Test Movie Doesn't Play at Correct Size

[Optimistic Ori]

Evening lads. I've spent a few days working on a project, and I want to include a camera so I can change up some scenes. Whenever I try to test the movie however (Ctrl + Enter), the movie plays at the incorrect size, which messes up what shows on the screen. Say I want a line to draw across the screen, and it's the same size as the stage. If I test the movie, it shows the lines ending before they touch the sides of the screen. Stuff like this is making it difficult to tell if I have the camera located where I want it to be.

The stage is supposed to be 1920 x 1080, and I can tell the movie is playing at different proportions than this because when I test the movie and manually adjust the corners of the window myself, I can make the window smaller for quite a bit before the actual content begins to resize.

[exactspace]

Anyone care to shed some insight on this?

[Nick Gioia]

See if this tutorial gives you a better perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_med77gN00

[exactspace]

Thanks, I scanned through it, but I never saw a part where they actually test the movie from the menu Control >> Test Movie. I don't mean its size while you are editing it, but while you are testing it. Never seemed to test in the correct aspect ratio, all the way back to the Macromedia Flash days, even though it published as a Flash web object to the right size and aspect ratio. With Test Movie, I see things that are completely off stage. 

[Mario_CR]

This is normal behavior, test movie is just the SWF runtime so if you drag the edges you can see the contents way outside the stage. Once you render it to video these will be clipped properly. 

If your PC monitor and your SWF are both 1080p, UI elements from your operating system (like windows taskbar) will force the player to open at a different screen ratio, stretching it at the sides.

How to fix this? Drag the edges of the player window to resize it.  When you're done don't close it down or the window size will reset. Minimize it instead.

Or you could just set your stage at a smaller size like 720p which will make the flash player window smaller, giving it enough room play at the proper screen ratio. Then export at a higher resolution when you're finished.

[exactspace]

Thanks, but I'd rather have an option to make it exactly the right dimensions, without depending on guessing when I'm testing the movie. I think it's sort of a no-brainer to implement this. This will never be a SWF playing in a browser anyway, so I won't be checking there. 

[Mario_CR]

That's understandable, making it 2x smaller is not guessing though, it preserves the aspect ratio but you're right, this is only a workaround. You can write a feature request here if you're inclined to: 

https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

[exactspace]

Thank you! Request added. 

[Shauna340528862unz]

Hey, I know this is a year later, but I had the same question too. Idk if this is a new feature as of 2023, but you can just right click and hit "100%" and it will show up as the proper proportions.

[n. tilcheff]

This feature has always been available.

Here is how it looks in Flash 5, relased 23 years ago in 2000.