Custom sized videos WITHOUT black bars

This topic has been brought up in a few other threads, but a staff member suggested it needed its own thread here: those of us that still work in 4:3 have been fighting for a viable way to present our videos in the best light, since the changeover to the new design. At first, there were complaints about the larger viewing window degrading the look of our SD videos. For myself, one reason I shoot 4:3, is that I much prefer a more square format, rather than the elongated rectangle, so popular now.
A "compromise" was reached, according to vimeo staff, by deciding to add the black pillarbox bars. I find this compromise unsatisfactory - it just doesn't look as nice, or as clean as before - when the edges of the frame ended naturally and there weren't heavy black bars distracting the viewer.
With all the technology out there, it seems odd to me that the wonderful feature we had before - which allowed ALL sizes of video to be displayed beautifully as they were meant to be seen - should be removed. looking back, this was possibly the BEST feature of vimeo, and one that looked so classy, when you could view the different styles of videos that people made, without "compromise". I am asking politely, if there is any way this wonderful feature could be worked back into the new system?? really i think it is extremely important, and have a feeling many other users agree. The black bars actually make the site look less sleek and modern, than it did before, which i doubt is the intention of vimeo....

Beautifully phrased, I couldn't have expressed it better. Although I now work mostly in HD I go back and look at some of my old 4:3 videos which used to look beautiful and they seem far less interesting now. Vimeo is a community, so they say, so it should try to allow all kinds of people to express themselves in the best possible way, as once it did

PLEASE BRING THIS BACK!!!
The artists that use this site need this kind of freedom no constrained by proportions...
plus you guys ruined lots of great work by adding black bars to it...
this was one of the main pluses to vimeo over youtube!

I would rather have the pillarbox than have my movies scaled up. However, Vimeo is not a television, there is no real reason to show black bars on any movie, regardless of the aspect ratio. I am sure that you folks have the programming skills to center standard def movies on the page without the pillarbox. Please consider doing this, and your customers will be much happier.

Before, one of the best advantages the Vimeo player had over others was being able to upload unique aspect ratios and not have the letter box frame the ends.

Hopefully we can have the choice to go back to this.

Dear Vimeo, I strongly agree with everyone here, the ability to upload unique aspect ratios and that too without the black bars was one of the most amazing things about Vimeo. So much so I especially used Adobe Premiere to create this effect after I edited some of my movies in Avid Studio. Many films that have been featured on Vimeo have had unique aspect ratios without black bars. It looks better and extends the creativity from users and enhances the features of the film. My film 'Supermoon' is simply not the same anymore vimeo.com/41667201 with those black bars and indeed some of the films from my favourite artists such as Philip Bloom, Vituc and Christopher Guiness. So please Vimeo put it back how it was or as Chris suggests give us a choice. Many thanks TFA :)

I just wanted to agree with everything that has been said here. All of my work is in 4:3 and I hate the new black bars, centering the videos sounds like the best compromise. I really hope this gets changed in the near future.

Agreed - a choice would be superb, black bars ain't pretty

I'd like to add to this and say more custom sizes, I would love to create tall videos 9x16 with out worrying about black bars.
I know Vimeo does some custom player for anamorphic, and wider aspects...I'd like to see it go both ways.

Agreed, agreed. I'd rather the black bars than having it stretched or scaled, but I do so miss the lovely clean look of the old days. I would love to see this changed back or the options expanded. If not, I'll look for other options, sadly.

can we get anyone from vimeo to let us know if this is something that might happen at any point?

Thx guys.

Strange that only the SD 4:3 pillarboxes but HD 4:3 is beautiful. Disappointing really. Makes every SD film I have look cheap and lackluster. I hope you can work this out Vimeo. It's unprofessional for a service provider to take payment a year in advance for a service that works perfect and then months into it everything you have worked on is compromised. Is Vimeo ready to refund all the monies to Plus and Pro users for this issue?

I also really don't like how this looks, and though I understand the reason behind doing it, most viewers probably won't, I have already had people ask why I've put black borders around my video. There are various reasons why I don't always want to upload in HD. I prefer the sound of the "shrink and center the video player" option.

Agreeing with everything upthread - please remove black bars, and try the "centering" approach, which was mentioned.
also - the stretched thumbnails...are still just that...very stretched. there hasn't been any change or improvement with those.
Also agree with the statement upthread, that it is unprofessional to take payment from the plus users, who relied and counted on seeing our work presented the way we liked - suddenly our work is compromised, and there's nothing we can do.

agree with alice cohen on all counts.

the vertical black bars are an improvement over the JUMBO size 4:3 player, but still not satisfactory.

how bout shift the 4:3 videos to the left and be in line with the VIMEO logo and the video title. It won't be "centered" but would look much better.

stretched thumbnails are an embarrassment. If television adds 10 pounds than Vimeo adds 40!

and please create a 4:3 Gallery layout for the channels. Thanks!

I do a lot of portrait oriented video for digital signage and this new, ahem..."Improved" player has destroyed 80% of my work .
All I want to know is, why was the old player so flexible and beautiful for a diverse body of work and the new ahem..."improved" player is stubborn and homogenic?
Is it really impossible to code this?

could a staff member please address our concerns? I don't think anyone is requesting anything outrageous, and it would be nice to have our issues acknowledged - all the concerns in this thread seem perfectly reasonable, and everyone's being respectful, just concerned for the presentation of our work. can someone please at least acknowledge that they understand why we're upset? and that perhaps we are raising important points here for the good of the vimeo community?

