How to convert horizontal video to vertical without losing anyone
Almost everything you’ve filmed — music videos, live shows, interviews, podcasts — is horizontal, and TikTok, Reels and Shorts want vertical. Here are the sizes, the four ways to make the switch, and when each one makes sense.
The sizes you need
Before you crop anything, know where you’re headed. These four formats cover nearly every platform:
- 9:16 vertical (1080 × 1920 px): TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and stories.
- 4:5 vertical (1080 × 1350 px): Instagram and Facebook feed posts. Takes up more screen than a square.
- 1:1 square (1080 × 1080 px): feed posts and some ads.
- 16:9 horizontal (1920 × 1080 px): YouTube and most screens.
Going from 16:9 to 9:16 by cropping means keeping a little under a third of the original width. That’s the whole problem in one sentence: which third?
Four ways to go vertical
1. Center crop
Keep the middle strip and throw away the sides. It’s the fastest option and what many apps do by default. It works when the important stuff is always dead center. It fails when someone moves, when there are two people, or when the singer is off to one side of the stage — you cut them in half or lose them entirely.
2. Full video on a blurred background
Keep the entire horizontal video in the middle of the vertical frame and fill the top and bottom with an enlarged, blurred copy of the same footage. You lose nothing from the picture, but the video ends up small: viewers see a strip across the middle of their phone. Good for wide shots where seeing everything matters (a full band, a landscape); bad for faces and expressions.
3. Face-tracking reframe
The vertical frame moves inside the original video, following whoever is talking or singing. It’s the closest thing to what an editor would do by hand, shot by shot. The result fills the whole screen and keeps the person in frame even when they move. Usually the right choice for interviews, podcasts, live shows and music videos with the artist on camera.
4. Split screen
Two crops stacked: one person on top, the other below. It solves the conversation problem — two people sitting side by side simply don’t fit in a vertical frame. Great for quick back-and-forth and for showing the listener’s reaction.
When to use each one
- One person talking to camera → face-tracking reframe (or center crop if they never move).
- Two-person interview or podcast → split screen for the back-and-forth; follow the speaker when one person holds the floor for a while.
- Live show or music video → reframe that follows the singer. If you also want the crowd, cut to their reactions.
- Wide shot of a band, a landscape, a drone shot → blurred background, or pick one detail and crop to it.
- Video with text or graphics on the sides → blurred background, or rebuild the text in vertical.
Step by step with auto reframe
Here’s how to do it with TONTRIA:
- Upload the video or paste its YouTube link in AI Clips.
- Pick the mode. “Viral – spoken” follows whoever talks; “viral – sung” stays with the singer and cuts to the crowd’s reactions. For two-person conversations, turn on split screen.
- Review the suggested moments. The AI proposes 30–90 second segments already in 9:16, with animated captions.
- Tweak what needs tweaking. If the framing on a shot isn’t right, open the clip in the video editor and move the frame by hand on the timeline.
- Export.
On the home page you can see a real example: a moment from an interview with El Reja on the ¿Te Suena? stream, filmed in 16:9 and turned into 9:16 with karaoke captions. And on AI Clips there’s a sung clip picked from a 12-minute live show (“Soy Tu Sol”, a live medley on ¿Te Suena?) that follows the singer.
If you just want to turn a whole video vertical without picking moments, open it straight in the editor and use auto reframe.
Safe zones: where not to put anything
In vertical, not every part of the screen is equally visible. Apps lay their interface on top of your video:
- Bottom: account name, caption text, the sound and, in some apps, a navigation bar.
- Right side: like, comment and share buttons.
- Top: tabs and search.
Keep faces, captions and important text in the middle of the frame, a little above or below center and away from the edges. Interfaces change with updates, so test by uploading the video as private or as a draft before you publish.
The same goes for other vertical formats like the Spotify Canvas — read what a Spotify Canvas is if you’re making one.
One video, every format
If you post across several platforms, you don’t need to edit four times. In TONTRIA’s editor you can export the same project in 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9 at once, with face-tracking reframe applied to each (multi-format export is on the Pro and Label plans). If you work with a professional editor, you can also export the project and keep going there.
How to shoot so the vertical version works
The best reframe starts on set:
- Leave space around people. If someone is jammed against the edge of the horizontal frame, any vertical version will cut them off.
- Keep people from blocking each other. In an interview, space between guests makes split screen much easier.
- Shoot at the highest resolution you can. When you keep only a third of the width, 4K footage leaves far more detail for the vertical cut than 1080p.
- Add a tighter shot. A second camera or phone on a close-up of the artist gives you footage that’s almost vertical-ready.
- Shoot some things vertically from the start when you know they’re only for social: a quick hello, an announcement, behind the scenes.
To get the most out of a single horizontal recording, also see how to turn a live session into 10 viral shorts.
Got a horizontal video you want on TikTok, Reels or Shorts? Create a free account and make it vertical.