Air 2 fullscreen video app or trick or ???

[cognus]

hi folks - I love my Air 2 except for HD video - youtube or whatever source.
surely there is an app or some way to scale video - like any HDTV on earth can do, and many tablets etc...
what am I missing?
I understand aspect ratio, and that "filling" the screen cuts off the width [or distorts if one monkey's with the ratio] but that would be acceptable for some purposes.

pls enlighten me

 

[twerppoet]

If I understand what you are asking, you want to be able to see HD video full screen even if it means distorting or cutting off some of the width (zooming in). I've never seen an app that distorts the video.

Some video apps will allow zooming. It all depends on wither the app developer included the ability. How you do it varies. Here's a quick run down some of my video apps.

Youtube doesn't seem to have the ability to zoom. You can control the quality for bandwidth purposes, but the aspect ratio appears to be set in stone, and you can't zoom in, cutting off part of the video.

The native Videos app zooms in when you double tap while the video is playing.

Tap on a playing video in Hulu and you'll see a 'zoom' icon at the top right. Netflix has a similar button at the bottom right.

You have to explore the apps you use and see what they can do. If it isn't there and you want the feature all you can do is give feedback to the developer.

 

[cognus]

yes you understood right.
I read, but have not tried, that the Vimeo app has a similar function.
A lot of people like McTube so I have been using it... it may just be the particular vids I picked to try out, but it looked to me like their display 'window' makes better use of real estate than the typical browser window [I use Dolphin, Safari, Chrome, in that order].
McTube has such a button that I assume is of the intention to zoom - it has presets like 1.5x, 2x, etc but it appears to scale up the video image, but within the defined window - so the window does not change. also it is buggy and on the whole, not useful. there's nothing lacking in the image quality at the norms of the vid source [unless its just a lousy source].

the average HDTV these days has a half dozen ways to manipulate the image, even the 'dumber' ones. you can force things to fullscreen [with consequences] or zoom, which means zoom the window, apparently. it does not as best I can tell recalc the image to higher dpi or such, as best I can guess it, just makes the image window bigger.

an aside, but a good thing McTube does do well is let you default to 1080p in settings if you prefer [and assuming the source either is or can emulate such] - overcoming a frequent irritation of youtube app and/or window-play in browsers.

i have to admit: side-by-side on just Video content... the richer the better, the samsung galaxy S 10.5 looks a LOT better - just a visceral thing that is hard to deny... Different aspect ratio and more real estate, dpi, .. Well it should: that AMOLED piece is supposedly the gold standard for the moment in devices of this size

 

[twerppoet]

Choosing a physical aspect ratio on a tablet is always a compromise. A tablet with a physical HD (or close to HD) aspect ratio is going to be great for HD videos; but that same ratio is less desirable for many other tasks. It also results in less usable screen space for the same diagonal measurement: a 9.7 inch HD tablet has less screen real-estate than an iPad.

The iPad (so far) has chosen to sacrifice perfect video presentation in favor of more general utility. Many of the Android tablets made the opposite choice, and given their heavy marketing as video consumption devices (in an early attempt to differentiate them from iPads) it was probably the right choice for them.

Anyway. No device or app is 'best' at everything. You just have to decide what's most important to you, and get that platform and/or device. Everything else will be a compromise of 'best possible solutions" like zooming your HD content on an iPad if you want full screen.