With over 2.1 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the second-biggest social network in the world and the biggest video-sharing platform.
The platform had a humble start, with the first-ever uploaded video from its co-founder when he visited the zoo.
Now, it has all sorts of videos with superior production and sound quality, which manifests how far the network has flourished.
If you want to begin your YouTube journey and potentially make money like a million other people, then there are certain things that are good to have knowledge of.
One such thing is the YouTube video aspect ratio. Does YouTube give any aspect ratio instructions to follow? Let’s find out.
The aspect ratio for YouTube video is 16:9, as it is a widescreen ratio and fits well on computers, TV, mobile phones, and tablet screens.
Let’s explore some important aspects related to YouTube to help you make the right decisions that can ultimately improve the quality of your content and enhance viewers’ engagement for you.
YouTube Video Size Guide
YouTube is the second biggest social network, offering endless opportunities for people to grow.
The platform is significant not only for big corporations with marketing ambitions but also for individual content creators aiming to make their names and get recognition amid stiff competition.
You can use various tactics to increase your visibility and drive the audience towards your videos, but your content will only be the factor that can retain your audience.
When the audience comes to your content, if they decide it is interesting, they will subscribe to it. They will potentially view all other videos you ever created too. If they did not like it, they would move past you.
This can also affect your channel’s future performance due to the YouTube algorithm.
So, any video can make or break it for you for your audience. Various factors can affect your video; one such factor is quality.
Remember that people will not waste their time watching low-quality videos of yours (unless your content is like no others, which is impossible considering there are 800 million videos on YouTube).
So, let’s determine some important numbers for you to remember before you upload or create a new YouTube video.
YouTube Video Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio of any image or video is the relationship between the width and height of an image/video.
It is a very important factor that can affect your image or video quality in big time.
Suppose your visual does not fit the specified aspect ratio. In that case, you must crop or enlarge it, which can significantly distort your image/video and make it distorted or, worse grainy.
The standard aspect ratio for YouTube videos is 16:9. This is the best aspect ratio as it is widescreen. It makes your entire video fit well on YouTube frames on computers screen, phones, tablets, and even TVs.
If you are shooting the YouTube video on your phone, hold the camera horizontally (not vertically). Make sure the resolution selected in your camera settings is also high for better quality.
YouTube also supports other aspects like 1:1 (square) and 9:16. However, the problem with these aspect ratios is that when you upload the video with these aspects, YouTube will try to make your video fit in the 16:9 canvas by adding black borders around the video.
These black borders do not necessarily give a professional look to your video and can even distract a few users.
Other YouTube Video Guidelines
Here are some additional guidelines for YouTube videos:
- The smallest video dimension that YouTube supports is 426×240 pixels.
- The largest video resolution supported by YouTube is 3840×2160 (4K).
- YouTube’s standard video resolution is 1280×720 (720p) or even 1920×1080 (1080p).
- It is important to note that the higher the resolution, the more time it will take to process and upload it on YouTube.
- YouTube allows you to upload files of a maximum size of up to 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less.
- If you have an unverified account, you can only upload a video of 15 minutes. The verified account can upload videos longer than 15 minutes.
- YouTube supports the file format MOV, MP4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and AVI, to name a few.
- The higher the resolution of any video/image, the more pixels will be. More pixels mean the image/video will be sharper, more profound, and crispier than one with fewer pixels.
Higher-resolution videos can take more time to process and upload on YouTube. Also, these require fast internet without interruption.
Final Words
Many factors can affect your YouTube journey.
If you are wondering why your YouTube channel is not growing, it is worth investigating the video quality before anything.
Use our guide to check if your video meets the desired aspect ratio and resolutions guideline.
Anything more or less can significantly impact users’ experience and hence your channel’s performance.
Hopefully, next time you create a video, you keep in mind all these pointers before uploading your video on YouTube.
