Playback Output To Monitor For Vertical And Other Formats

This has been a long time coming.

When Premiere Pro outputs playback for ‘unsupported frame sizes’ to a broadcast monitor or client monitor via SDI/HDMI out of I/O hardware (Blackmagic in particular), it stretches the image to fit 16:9 streams. 

In this day and age, vertical and other frame sizes, 9:16 4:5 1:1, should all be supported. I wish Premiere Pro would, through a setting, automatically add pillarboxes to embed these frame sizes into the 16:9 stream out to the monitors. 

Yes, there’s a work around for this, but adds to a cumbersome workflow in editing. 

Davinci Resolve for a while now has a toggle to ‘Use Vertical Resolution’ when outputting to monitors, regardless of I/O hardware. What this means is, it adds pillarboxing and maps it into 16:9 so it’s displayed correctly on monitors. 

AJA’s hardware now has the ability to do the same mapping, through it’s I/O hardware. It’s hardware is typically much more expensive than Blackmagic hardware. Most independent artists use Blackmagic hardware. However, BMD is unlikely to add this feature to hardware, instead they did it in their software, which in a way forces artists to work in Davinici Resolve. Most times, we don’t have a choice and have to work in the software that client’s support, such as Premiere Pro or Avid. 

I would like to submit a feature request where Premiere Pro does this mapping into the 16:9 SDI/HDMI stream so that monitors display vertical formats correctly, like Davinci Resolve.