Video spec requirements tend to change, just like trends in social media. Social media and streaming platforms strive to provide the best viewing experience possible for users. In trying to do so, they often have to keep updating their spec requirements.

Since the video experience you provide as a brand matter a lot, it’s important that you keep up with any such update. To help you share your best content with the rest of the world, we tell you here what specific resolutions you need for videos that you intend to upload on social media and streaming platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. 

For Instagram Videos—

You can upload horizontal, vertical, or square videos on Instagram. Although a lot of Instagrammers upload horizontal videos, they can be a little tricky to produce. Square videos are the best if you want to avoid that extra bit of editing work. Square videos are optimized for both mobile and desktop users and are relatively easier to produce. 

For Insta videos, the most appropriate width would be 1080 p, and there should be 1920 pixels vertically. For Instagram in-feed videos and video ads, you can have square, horizontal as well as vertical videos. While square videos need to have a resolution of 600 by 600 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio), horizontal videos work fine with a resolution of 600 by 315 pixels (1.9:1 aspect ratio). If you are considering vertical videos, then 600 by 750 pixels (4:5 aspect ratio) would be the most ideal resolution for you. For best results, Instagram recommends using the highest possible video resolution. 

For Instagram carousel video ads, the minimum resolution size required is 600 by 600 pixels. However, the recommended resolution is 1080 by 1080 pixels.

Although the minimum video resolution required for Instagram stories video ads is 600 by 1067 pixels, it’s 1080 by 1920 pixels as per Insta recommendation.

Instagram permits 2 to 10 videos or images for side-scrolling ads. So, marketers can be creative with various formats of media to boost user engagement.

For YouTube videos—

YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world. It is browsed by people having access to varying internet speeds. And that is why YouTube recommends that videos are uploaded at the highest resolution possible to ensure that they can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Videos should use native aspect ratios. Pillarboxing and Letterboxing bars should be avoided as YouTube frames videos automatically to stream them at the best versions on their video player.

Here are the recommended video resolution sizes for YouTube-

3840 by 2160 pixels (2160p)

2560 by 1440 pixels (1440p)

1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p)

1280 by 720 pixels (720p)

854 by 480 pixels (480p)

640 by 360 pixels (360p)

426 by 240 pixels (240p)

While the minimum resolution for a video is 426 by 240 pixels, the maximum is 3840 by 2160 pixels. YouTube also suggests uploading videos in the top-recommended resolution for improved user engagement. 

The supported aspect ratios are 16:9 and 4:3. And the videos can be at most 12 hours long.

For Tik Tok videos—

Tik Tok is popular with gen Z who enjoy creating and sharing videos and connecting with the global community. The app is used by 52 million people each day, generating more than $3,000,000 in revenue through this platform. TikTok marketing could be a great way for your company to make big money.

Recommended video dimension for TikTok is 1080 x 1920 pixels. While the most appropriate video orientation is vertical, the source ratio recommended is 9:16 or 1:1 with sidebars. For ad videos on TikTok, options for video resolution include 1280 x 720 px, 640 x 640 px and 20 x 1280 px. The best aspect ratios to use would be 1:1, 9:16, or 16:9. And the ad videos should not be more than 5 to 16 seconds long.