Zoom modes?

[lights]

I use channels iOS to watch NFL games when I’m on the road or working out. Many channels pillarbox and/or shrink the video to put a ticker, scores, etc. at the bottom of the screen. On a small screen like a phone or iPad, it would be great to enable a zoom mode to extend the video to the full width of the screen. Many video apps offer this (even the TiVo app did when I still used TiVo). Is this a feature I am just not finding in the iOS client? Or is it missing? If missing, I’d LOVE to see the feature added.

[Elliot]

100% agree. Pinch or double tap to fill screen

[Fofer]

Agreed, so much! Thanks for bringing it up. It's been on my wishlist. For me it's a different reason though. I requested it before in a different thread:

@Fofer

It only works in the native video player of course, but "Tap-to-Zoom" has been a feature of tvOS for a long time. tvOS 16 introduced a toggle in Settings so it can be disabled. I do use it a lot though, especially when involving big action movies and ambilight (synchronized color lighting glow effects behind the TV.) The black bars in those instances tend to interfere with the overall immersion. I don't use Zoom all the times, but being able to invoke it on-the-fly is very useful.

All this to say, I would LOVE to see "Tap-to-Zoom" work in Channels too. I end up watching these letterboxed movies in other players because that's the only way to eliminate the black bars. Yes, I realize it also cuts off content on the sides, but that's a compromise I'm willing to make for these types of movies.

Has this feature been requested here before?

This functionality works very well on the native tvOS player and I wish Channels worked the same. We end up watching most ambilight-enhanced movies using the TV app instead of Channels because of this.

This idea might also be relevant to folks in this thread, aiming to avoid sports score spoilers. I linked this idea there to share.

[lights]

I would add that this might also be useful for Apple TV for certain broadcast types such as game replays on NFL Network where they shrink the 16:9 network broadcast so they can put a permanent ticker at the bottom of the screen. So… useful on all form factors IMO.