What Crop & Resize Video helps you do
Reframe a video for a vertical feed, a square post or an exact pixel size without installing a mobile editor. Choose an aspect ratio, decide whether to crop to fill or fit with bars, and the browser re-encodes the clip at the new dimensions. It is the fastest way to make one recording work in several placements.
The reframe and encode run in your browser. The source video is never uploaded to Haivix.
How it works
The tool decodes the source, scales and positions each frame inside the target rectangle, then encodes the result. Crop-to-fill scales until the frame is covered and discards the overflow, while fit-with-bars keeps the whole picture and pads the difference. Custom sizes are rounded to even numbers because most video encoders require them.
How to use Crop & Resize Video
- Load the video and read its current dimensions.
- Pick a ratio such as 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 16:9, or enter exact pixels.
- Choose crop to fill or fit with bars.
- Adjust the framing if the subject moves off-centre.
- Start the export and wait for the encode.
- Preview the result in the target placement before publishing.
When to use it
- Turn a landscape demo into a vertical clip for Reels, Shorts or TikTok.
- Make a square version for a feed post.
- Fit a clip into a fixed player or ad slot.
- Remove a strip of interface or a black border from a recording.
- Produce the same clip in several ratios for one campaign.
- Make a vertical cutdown from a landscape interview.
- Turn a horizontal screen recording into a phone-friendly clip.
When not to use it
- Do not upscale far beyond the source resolution; the result will look soft.
- Avoid crop-to-fill when important content sits near the edges.
- Do not use it to rotate a video; the rotate tool preserves the original pixels.
- Do not crop a clip whose burned-in captions sit near the edge; the text will be cut off.
Example
A 16:9 screen recording of a mobile app needs a 9:16 version for a short. Crop-to-fill at 1080×1920 removes the empty desktop around the phone and keeps the interface centred. The horizontal export stays available for the website.
What you can do with Crop & Resize Video
- Use preset ratios for common social placements.
- Enter exact width and height in pixels.
- Crop to fill or fit with bars.
- Choose a quality level for the re-encode.
- Keep the audio track.
- Export MP4 or WebM.
- Preview the reframed frame before starting the encode.
Example workflow
Crop first, then add captions or a watermark. Captions positioned for the original frame will not sit correctly after a reframe, and a watermark may end up outside the new crop.
Export the largest ratio first and derive smaller versions from it. Repeated re-encoding compounds softness, so keep one high-quality master.
If the clip will appear in more than one placement, keep the original landscape file as the master and produce the vertical and square versions from it. Each generation loss is small on its own, but three passes over the same footage are visible.
What to know before you start
- Any resize re-encodes the video and introduces a small quality loss.
- Crop-to-fill removes content at the edges.
- Custom dimensions are rounded to even numbers.
- Upscaling cannot add real detail.
- One output ratio is produced per run.
Common mistakes
- Cutting off a speaker who was near the edge of the original frame.
- Upscaling 720p footage to 4K and expecting a sharper result.
- Adding captions before the reframe and then repositioning them twice.
- Choosing fit-with-bars for a feed where the bars waste most of the screen.
- Exporting a 9:16 crop without checking where the captions will sit.
- Cropping a clip before checking the safe area for the target platform.
Troubleshooting
If the subject is cut off, switch to fit with bars or nudge the framing before exporting. Re-exporting is cheap for a short clip.
If the output looks soft, export at a size closer to the source and let the platform downscale it.
If a custom size is rejected, check that both values are even. Odd dimensions are not accepted by common video encoders.
If the ratio you need is missing from the presets, divide the width by the height in Custom size to confirm the figure. Rounding to even pixels changes a strict ad ratio very slightly, which is worth knowing when a placement has an exact spec.
Related standards and documentation
- H.264/AVC requires even frame dimensions for common chroma formats.
- The WebCodecs API provides the browser encode path.
- Crop-to-fill removes edges but fills the frame.
- Fit-with-bars keeps everything and adds blank space.
- Keep a high-quality master before making variants.