1. A video imaging system, comprising: a receiver having a signal input for receiving an image having content including horizontal and vertical line pillar boxes data; a processor to determine an aspect ratio of the content of the received image including an image detection circuit configured to parse the image for each horizontal line and vertical line by determining a mean and variance of each pixel luminance and chrominance values of the horizontal line and the vertical line and determine an active content area of the image; an estimation circuit configured to extract each one dimensional power spectral density in the horizontal and the vertical dimensions for the active content of the image using a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and estimate an aspect ratio for the image; a classifier circuit configured to classify the estimated aspect ratio as one of plurality of standardized aspect ratios for the image; and an output circuit configured to alter the aspect ratio of the received image based on the estimation aspect ratio of the content of the image.