VLC or Pot player question

[Out Of Bubblegum]

I use PotPlayer over VLC these days. But I have both. I have some videos that have been encoded with black bars on the top and bottom to fit a 1080P screen. They are part of the video file. The original material was a wide screen format, wider than 16x9. But, I have an ultrawide 3440x1440 monitor. In fullscreen playback is there an option to ignore the black bars and zoom to fit the width and keep the aspect ratio? Or to zoom to fit the height while ignoring the black bars?

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Keep both.
I preferred VLC as it has the options to record as well convert its a Swiss army knife of inbuilt tools
10 Useful Features Hidden in VLC,
https://www.howtogeek.com/173222/10-useful-features-hidden-in-vlc-the-swiss-army-knife-of-media-players/
My default player is Media player classic _be
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

[[☥] - CJ -]

Not sure about those players..
But have you tried the scaling settings in your GPU's CP?

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

media player classic (part of k-lite codec pack)
media player classic black edition
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you can choose to set video frame to 'touch windows from inside/outside' or to override video aspect ratio

[xSOSxHawkens]

in VLC right click the video while playing, choose video, use a combination of crop, zoom and forced aspect ratio.

Should allow you to fix all those pesky issues with just about any video once you get the combinations down for your screen.

[Electric Cupcake]

VLC and MPC-HC are the only ones worth using.

[Cathulhu]

I personally prefer ZoomPlayer. Very customizable and still easy to use.