Choosing Dimensions for Quality Video Production

The quality of your final production can have a lot to do with your recording and production settings. Before you start recording your screen, you should spend a few minutes determining the size of your final video. This makes your decisions about recording, editing, and sharing a lot easier. Here are some questions to ask to help you choose your dimension settings:

• Where do I plan on hosting my final video? 

• Where will my audience view my final video? 

• Do I want my video to be produced in widescreen?

Create Relevant Content

There are two standard settings for aspect ratio, and those are 4:3 (standard) and 16:9 (widescreen). When choosing production dimensions, you most likely want to choose dimensions that maintain one of those aspect ratios. If you choose to produce a video that does not conform to these standards, you may see black bars on the sides of your video, or your video may be stretched or compressed when viewed on YouTube or QuickTime. In some exceptional cases, players won’t rescale or re-encode your video, and it plays as you produced it, but again, that is the exception.

It is recommended that you choose your recording and production dimensions strategically, at either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Here is a list of popular dimensions for each: