I see cell phone videos in the portrait mode all the time on YouTube and they don't look distorted to me. You can combine videos in different aspect ratios in a 16:9 AR project. They should look just fine on YT.

The starting point is: Please look at the aspect ratio’s like 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 all as the aspect ratio for the final result of your video. So the first thing to is, to define what kind of output video you want to make. Obviously YouTube “likes” 16:9 best. And nowadays most of the other showing devices (TV, computer screens etc.) use the same 16:9 ratio. If you want to make a video that has to look great on an cell phone, then 9:16 might be the best ratio. Once the output ratio has been chosen, all input video and images will have to fit into that ratio, either with side bars or with enhancing the material (see below).
So:

1) The setting can be considered as aesthetic, but also (see above) what may be the best fit for showing the video. You can either leave the bars at the side or at top and bottom alone, and thus respecting or showing the original input device (look at the old 8mm movies that are shown on the 16:9 TVs with side bars….). You can also decide to show the takes “full screen” and crop the input to make it fit the aspect ratio of your (output) video. The decision to crop may also depend on the quality of the input material (cropping enlarges the input and may also enlarge the poorness of the quality) and the subject (e.g. 4:3 movies may have essential information (a face, a sign) that you don’t want to drop while cropping). But remember you make the choices with the chosen output format in mind, not the input format.

2) If you decide to change the aspect ratio of your video after you have created the timeline, it is not entirely impossible that your output looks distorted. The might be ways to correct that, but the simplest approach is to redo the timeline after the ratio change. Better, as you might guess by now, is to define the output ratio before you start filling the timeline.

3) This question may have been answered in to above. Indeed 16:9 may be 1920x1080, which is the resolution of full HD TV screens and many computer screens. But the 4K aspect ratio is also 16:9 and the resolution of a 4K (TV or computer) screen is 3840x2160 4 times as much pixels). Each video (file) can only have one aspect ratio but also one resolution. But once you have defined the aspect ratio for your video, at production (output) time you still can select the resolution within that aspect ratio, e.g. with 16:9, 1920x1080 for HD TV, Blu-ray, or 720x576 for TV DVD, or 3840x2160 for 4K TVs. I think for the usage you mention 16:9 and 1920x1080 might be the best option. Maybe you want to do some testing before you define what to go for.
This testing is also important for the quality. Although PD enables you to select the ratio and the resolution, as mentioned above the quality is very much depending on the quality of your input material. 8mm video may not look so good in 16:9 4K:

Hope this helps a bit.

Quote The starting point is: Please look at the aspect ratio’s like 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 all as the aspect ratio for the final result of your video. So the first thing to is, to define what kind of output video you want to make. Obviously YouTube “likes” 16:9 best. And nowadays most of the other showing devices (TV, computer screens etc.) use the same 16:9 ratio. If you want to make a video that has to look great on an cell phone, then 9:16 might be the best ratio. Once the output ratio has been chosen, all input video and images will have to fit into that ratio, either with side bars or with enhancing the material (see below).
So:

1) The setting can be considered as aesthetic, but also (see above) what may be the best fit for showing the video. You can either leave the bars at the side or at top and bottom alone, and thus respecting or showing the original input device (look at the old 8mm movies that are shown on the 16:9 TVs with side bars….). You can also decide to show the takes “full screen” and crop the input to make it fit the aspect ratio of your (output) video. The decision to crop may also depend on the quality of the input material (cropping enlarges the input and may also enlarge the poorness of the quality) and the subject (e.g. 4:3 movies may have essential information (a face, a sign) that you don’t want to drop while cropping). But remember you make the choices with the chosen output format in mind, not the input format.

2) If you decide to change the aspect ratio of your video after you have created the timeline, it is not entirely impossible that your output looks distorted. The might be ways to correct that, but the simplest approach is to redo the timeline after the ratio change. Better, as you might guess by now, is to define the output ratio before you start filling the timeline.

3) This question may have been answered in to above. Indeed 16:9 may be 1920x1080, which is the resolution of full HD TV screens and many computer screens. But the 4K aspect ratio is also 16:9 and the resolution of a 4K (TV or computer) screen is 3840x2160 4 times as much pixels). Each video (file) can only have one aspect ratio but also one resolution. But once you have defined the aspect ratio for your video, at production (output) time you still can select the resolution within that aspect ratio, e.g. with 16:9, 1920x1080 for HD TV, Blu-ray, or 720x576 for TV DVD, or 3840x2160 for 4K TVs. I think for the usage you mention 16:9 and 1920x1080 might be the best option. Maybe you want to do some testing before you define what to go for.
This testing is also important for the quality. Although PD enables you to select the ratio and the resolution, as mentioned above the quality is very much depending on the quality of your input material. 8mm video may not look so good in 16:9 4K:

Hope this helps a bit.

this was so helpful. thank you very much for taking the time to respond. i now see I really should choose the aspect ratio for my project beofre i do anything else.

so now, having read your reply, i have even more questions..

