Aspect ratio
Aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between a video's width and height, expressed as width:height. The dominant short-form ratio in 2026 is 9:16 (vertical, 1080×1920) used by TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Long-form video uses 16:9 (1920×1080). Square 1:1 is used by LinkedIn and Instagram feed.
Aspect ratio determines which platforms a video can be published to without letterboxing or distortion. A 16:9 source video published as 9:16 either has to be re-cropped (losing the edges) or letterboxed with black bars (losing 40% of the visible area). Most cameras shoot 16:9 by default; most short-form platforms require 9:16. The mismatch is the central editing problem in short-form.
There are three approaches to the mismatch: (1) shoot natively in 9:16 (common for solo creator setups, awkward for multi-camera); (2) crop the 16:9 source to 9:16 by selecting the center third (works for static-framed shots, fails when the subject moves); (3) AI re-frame the 16:9 source to 9:16 with subject tracking (the modern default). Clipzing.com's auto-reframe tracks the active speaker per frame.
Use the free /tools/aspect-ratio-calculator to check whether arbitrary dimensions match a target platform. The standard ratios in 2026: 9:16 vertical (TikTok, Reels, Shorts), 1:1 square (Instagram feed, LinkedIn), 4:5 portrait (Instagram), 16:9 horizontal (YouTube long-form, X), 2:3 (Pinterest).
Related terms
Auto-reframe
Auto-reframe is an AI feature that converts a video from one aspect ratio to another by tracking the subject (typically the active speaker's face) across frames and re-cropping the output to keep the subject centered. The dominant use case is converting 16:9 source footage into 9:16 vertical clips for TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
Short-form video
Short-form video is the category of video content typically 15 to 90 seconds long, formatted in 9:16 vertical aspect ratio, designed for thumb-scrollable mobile feeds. The dominant short-form platforms in 2026 are TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat Spotlight. Long-form video (3+ minutes) lives on YouTube and traditional video platforms.
Transcription
Transcription is the process of converting spoken audio into written text. In AI clip generators, transcription is the foundation step — every other feature (auto-captions, viral-clip scoring, semantic search across the source) depends on accurate transcription. Modern speech-to-text models hit 95%+ accuracy on clear English audio with native speakers.