VLC - Video Effects > Crop

Sometimes a widescreen DVD or other video has black bars on the top/bottom. The actual video image is 16:9, but it has been formatted at 4:3 putting black bars on the top and bottom. You end up watching a shrunk 16:9 video on the widescreen monitor. Annoying.

Go to Tools > Effects & Filters
Video Effects tab
Crop tab
Change the Top/Bottom values to crop the video.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to crop the video:
Crop one pixel from the top: Alt+r
Bottom: Alt+c
Right: Alt+f
Left: Alt+d

This crop method worked back in Ubuntu 8.04 and was very handy, but now Top/Bottom crop doesn't work. No cropping actually takes place, and the image stretches sideways. I haven't been able to figure it out. Right/Left crop both crop the right side. I upgraded to VLC 1.1.10, and the Top/Bottom crop worked. After trying a few videos, it was back to the no-crop-only-stretch. Even after deleting preferences it still didn't work. Well, I guess I'll have to resort to auto crop for now.