1) clarifying: Is there ever a time where a 16:9 project wouldnt be able to be viewed at all? I mean on most basic devices, such as youtube, desktop computers, laptops, TV screens, tablets and cell phones- can i assume that all those devices would be able to play a 16:9 movie?

2) also, when choosing the resolution, if I use 1920x1280 resolution for my project, will it play properly on all devices I just listed? I see you mentioned that a 4k TV or computer has a resolution of 3840x2160- does that mean that a movie with a resolution of 1920x1080 would not be able to be played on a 4K computer/TV? or just that it would play, but the 4k TV/computer is capable of handling even higher quality movies?

3) another question-as im playing around on PD, when i click produce, there are so many many options for selecting a file format!! and i did watch many tutorials, but they all just confused me further...maybe because im not familiar with all the lingo yet...if you had to suggest a file format for a 16:9 movie to play back on all TV screens, laptops, desktops, youtube, tablets and cellphones- what would you chose? im hearing a lot of AVI, MPEG-2, and H.264 or H.265- but i cant understand whats best!! im going crazy here..

4) and one more thing i just thought of- powerdirector alerted me that some of my video clips were taken in 4K. I believe that means a higher quality or higher definition (????) video that is taken through most smartphones nowadays? (again, this is my google research-please corect me if im wrong!). So if a video is a 4K video, do I NEED to choose a certain file/resolution? or will it technically work with all, just like my other video clips?

im sorry if some of my questions dont make sense...hopefully one day i'll be a maven, answering some other newbies questions....until then...thank you in advance to you and anyone who helps me!

You've got a lot of valid questions, and you're getting some great advice here.

I'll add that the simplest way to approach this is to produce at the same resolution as the highest resolution clip on your timeline. If you have a 4k clip, produce to 4k. If it's HD, produce to HD (1920x1080). You don't gain actual 4k resolution in your produced clip if you only have HD clips, since PD will simply scale the HD clips up to your producing resolution, so there isn't really any value in doing that.

Also, you generally won't have to worry about playback devices, since their job is to automatically resize the video to fit their screens, although this brings me to the only part where resolution and choice of producing format matters.

Some older devices may have trouble playing back 4k content, because it takes a lot of proecessing power to decode everything smoothly in real time.

If you end up in a situation where someone is having trouble viewing a clip you produced to 4k, you could produce an HD version and let them watch that instead. Note that videos on FB, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. automatically handle streaming in different resolutions, so if you're posting online, none of this matters and you'll ALWAYS want to produce at full res of your highest res timeline clips.

The other issue is what format to use. This will mostly be determined by the system you're producing on, and somewhat by your viewers machines - at least if you're sending the clips directly to them.

Unless you have a fairly new PC, I think you'll be better off using AVC/H.264 because it's a very good quality format and it will be playable on virtually any device made within the past 5 to 7 years.

HEVC/H.265 is newer and more efficient, meaning you can get similar quality in a smaller file size, but it takes more powerful hardware to watch and especially to produce, so unless you have a fairly new machine, it's going to take a long time to produce clips this way.

Whichever format you choose, I think the MP4 container is the most popular, and if you're going to be sending out vids to people, that's the one I'd go with. Again, it doesn't matter if you're sharing these online. Many of the other producing formats or options are for older clips or for making DVDs or Blu-Rays, so I don't think you need to give them much thought.

I hope this helps!

YouTube/optodata

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With some hesitation some additions to the already perfect Optodata answers. In my early video days, I had the same confusions and newbie questions and I was always grateful when someone took the time to explain things in easy terms:

