How to zoom in when playing a video on Windows 10

Videos are played in their original aspect ration, they’re played in their original orientation, and little is needed to change how the video looks when it’s playing. You may switch between a normal player, a full-screen player, or a small floating picture-in-picture player but that’s about it. In rare cases though, you may need to zoom in when playing a video and you’ll find there aren’t a lot of apps that let you do that. VLC is the exception, as always.

VLC player has interactive zoom which basically allows users to zoom in on a particular part of a video while it’s playing.

Zoom in when playing a video

Open the video in VLC player. Go to Tools>Effects and Filters, or tap the Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut.

In the window that opens, go to Video Effects, and then select the Geometry tab. Enable the ‘Interactive Zoom’ feature, and then click Save at the bottom. When you enable this feature, the video in the main player window will change so that there’s a smaller thumbnail-like version of it in the upper left corner.

Close the effects window and return to the main player window. Move your mouse over the little thumbnail video in the corner and click where you want to zoom in. The main player will show that part of the video, zoomed in. As for how far it is zoomed in, you will notice a small icon just under the thumbnail. It’s a curved shape and if you click along the top, you increase the zoom level.

The zoom controls will stick around so when you’re done with the video and would like to return to the normal viewing mode, you will have to disable the interactive zoom feature.

Go to the Effects and Filters window, and uncheck interactive zoom. Make sure you save the change and the little thumbnail in the upper left corner will be gone.

Video zoom has the same limitations that a zoomed-in photo has. You cannot zoom in too much and still have a clear idea of what you’re looking at. The ‘image’ cannot be enhanced for clarity. With HD video, you can probably zoom in a lot more than you could with an SD or low-resolution video but there will always be a limit. Additionally, you will notice that things like light and angles matter a lot more when you’ve zoomed in on a video. Again, it will impact what you can make out, and what you cannot.

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Fatima Wahab

Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014. Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks

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