Why have videos started doing this thing where it's only in focus in a vertical strip down the middle?

That happens when people record their videos vertically. It’s really an unacceptable thing to do, and people used to get crucified online for doing it. But it’s quite common still. There’s no reason for it. Phones should force correct horizontal video.

Vertical video is the only possible reason the death penalty should be legal.

LOL!

@thisismyusername The fault is not on the side of the videographers.

The problem is most people cannot understand aspect ratios, and think any empty space above or below the video is wasted space which means they are being cheated and the picture must be stretched.

Drives me fcking bananas.

@Dutchess_lll Thank you for asking. I had the same question!

I still don’t get it entirely, though. I get that someone tilted their phone sideways when recording the video, but how does that result in a video with blurred side content? Is that what gets saved, and it becomes visible if you view it in something other than the phone’s display of it?

(If so, it seems like yet another annoying feature of “smart” phones, since many/most people probably have the expectation that they are cropping to the visible area when recording, and could end up unexpectedly recording blurry things they don’t mean to…)

@Zaku – The actual blur is post-processing done mostly by news stations who don’t want to just show black space on either side of the video. So, it’s processed to appear to be blurred-out sections, but it really is just processing. Similar effects can be made in video processing software for home, like iMovie.

In other words, they are not recording blurry things. They are actually just recording a very thin slice of video that is torture for anyone who wants to view it.

@thisismyusername Ok thanks… so it’s never blurred actual video – it’s just some bullshit colros extrapolated by some insane “it lookz better” noise algorithm? Arrgghhh….