Hi Alice,

We are dealing with this attitude : I own the company and I do what i like, if you don't like it, leave it.

So better don't waste your time. Since day one that we addressed the huge design mistakes to the staff, my perception about Vimeo changed drastically. I used to think Vimeo is made with love by a cool and supportive management team who understands art and design.

Yesss...I agree.... rather the black bars than having my films stretched or scaled so that its not clear anymore and lets have space for longer videos too ..., well...my videos were ok in the good old days and clear but ...... I would like all this to be changed back ...some times the improvements just do not work as there is things you did not think ....as now....so if Youtube boys can do it you can do it too.....Harry.

Link: vimeo.com/1197925

I agree with all of the above... Even if I heven´t read everything!

can youtube videos be uploaded with custom sizes? is there any service besides vimeo that allows custom sizes without borders?

Indeed, I too would prefer more real love for custom sizes

I SUPPORT THIS MOTION! BRING IT BACK!

Any further thoughts from the staff? Please consider our feedback!

Seriously guys, the pillarbox format with the timeline stretching into the black just looks shoddy. It makes a 4:3 video look like it's swimming in a black lake of broken. Please give us back honest to goodness 4:3.

I too have been put in a box ,when vimeo changed my 1280x1920 format vimeo.com/38893472 and now is no longer Large D:

Link: vimeo.com/38893472

This thread was started a month ago - with only one staff response, saying they are "testing" the black bar pillarbox thing. despite complaints in this thread and elsewhere, there has been no further comments from the staff - I guess that means black bars are here to stay!
At least the videos look "normal" when they are embedded, which makes me very curious why Vimeo isn't able to find a satisfactory solution to this problem. They do not seem concerned, they do not seem to care. I would like them to honestly say that they think this looks good, or that there is no way to solve this issue. it was fine before - why is it not possible now to have the custom sizes, i still don't understand. the technology was supposed to be an "improvement" not a step backwards.

Any answer - can we have a custom size without black bars? Personally I don't mind if the video quality suffers a wee bit by the stretching.

I clearly agree. Since this is a very important issue, which is even questioning the use of vimeo, it is a shame that vimeo disregards all these posts.

Vimeo staff, please please please let us have our 4:3 videos without pillarboxing back.

Having other issues that never happened on the old vimeo (audio sync!)
I came back to visit this topic, and was not surprised to see that the staff and owners don't give a shit about their long time paying users...
bring the old vimeo back!!!

Thought I'd through my experience into the open request. I am currently working on a very large series of vertical videos for galleries. I'd love to be able to upload and view these as intended but as so may have already said, the Vimeo formatting does not allow for custom/non-standard sizes. As Vimeo is an organization promoting itself as an alternative to the commercial and crass seen elsewhere, it would be nice to actually be able to preview my work as I intended (vertically). Especially now that I am a paying Plus member.
Vimeo, please find a solution to this. Support your artistically inclined clients, and yes those that are paying members are your clients too. Thanks for the site and hard work that you do put in.

Very sad to see the option of custom aspect ratios disappear - it was was a fantastic and unique feature previously provided by Vimeo which offered endless creative possibilities. There is so much more to life than 16:9! It would be great to see this feature returned.

seriously!!!! as if any film shot other than 16:9 is somehow wrong or weird.

I noticed my 4:3 videos are presented correctly on "my videos" page and also on "choose a thumbnail" page without the unnecessary vertical black bars. If only they could look like that on the main video page.

please vimeo. help us out here. love us back.

I'm usually not a guy that complains, but c'mon!!!

I'm paying for this.

Come on guys.

This is a very interesting discussion as I am re-editing some TV sequences I made for a pilot in 4:3 but will now have to present here on Vimeo wedged between the black bars like a head in a vice. I wasn't aware that Vimeo got rid of the option to house your videos in a bespoke 4:3 setting but would love to see this feature return.

And, as mentioned above, this isn't like people moaning about Youtube or even Facebook's unending series of tinkering. They are free sites and if you don't like what their meddling you can always leave. As a PLUS Vimeo user however, we all pay towards the upkeep and advancement of the site so these opinions should carry more weight with the staff.

I just came back on Vimeo, after a 3 years hiatus, and realized that there is now a standardized size for videos -- everything else got the ugly blackbars.

For a creativity-oriented platform, it's kind of sad. The web itself, and now the VIDEO html5 tag, allow us to think about videos very much like images, integrated in the page and more free than on TV.

A creative platform like Vimeo should enable us to explore a variety of formats: square videos, vertical videos, 2.35 cinema ratio videos, etc. It would be forward thinking.

(Many, many video artists, for example, have used vertical videos for exhibitions and installations).

The good news is that embedding seems to still work in any ratio, so I will probably try and embed some videos and see if it's easy and fun enough.

I made a square Video Christmas Card two years ago (vimeo.com/18079320) and I would like to show it around here at Vimeo but I understand from this discussion there's no way to get rid of the letterbox? I have seen a vertical video some three weeks ago. How did this user get it right?

Link: vimeo.com/18079320

Interesting - I've just signed up to Vimeo Pro. I now need to embed a video into my website but it needs to be square in shape, without any pillar box effect.

Is there anyway of doing this via the vimeo embed options?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Hi.

I have just completed a 2 year project in a portrait aspect ratio. We tested it on Vimeo 2 years ago when we started, and are really disappointed to find out about this development.

I am a huge fan of Vimeo generally but this seems mad. The site has a white background, sticking black bars either either side of a video looks strange.

Hopefully