You Are Using The WRONG Aspect RATIO! (16x9 is over)

If you are using 16x9 you might be using the wrong aspect ratio for youtube videos and filmmaking. Here is the new way to use aspect ratios for the best content as a creator.

Best Music for YouTubers (1 free month)

Best Music and SFX (1 free month)

The Gear I USE and recommend:

CAMERAS

LENSES

ND FILTERS (select your size)

GIMBALS

MIC

ACTION CAMERAS

STUDIO GEAR

#youtuber #filmmakers #contentcreator

[rogalaphotography]

The aspect ratio that we choose is a creative choice. NOT a requirement by what is trending!

[lauriekibblewhite]

Ah, but your video has black bars top and bottom on my desktop monitor ... 16:9 fills it up.

[tonypmedia]

Yea so this is a load of crap. "Your screen on desktop is 16:9 but nobody really watches on full screen" ... yea so I literally watch 90% of my videos IN FULL SCREEN. I'm new to the video industry but not incompetent nor inexperienced... You talk the cine talk but the reality is the majority of your Netflix and other platform films ARE FULL SCREEN. The newest of the new movies are yes... full screen. This so called regurgitated nonsense "trend" has been tried and tried on youtube for 10+ years. 16:9 is still the ratio the majority watches. now there's a time I use 2:35:1 maybe for some intros and other reasons even a 1:35:1 or something but I'm sorry bro... this is all kinds of weird on this whole "wrong use 18x9" stuff. Why on earth would anyone want black bars? This is purely CREATIVE choice, not a federally national applied SAG-AFTRA requirement. Stop trend marketing man, you're promoting false perception contaminating others that simply have no path to follow like a lot of camera clubs too. 16:9 is for a fact not wrong and is widely used in the ACTUAL non youtube/social media film industry.

[Steven-ec]

BAD IDEA! People can just Zoom to Fill on their mobile device. Nearly all televisions are standard 16:9, you want your viewers to see top and bottom black bars? But.. mobile devices are all over the place in AR, and not all candy bar phones. Changing to 18:9, you're stretching, not cropping unless you record in a higher Res to account for this irregular and non-standard AR. Understand what happens when you stretch an image to fit rather than a proper crop in native res.

[LukaszGladki]

No, no. This approach gives black bars on top and below when in vertical mode on both desktop and mobile. YouTube has a pinch to zoom functionality to automatically fill screen width, stick to 16:9

[RonBurkett]

Huh... with the new ratio, now my 16x9 monitor (and TV) has black bars at the top and bottom. I prefer the full 16x9 screen to be filled.

[Smittyberlin]

Is there a way to check how many people switch to horizotal on smartphones? Because honestly the black bars you get with 18:9 in vertical are way more distracting (at least for me).

[jonagreyphoto]

I💯% agree with you!
Just got the iPhone 16 Pro Max, watching videos in landscape mode and noticed there’s so much wasted space on the sides. So I searched the topic and yours was the first that came up.

I get that some comments here are are saying in vertical iPhone mode there’s super minimal black bars but they’re way more noticeable in landscape.
I have to squint to see video details in vertical mode, especially for filmmaking/camera comparison/tutorial videos.
Phase out 16x9 for YouTube videos 🙌

[brianknight]

Yeah. I stopped halfway through. Watch a few 16x9 videos and came back. I'm on an iPhone 15 pro max. Watching in portrait orientation. So I have to disagree with you from my perspective. Why would I want the black bars?

[Niberspace]

please do not come up with your own magic ratios, it makes it a nightmare for everyone (such as those with projector screens who has to make a new lense preset). It's very simple: You either go 16:9 or 2.4 (21:9-ish), that's it! no ifs and butts.
I hear your comment about the youtube end screen but we're just going to have to hope that they fix that, I don't think the solution is for everyone to draw a new ratio out of their a

[otter-pro]

18x9 is a little weird. It could work, but there aren't any 18x9 monitor or tv. And I watch full screen for videos I really like. And on TV, youtube is always full-screen. If you really want to go wide, go 21:9 (ie cinema) instead of weird 18x9.

[AlexKoro_CinematicTravel]

On my channel, more than half of the views are not on a mobile phone, so the aspect ratio of 16/9 is what you need

[Revon-Feuer]

16:9 feels natural. Not due to exposure to it. Simply because the vertical height is comfortable. I HATE the aspect ratio on mobile phones.

[martin_wood]

The wider aspect ratio has a more cinematic feel, but fills less of the screen for most users. The wider aspect ratio is more of a short film vibe than everyday content

I would say this depends on audience and contents. For me, I got an 32:9 ultrawide monitor on my pc so I get less of the side black bars which I like :)

But if the viewer only got a 16:9 monitor then they get top and bottom black bars, which can be more cinematic though, but not for everyone.

And if the user is on mobile, then the question becomes what orientation they watch in. If they watch in portrait mode they will still get the same width of video, but the height will look smaller due to the aspect ratio in order to fit it on screen. So for shorter videos where the viewer might not get into the video enough to switch to landscape, this feels like it could be worse. But longer videos it might be nice.

At the end of the day, which is better just depends :)

The only thing I would say is, do NOT hardcode black bars through an entire video. If you do it for smaller parts that is fine. But doing it for an entire video looks horrible for wider screens cause then you get black bars on all sides. If you want a more cinematic experience, then changing aspect ratio to 21:9 (or something similar) as this video showed is the way to go!

[gerardobello]

Maybe I am old but, smartphones and social media should not rule aspect ratio. Even if the black bars bother me I do prefer 16:9 for my everyday exports.

[gregv]

This is terrible advice. Your video has vertical black bars on everything BUT a phone. It looks awful.

[aloeisthestuff]

Your 18x9 still uses the same area in my browser except it's a little shorter. ODD Looking. This is heading back into the old Wide screen days
Beside There are those pushing for vids to have less size no matter where it's chopped from, YOUTUBE! It's a money thing. If it were up to them the Vids would be Black nothings and you'd want to hand over money for it.
Oh and by the way, 16x9 mimics human eye sight..!

[AXELERATE]

I've been using 2:1 aspect ratio on my videos for a while now but at the end of the day its a creative choice. I've even seen 4:3 videos that I enjoyed.

[lunamotionproductions]

18 x 9 doesn't make anything "wider, " it just crops (letterboxes) the full frame 16 x 9 ratio. Which is fine, if you want. Any aspect ratio is fine if it works the way the filmmaker thinks best. Screw trends.