Hiding the SL player area in landscape (Tablet and Phone) view so the content fills the screen area to the right

Is there a way to hide the SL player button area in landscape view for both phone and tablet devices. The purpose of hiding or removing the player/seekbar area would be to get the content to fill the screen entirely and not leave an empty area to the right. I can successfully remove the seekbar and player nav buttons but the content still does not fill the screen to the right.