Stretch Not Working on Windows

On Windows, Chrome has a long-standing bug where hardware-accelerated video can ignore non-uniform Stretch on some streaming sites — Netflix is the most common case. The video refuses to stretch even though the mode is active. It's a Chrome/GPU issue, not an UltraWideo one, and two small launch flags fix it without turning hardware acceleration off.

This only affects Chrome on Windows. Firefox, other browsers, and other operating systems are unaffected.

Two flags that fix it

Pick whichever fits your priorities — both keep hardware acceleration on.

Option 1 — Disable accelerated video decode

--disable-accelerated-video-decode

Chrome decodes video on the CPU instead of the GPU. Compositing and rendering stay hardware-accelerated, and the rest of the browser is unaffected.

Tradeoff: slightly higher CPU during playback, and Netflix may cap quality at 720p (its hardware DRM requires hardware decode).

Option 2 — Disable Direct Composition

--disable-direct-composition

Disables Chrome's modern Windows compositor for the whole browser. Video decode stays on the GPU, so streaming quality stays at full resolution.

Tradeoff: an older rendering path for everything Chrome draws, which can occasionally cause minor visual quirks on other pages.

How to add the flag

1. Right-click your Chrome shortcut (desktop or taskbar) and choose Properties.
2. In the Target field, leave the quoted path alone, add a single space after it, then paste the flag. For example: "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-direct-composition
3. Click OK, then quit Chrome completely — check the system tray and exit any background Chrome there too, or the flag won't apply.
4. Re-open Chrome from that same shortcut.
5. Confirm it worked: open chrome://version and check that the Command Line line includes your flag.

The flag only applies when Chrome launches from this specific shortcut. Opening Chrome from another link or app won't include it.