1:1
Also known as: square video, square aspect ratio
The square aspect ratio, once the Instagram default and still useful because it fills more of a phone screen than widescreen does.
Updated
What it means
A square frame is the compromise shape. It wastes less of a vertical screen than widescreen and less of a horizontal one than a tall video, which is why it survived as a feed format. Neither audience is badly served.
It is one point on the Aspect ratio scale rather than a separate kind of video. The file is ordinary; only the proportions differ, and every tool treats it as ordinary video.
Nothing records in it natively. A square clip is always the result of an Aspect ratio crop from something wider, which is where the real decisions about the shot get made.
How it works in practice
Filming for it means keeping the subject central. A rider framed at the edge of a 4K video frame disappears when the sides are removed, and no reframing recovers them. The centre is the only safe place.
Resolution is the budget. Taking a square out of 4K still leaves more than enough for 1080p delivery, where the same crop from 1080p (Full HD) does not.
Text and graphics are placed after the shape is chosen. A Lower third laid out for widescreen lands outside a square crop, so each format needs its own pass.
What to watch out for
It is nobody's first choice any more. Vertical formats took the feed and widescreen kept everything else, so a square version is usually a third export rather than a primary one.
Action footage suffers most from the crop. Wide landscapes and the space around a jump are what make the shot, and a square frame removes exactly that context from the frame it leaves behind.
Platforms recompress it like anything else. Platform recompression applies the same way, so a square upload gains nothing in quality from its shape. The pixels are fewer and the treatment is identical.
How RawClip handles it
A square version is produced by cropping the assembled sequence with the subject tracked rather than by reframing every clip by hand. Asking for the shape up front is what makes the framing survive the crop at all.