Short-form video lives in portrait mode. TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are all built around vertical video that fills a phone screen. Getting the dimensions right avoids black bars, awkward cropping and buttons covering faces.
Aspect ratio versus resolution
Aspect ratio is the shape: width compared with height. Vertical short video uses 9:16, which is the landscape 16:9 widescreen shape turned on its side.
Resolution is the number of pixels. Common 9:16 resolutions are:
- 720×1280 (often called 720p HD)
- 1080×1920 (1080p Full HD)
Both have the same shape. Higher resolution can show more detail, but only if the source has that detail.
Why 9:16 fills the screen
Most modern phones have tall screens, often around 19.5:9 or 20:9. A 9:16 video fills most of the screen on these phones; apps either add small bars or crop a little at the edges. That is why 9:16 has become the standard: it uses the whole display without much cropping on most devices.
Safe zones
On short video platforms, the interface sits on top of your video:
- Right edge: like, comment and share buttons.
- Bottom: caption, username and music information.
- Top: sometimes tabs or a search bar.
Keep faces and important text away from those areas. A practical rule is to keep key content in the central area, slightly above the middle. Exact safe zones vary by platform and change with app updates, so preview before posting.
Converting between shapes
If you reuse a landscape (16:9) video in a vertical feed, you have three choices:
- Crop to the centre, losing the sides.
- Letterbox with bars above and below, which wastes most of the screen.
- Reframe by following the action as it moves, which takes more editing.
Going the other way, from vertical to landscape, has the same problem in reverse. Creating content in 9:16 from the start avoids all three.
Frame rate and length
Short videos are commonly 24, 30 or 60 frames per second. For trend videos built around a song, 15 seconds is a common length because it matches the most recognisable part of the audio.
Does 720p look bad?
On a phone screen, 720×1280 usually looks sharp for faces and simple scenes, and platforms often re-encode uploads anyway. Upscaling a 720p video to 1080p does not add real detail. For most trend clips, a clean 720p source is better than a noisy 1080p one.
Bopreel's format
Bopreel's trend videos are 15-second clips with the original song, made in vertical 720×1280 to post directly to Reels, TikTok or Shorts (the Hotel Lobby format also offers a horizontal 1280×720 option for YouTube). The two current formats are the Hotel Lobby AI video and the What You Want Me To Do AI video. Per-video pricing is on the pricing page.
Summary
- 9:16 is the vertical short video shape.
- 720×1280 and 1080×1920 are common resolutions.
- Keep faces and text out of the interface zones.
- Shoot or generate vertically rather than cropping later.
Top comments (0)