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How to Make Every Video in an OBS Playlist the Same Size on Screen

Fit an OBS VLC playlist source to your scene canvas, understand when bars or stretching appear, and learn why scene sizing does not change the videos’ encoded resolution.

By DocumentaryTube Team 3 min read
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To make videos in an OBS playlist appear consistently sized, add them as a VLC Video Source, set your scene’s canvas dimensions, then apply Transform → Fit to Screen to the source. This fits each playlist item inside the canvas while preserving its proportions. It does not change the resolution encoded in the original video files.

What “the same resolution” means in an OBS playlist

There are two different things you might mean by resolution:

  • Consistent on-screen sizing: OBS places the playlist source within a scene canvas. A source transform such as Fit to Screen controls how the video appears there.
  • Identical file dimensions: Every video file has the same encoded pixel width and height. An OBS scene transform does not rewrite or re-encode those files.

The steps below address consistent display in an OBS scene. The scene has one canvas size, and the stream or recording has an output size; individual playlist files can still have different dimensions and aspect ratios.

Add your videos as a VLC playlist source

  1. In the OBS Sources dock, click + and add VLC Video Source.
  2. Add the videos to that source’s playlist.

The VLC Video Source supports multiple media files. If it is not available in OBS, install VLC; OBS notes that VLC must be installed for this source to appear. See the OBS Media Sources guide.

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Set the scene and output resolutions

  1. Open Settings → Video.
  2. Set Base (Canvas) Resolution to the dimensions of the scene workspace in which you arrange sources. OBS describes this as the space available to fit sources.
  3. Set Output (Scaled) Resolution to the dimensions you want for the stream or recording. This controls output size; changing it is not the same as resizing each playlist item on the canvas.

For example, OBS documents that a 1080p source can be output at 720p by setting the output resolution accordingly. The appropriate values depend on your intended scene and stream or recording output. See the OBS Studio Overview Guide for these settings.

Apply one sizing choice to the playlist source

  1. Select the VLC Video Source in the Sources dock or preview.
  2. Right-click it and choose Transform → Fit to Screen. The OBS guide lists Ctrl+F on Windows and Cmd+F on macOS as the Fit to Screen shortcuts.
  3. Preview several playlist items, including any portrait, square, or 4:3 video in a 16:9 scene. Check that the framing works for the full playlist, not just its first item.

Fit to Screen preserves proportions and keeps the full image visible inside the canvas. When an item’s aspect ratio differs from the canvas, bars or unused space can remain at the sides or top and bottom.

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Choose Fit, Stretch, or Center

Transform What it does Use it when
Fit to Screen Fits the source within the canvas while preserving proportions; different aspect ratios may leave bars or unused space. You want the whole image visible without distorting it.
Stretch to Screen Fills the canvas dimensions, which can change the image’s proportions. Edge-to-edge coverage matters more than accurate image geometry.
Center to Screen Centers the source; it does not by itself make every playlist item fill the canvas or appear equally large. You want a centered source and can accept differences in apparent size.

These are source transforms, separate from the output-resolution setting. OBS documents the transform commands in its overview guide. A directly matching OBS forum discussion reports that applying Fit to Screen or Center to Screen worked for one mixed-aspect-ratio VLC playlist; that is a user report, not a guarantee for every OBS version, media file, or VLC setup.

If the files themselves need identical pixel dimensions

Normalize the videos in a video editor or transcoder before adding them to OBS. Choose the target dimensions and decide how footage with a different aspect ratio should be handled: preserve the full image with bars, crop it, or stretch it. That processing changes the media files; the OBS transform steps above only change how the source is rendered in the scene.

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