1) nowadays devices are capable of showing the 16:9. You ONLY select another ratio when you have specific requirements.
2) 1920x1080 is a resolution that can be handled by most devices. Although a number (older) may have difficulties with it, as explained above, because it may consume a lot of resources (read computer power and file storage) to display it smoothly. So for older devices it may be prudent to select a lower resolution. A number of devices do not go higher, like the standard DVD format with 720x576.
Displays (TVs computer screens) with a higher resolution become more and more available. 4K is a resolution that is 4 (four!) times larger than the 1920x1080. We see 8K devices gradually coming too. So to answer your question: ALL these (4K) devices are able of displaying 1920x1080 too. What you get is a much better picture, and although most 4K devices are able to “upscale” the resolution in the flight, obviously the optimal picture you get when the recording was done in 4K too.
More and more recording devices are capable of capturing the images with the resolution of 3840x2160, and you can imagine that 4K recording shows better on 4K devices than 1920x1080. As Optodata explains, new formats like H.265 were introduced to keep file sizes and network transmission within limits. Warning: the H.265 takes more computer power and special software for the translation into displayed images, so don’t select this if don’t know what output device is being used or if you know that and older computer will be use.
3) AVI, MPEG2, MP4 (actually MPEG4), MOV, VOB, etc. are all in essence video containers that each in their own way tell the displaying device computer where the images are that need to be displayed. Optodata is spot on: select the container that is requested or best for the viewing party (or device), and if you don’t know, go for MP4. And within that AVC/H.264 which is most commonly used and applicable. PD helps you to make the right choices although I admit it is sometimes not easy.[/list]
4) As said, selecting the output format is with the display device or purpose in mind. That does not only count for the editor and the output formats used but also for the input device/format. If you know that the viewers are going to use a 4K device and you have a 4K capable input device, then it is best use that format. In many cases the input and output devices are not the same. Fortunately, (PD) video editors are able to “understand” many formats to input and many formats to output.
You can imagine that when you go from low input format to higher output format, the quality will not be as good. But the reverse applies: if you go from higher input to lower output, the quality is usually good enough for that output format.
So it can be wise to record a video in 4K even when you know the audience is going to look at 1920x1080 max. In the video editing process you have more flexibility to e.g. do some cropping etc. without losing too much quality considering the lower output format.
And …. Working with higher resolutions takes more computer capacity, e.g. PD will take longer to produce output.

thank you warry and optodata!! things are beginning to get clearer...

1) can you clarify exactly what it means to produce to 4k vs HD? where would i see those options? i checked "produce" but i dont see them-did i miss it, or is it called something else that im not aware of?

2) also, what would be the ramification if i didnt realize certain clips were 4k, and I produced the movie to regular HD? is that still ok, or would the movie be affected?

3) and im clarifying here- (i got lost in some of the jargon, sorry)- if i produce a movie made of 4k videos to 4k, it can still be played on a non-4k device, correct?

4) aaaaaand- now i found out about "frames per second"! whaaaaat....apparently im supposed to set my movie's frames per second? and its supposed to match the frames per second of my video clips? (does it have to? what if different video clips have different fps?) where in PD do i have the option to set the fps? why am i reading recommendations to have it at 30 fps? or 29.9... can i ever set it "too high" or "too low" to be viewed properly, or is it just some extra detail that only professionals would care about?

5) is there anything else (technical/specs wise) that im not aware i need to set? so far ive got the movie's aspect ratio (which im thinking ill do to 16:9), the resolution, the format....now the fps....anything else??? lolll help!

thank you SO MUCH for your help. you guys here seriously rock.

I know this can seem overwhelming, and I apologize if we've thrown around more jargon than necessary. Seriously, there's nothing you can do to "ruin" a video by not getting absolutely everything perfect, and not knowing everything upfront shouldn't stop you from getting your feet wet and pretty much jumping in.

I encourage you to start off with some simple and manageable things, like trimming a few clips and adding transitions and maybe a title or two, and then just produce it. Scan the thoughtful answers you already have in this post for the recommended produce settings and also for clues to the jargon. Go ahead and Google terms you're not quite sure of. All of us started in a similar place!

Just try working with a bunch of clips and see what happens. That experience will help you understand how PD works far better than any of us could explain it, and it will also help you become more familiar with the terms we're using.

Quote thank you warry and optodata!! things are beginning to get clearer...

1) can you clarify exactly what it means to produce to 4k vs HD? where would i see those options? i checked "produce" but i dont see them-did i miss it, or is it called something else that im not aware of?

Warry gives an example of those settings in 3) of his original post to your first questions: "... you still can select the resolution within that aspect ratio, e.g. with 16:9, 1920x1080 for HD TV, Blu-ray, or 720x576 for TV DVD, or 3840x2160 for 4K TVs." Those are the main settings to look for in the Produce room.

Quote 2) also, what would be the ramification if i didnt realize certain clips were 4k, and I produced the movie to regular HD? is that still ok, or would the movie be affected?

3) and im clarifying here- (i got lost in some of the jargon, sorry)- if i produce a movie made of 4k videos to 4k, it can still be played on a non-4k device, correct?

