How to prevent VLC from automatically resizing its window according to viewed content resolution?

Question

In a case of mine a very high (compared to the video stream) resolution graphical frame (saying "access denied" (when my IP changes)) can appear instead of a video stream, which makes VLC window to resize, getting bigger than my screen is. This annoys me. Can I set up VLC to never resize its window when I don't do it myself and resize content instead?

Answer 1

It is really tricky to find the checkbox that needs to be un-checked, so you could go edit the rc file.

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\vlc

--- vlcrc.default       2011-12-16 11:46:51.000000000 -0800
+++ vlcrc.noresize      2010-12-05 20:00:26.000000000 -0800
@@ -1088,7 +1088,7 @@
 #qt-start-minimized=0

 # Resize interface to the native video size (boolean)
-#qt-video-autoresize=1
+qt-video-autoresize=0

Here is where you find the option in the interface.

Answer 2

Select Tools⇨Preferences⇨Interface then uncheck the box Resize interface to video size. Finally, restart VLC.

Answer 3

From the VLC documentation, I found:

--sout-transcode-maxwidth=<integer>
  Maximum output video width.

--sout-transcode-maxheight=<integer>
  Maximum output video height.

However, running VLC from the command line requires a lot of setup (including settings from the standard module and the transcode module), so you may want to take a look at their Examples.

I'm going to install VLC on this computer and look into setting max sizes through the GUI. I'll report back if I find anything.