Video specs and aspect ratios for a launch
The dimensions, codecs, loudness targets, and safe areas a launch film needs, per platform, plus the two rules that cause most of the damage: never crop to reframe, and never assume sound.
By Sourish Sarmah, maker of supaintro · Last updated
The two layouts you need
| Ratio | Pixels | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | Your website, YouTube, email, press kit, LinkedIn feed, X |
| 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 | Reels, Shorts, TikTok, Stories, LinkedIn vertical |
One layout per orientation is the practical minimum. A launch that ships only 16:9 gets letterboxed into a strip on vertical surfaces; a launch that ships only 9:16 wastes the wide canvas on websites and standard video players.
Per platform
| Platform | Ratio | Dimensions | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your website | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | H.264 MP4. Muted autoplay with a poster frame, and a play control |
| YouTube | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | H.264, AAC audio. Upload the highest quality you have |
| YouTube Shorts | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 | Vertical, short. A cut-down of the launch film, not the whole thing |
| 16:9 or 9:16 | 1920 x 1080 or 1080 x 1920 | Choose by placement. Captions are essential | |
| X | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | Upload natively. Linked video does not autoplay |
| Instagram feed | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 | Use the portrait composition so the same asset can also ship as a Reel |
| Instagram Reels | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 | Keep content clear of the UI overlays, see safe areas |
| TikTok | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 | As Reels. The lower third is heavily overlaid |
| Product Hunt | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | Gallery media and a linked video. The first frame is your thumbnail |
Safe areas on vertical
Vertical platforms draw their interface over your video. Anything important placed in the overlaid regions is invisible in practice, and this is the most common reason a good film reads as broken on a phone.
| Region of a 1080 x 1920 frame | Roughly | What sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Top | Top 10 to 12%, about 200px | Status bar, platform chrome, sometimes a header |
| Right edge | Right 12 to 15%, about 150px | Like, comment, share, and audio controls |
| Bottom | Bottom 20 to 25%, about 400px | Caption text, account handle, audio ticker, CTA buttons |
| Usable centre | About 780 x 1300 | Where your type has to live |
The practical rule: keep every word inside the centre 780 x 1300 region, and treat the bottom quarter as unusable rather than merely risky.
Never crop to reframe
Cropping a 16:9 film to 9:16 discards 66% of the frame width. On a typographic launch film that means your headline loses its start and end, your logo lock-up gets clipped, and any two-column composition becomes one column of half-words. Portrait needs its own composition: type rewrapped, product evidence restacked, and essential content kept clear of platform overlays.
This is why a vertical layout is a real line item in an agency quote rather than an export setting. supaintro authors intentional 16:9 landscape and 9:16 portrait compositions in the same project instead of cropping or uniformly scaling one into the other.
Audio
| Property | Target | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Integrated loudness | -14 LUFS | A conservative cross-platform delivery target that preserves headroom and consistency |
| True peak | -1 dBTP | Headroom so lossy encoding does not clip on playback |
| Codec | AAC-LC, 192 to 320 kbps | Universally supported |
| Sample rate | 48 kHz | Standard for video |
| Channels | Stereo | Mono is fine for voice-only, stereo for anything scored |
supaintro masters every cut to -14 LUFS as a consistent delivery target, and renders both a music-only and a voice-over version so you are not choosing before you know where the film will run.
Captions
- Burn them in for social. Platform auto-captions are late, wrong, and styled like a platform.
- Keep a separate .srt for YouTube and your site. Search indexes it and screen readers use it.
- Two lines maximum, around 32 characters each. More than that and the viewer is reading instead of watching.
- High contrast, with a plate or a shadow. White on light footage is unreadable on a phone in daylight.
- Sync to the frame. Captions that land half a second late are more distracting than none.
Delivery checklist
- 16:9 1920 x 1080 master, H.264, voice-over cut.
- 16:9 master, music-only cut.
- 9:16 1080 x 1920, both cuts, type inside the safe area.
- A 15 to 30 second cut in each orientation for paid.
- Burned-in captions on every social cut, and an .srt alongside the master.
- Two still frames at 1200 x 630 for Open Graph and press.
- Everything at -14 LUFS with -1 dBTP true peak.
Primary platform sources
- YouTube's recommended upload settings specify MP4, H.264 video, AAC-LC audio, 48 kHz, progressive scan, and 16:9 as the standard desktop ratio.
- LinkedIn's video specifications publish the supported resolution, aspect-ratio, duration, frame-rate, and bitrate ranges.
- TikTok's in-feed specifications recommend 9:16 and publish placement-specific safe-zone files.
- Meta's Reels guidance recommends full-screen vertical creative for the Reels placement.
What size should a launch video be?
1920 x 1080 for the 16:9 landscape master and 1080 x 1920 for the 9:16 portrait version. Export H.264 MP4 with AAC audio and master to -14 LUFS. Compose each orientation intentionally rather than cropping a single master.
What aspect ratio is best for a launch video?
There is no single best one. Use 16:9 for your website and standard YouTube playback, and 9:16 for Reels, Shorts, TikTok, and Stories. Shipping only one orientation means compromising the other.
Why is -14 LUFS the target?
It is a conservative cross-platform delivery target with enough headroom for platform encoding and consistent playback. It is not a universal upload requirement; platforms apply their own processing, so preserve the unmastered mix if a specific destination asks for something different.
Do I need burned-in captions?
For social, yes. Autoplay is muted by default, so the film has to work as text on screen, and platform auto-captions are unreliable and off-brand. Keep a separate caption file for YouTube and your website as well.
Can I just crop my 16:9 video to vertical?
Not on a typographic film. Cropping to 9:16 removes about two thirds of the frame width, which cuts headlines in half and clips logo lock-ups. Vertical needs its own layout with the type re-set.
Intentional 16:9 and 9:16 compositions, both cuts, mastered to -14 LUFS.