As I wrote in my earlier post, "you generally won't have to worry about playback devices, since their job is to automatically resize the video to fit their screens." The same with clip vs. produce resolution.

My earlier post was meant to guide you once you're familiar with the various available resolutions. You can produce any clip to any resolution - the only thing that happens is the quality of your finished video gets affected if you have low-res clips and try to produce hi-res video - but I listed the finer points and you're going to be just fine starting out with HD (which will be much easier for yout computer or laptop to work with).

Quote 4) aaaaaand- now i found out about "frames per second"! whaaaaat....apparently im supposed to set my movie's frames per second? and its supposed to match the frames per second of my video clips? (does it have to? what if different video clips have different fps?) where in PD do i have the option to set the fps? why am i reading recommendations to have it at 30 fps? or 29.9... can i ever set it "too high" or "too low" to be viewed properly, or is it just some extra detail that only professionals would care about?

Yes. Next...

Quote 5) is there anything else (technical/specs wise) that im not aware i need to set? so far ive got the movie's aspect ratio (which im thinking ill do to 16:9), the resolution, the format....now the fps....anything else??? lolll help!

thank you SO MUCH for your help. you guys here seriously rock.

Oh, there is defintely something we left out. This is supposed to be enjoyable (or at least not hair-pullingly, desk-kickingly frustrating)! Open up PD and throw a few clips on the timeline and have fun! Try Something. Try Something Else. Experiment. Make Mistakes. Learn. Rinse. Repeat

Oh, there is defintely something we left out. This is supposed to be enjoyable (or at least not hair-pullingly, desk-kickingly frustrating)! Open up PD and throw a few clips on the timeline and have fun! Try Something. Try Something Else. Experiment. Make Mistakes. Learn. Rinse.

I don't understand why Optodata just gives away the most important tip, that ........ could have been given right at the start of this conversation. It would mean less fun for us though. So, follow this one by all means, but please don't hesitate to come back if you have more questions.

Haaaaaaa you guys are awesome, thanks so much!
definitely going to get cracking on some experimental movies now. Your advice was top rate- I SINCERELY appreciate it.
(and you havent heard the last from me lol...)

oh hang on, i just thought of something else!! my goal is to eventually produce movies about 25-30 minutes long, made up of many many little video clips. im working on a basic HP Pavilion laptop (i5). Is a half hour movie considered very long, and possibly too much for my computer to handle, or is that length normal for PD to produce and a basic laptop can manage it?

Quote oh hang on, i just thought of something else!! my goal is to eventually produce movies about 25-30 minutes long, made up of many many little video clips. im working on a basic HP Pavilion laptop (i5). Is a half hour movie considered very long, and possibly too much for my computer to handle, or is that length normal for PD to produce and a basic laptop can manage it?

There aren't any limitations to how long or short, or simple or complicated your projects "should" be. PD will produce anything you want, and the only thing that changes is how long it takes to produce your finished video.

A brand new, fast and powerful desktop would produce the same project faster than a basic laptop would, but the quality will be the same and nobody watching it will have any idea of how long it took to produce.

A basic computer might struggle more during editing if you apply lots of special effects, but if you're mostly putting clips together with transitions between them you're going to be fine. When you're ready to produce the clip, far and away the easiest thing to do is to click on this button, and let PD determine the best output for your particular project:



Again, try not to focus on trying to do everything "right" and just put a few of the clips you want to use on the timeline and start putting them in order. Trim them and play with some transitions. Just save the project often so you don't lose your work if anything bad happens like a program crash or your laptop freezes.

One last piece of advice is to make sure you have the Autosave feature turned on. That way, you'll be able to recover most of your recent edits even if you forgot to save the project. Go to Settings, Project and check this box:



You can also use the Browse button to save the temp projects in a place that's easier to find.

And since you talk about using 4K clips, which are large and consume a lot of computer power, maybe you want to have less delay in previewing what you have done on your timeline, by setting the quality of the preview lower in the preferences menu:


or directly (in the flight, when you notice that the preview is slow) by pressing the icon to the right of the camera:



and YES this setting only is for the preview screen and NO it has no influence on the quality of the production.

There are some other settings that may help you get some speed while editiing, like the creation of shadow files that are smaller and easier to edit. Also this feature has NO impact on the quality of you production.



as you can see a lot can be done to make the video editing even more smooth. Enjoy!

thank you thank you thank you for your help and your patience! SO appreciated...
Im going to start playing around with it now...thank you! talk to y'all later im sure :