Video in Rectangular Format Exporting as Square

Howdy folks, I’m new to the forums and fairly new to Shotcut. I’ve been using the program to simply export simple tutorial videos I recorded on my computer, but now I’m trying to do something a bit more involved and am having some trouble. I’m afraid I’m out of my depth here and though I’ve watched several tutorials, I could still use some help.

I’ve got a cellphone video that I’m trying to get properly formatted and uploaded to Youtube. I started the video vertically and switched to horizontal as I filmed it, so once I loaded it into Shotcut, I began by using a rotate filter to get the whole thing to look right. However, with the automatic settings, it kept the video formatted vertically, cutting off the sides of the newly rotated image. I found out that if I shifted the video to a different format, it fixed that problem. I shifted it to 1080p, 50 FPS, and I enlarged the video to fit most of the screen. That looked good enough, but when I export it, the video loses the 16:9 formatting that it is set at and shows up mostly square, with the wings of the image cropped off.

What am I missing? How can I get this video exported in a way that matches what I’m seeing in Shotcut?

You need to set the Video Mode from automatic to either a preset 1080p or a make a custom video mode.

Once the video mode is properly set, then you can make your edits and you’ll have the 16:9 aspect ratio.

Howdy Hudson, and thanks for the response! I’m afraid that is indeed what I did. That was how I fixed the initial formatting issue, but nonetheless, I got the square output from exporting that I described.

If your source video is one long vertical video where you turned the phone horizontal, it’s still a vertical video. You’ll have to split the video in the timeline to apply filters to adapt your video to the video mode.

If you changed export settings in Advanced, click Reset.
2021-08-30_17-35-26

It is difficult to understand your problem, but see this video if you have not

Also, if you were trying to change resolution or aspect ratio inside Export > Advanced > Video, then do not do that. Finally, when you evaluate the exported result, use a media player and not Shotcut or YouTube.

This topic was automatically closed after 90 days. New replies are no longer allowed.