 years agoThis works very well for 21:9 monitors. Thank you.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 14863977, 3 years ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by itsTyrion, 3 years agoI don't even have an ultrawide, but I use this add-on because letterboxed 21:9 in theater mode is super annoying
Edit: Makes YT pretty laggy. Not immediately, but over time