Body: <p>QuickTime has an awesome feature called &quot;Panoramic Size&quot;. It basically scales the input video to the screen aspect ratio <strong>without cropping</strong> by leaving the center as-is and gradually increasing the scale factor towards the sides.</p>
  <p>It’s a quite unique feature as far as I can tell, as I’ve only ever seen it in QuickTime.</p>
  <p>It can be activated like this (<a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/quicktime-player/choose-a-screen-size-qtp31dfa136d/mac" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Apple Guide here</a>):</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/LogjP.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/LogjP.png" alt="QuickTime Panoramic View" /></a></p>
  <p>What I’m looking for is any way to permanently use the same or a similar algorithm to re-encode some 4:3 videos into 16:9, so that they show correctly on all my devices, not just the ones using QuickTime.</p>
  <h2>4:3 input example:</h2>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/pzYSt.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/pzYSt.jpg" alt="example 4:3 image" /></a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>just for ease of comparison</p>
  </blockquote>
  <h2>Naïve 16:9 crop:</h2>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/ldbvh.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/ldbvh.jpg" alt="16:9 crop of a 4:3 video" /></a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>as you can see, there’s quite a lot of content missing top and bottom</p>
  </blockquote>
  <h2>Naïve 16:9 scale:</h2>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/qKJd8.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/qKJd8.jpg" alt="naive scale of 16:9 video" /></a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>as you can see, the circle barely looks like a circle anymore and a lot of content will look odd, especially faces</p>
  </blockquote>
  <h2>QuickTime 16:9 panoramic mode results:</h2>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/tYzrs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/tYzrs.jpg" alt="16:9 scaled via QuickTime Panoramic Mode" /></a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>pretty good, if you ask me — that’s why I want to re-encode like this.
  the sides are stretched much more than the center, which usually yields good results as the center is the most important part of the screen<br />
  this is actually why I chose a scene with a clearly visible circle — which stays nearly unchanged thanks to QuickTime magic</p>
  </blockquote>
  <hr />
  <p>So, what can I do to accomplish this? Only way I can think of is making a screen recording, which would take hours and is very error-prone</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-06-30T02:02:45.297Z
Comments.Text: Do you have After Effects?
Comments.UserDisplayName: stib
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-07-07T15:03:56.763Z
Comments.Text: @stib Not currently, but if you know how to do it then in the spirit of Stackoverflow it would still be a good answer, as it could help someone else trying to accomplish this. Also, depending on how good the results are, I may just buy or get a free trial for After Effects for this purpose. Right now, any solution is appreciated — currently considering to write my own program for this ;)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Florian Wendelborn
Tags: <ffmpeg><quicktime><aspect><scale>
Title: Convert 4:3 to 16:9 like QuickTime Panoramic Size
UserDisplayName: Florian Wendelborn
ThreadText: # Convert 4:3 to 16:9 like QuickTime Panoramic Size
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2021-06-25)
  
  QuickTime has an awesome feature called "Panoramic Size". It basically scales the input video to the screen aspect ratio **without cropping** by leaving the center as-is and gradually increasing the scale factor towards the sides.
  
  It’s a quite unique feature as far as I can tell, as I’ve only ever seen it in QuickTime.
  
  It can be activated like this ([Apple Guide here](https://support.apple.com/guide/quicktime-player/choose-a-screen-size-qtp31dfa136d/mac)):
  
  [![QuickTime Panoramic View](https://i.sstatic.net/LogjP.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/LogjP.png)
  
  What I’m looking for is any way to permanently use the same or a similar algorithm to re-encode some 4:3 videos into 16:9, so that they show correctly on all my devices, not just the ones using QuickTime.
  
  ## 4:3 input example:
  
  [![example 4:3 image](https://i.sstatic.net/pzYSt.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/pzYSt.jpg)
  
  > just for ease of comparison
  
  ## Naïve 16:9 crop:
  
  [![16:9 crop of a 4:3 video](https://i.sstatic.net/ldbvh.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/ldbvh.jpg)
  
  > as you can see, there’s quite a lot of content missing top and bottom
  
  ## Naïve 16:9 scale:
  
  [![naive scale of 16:9 video](https://i.sstatic.net/qKJd8.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/qKJd8.jpg)
  
  > as you can see, the circle barely looks like a circle anymore and a lot of content will look odd, especially faces
  
  ## QuickTime 16:9 panoramic mode results:
  
  [![16:9 scaled via QuickTime Panoramic Mode](https://i.sstatic.net/tYzrs.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/tYzrs.jpg)
  
  > pretty good, if you ask me — that’s why I want to re-encode like this.
  > the sides are stretched much more than the center, which usually yields good results as the center is the most important part of the screen  
  > this is actually why I chose a scene with a clearly visible circle — which stays nearly unchanged thanks to QuickTime magic
  
  ---
  
  So, what can I do to accomplish this? Only way I can think of is making a screen recording, which would take hours and is very error-prone
  
  **Tags:** ffmpeg, quicktime, aspect, scale
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Do you have After Effects?  
  > **username_0**: @username_1 Not currently, but if you know how to do it then in the spirit of Stackoverflow it would still be a good answer, as it could help someone else trying to accomplish this. Also, depending on how good the results are, I may just buy or get a free trial for After Effects for this purpose. Right now, any solution is appreciated — currently considering to write my own program for this ;)  
  
  ---
  
  ## 0 answers
  
  