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  • How to convert your Smule videos for Instagram’s IGTV

    Many Smule users like to share their best performances through social media. But on Instagram, a regular post is limited to one minutes and stories can’t even be more than 15 seconds long. To post full Smule performances you would need to use Instagram’s IGTV. But there is a catch: IGTV videos are always in a 9:16 (portrait mode) aspect ratio. When you add your square Smule videos, they are being scaled up and cropped, which makes the use of IGTV for native Smule videos almost impossible.

    cutoff.jpg

    The videos are blurry and the only half of the faces of the singers in a duet are visible. So we need to prepare our videos first before uploading them to IGTV. And here are several options to do this. 

    Online Conversion service

    Especially when using a desktop computer, you can conveniently convert your Smule video online in a browser window. After you downloaded your Smule video performance through our download service, head over to Kapwing’s Resize Video feature and upload your video: 

    Kapwing Resize Video 

    (Pro tip: You don’t even have to download the video first. You can also just copy the target URL from our download button and use this URL with the Kapwing’s service.)

    On the next page, click the buttons Story (Snap/Insta) or IGTV and No Crop. That’s it! You are good to go and you can click the “Create” button to generate your video. Optionally, you can also change the background color, move and scale the video and even trim it. 

    kapwing.png

    You can then download your video. As a guest user, there will be a watermark in the video, but you can create an account to remove it. In both cases, the service is completely free! The only downside is that the upload and creation of the video takes some time. 

    If you want to create IGTV videos more often or directly on your mobile device, a dedicated app might be a better solution. 

    Mobile apps to convert to IGTV’s aspect ratio

    A commercial app for iOS

    Not surprisingly, app makers understood the need to convert videos for IGTV. A sophisticated (but not cheap option) for mobile Apple device is this:

    Video Resizer for IGTV Editor

    Just pick the Smule video from device and make sure the 9:16 aspect ratio is selected. There are tons of additional options to style your videos, like adding backgrounds and custom animated titles. Having these options has its price. The app requires a monthly subscription fee.   

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    A free app for Android

    Our suggestion for Android users is this app:

    Crop and Trim Video

    The app is free but shows ads. On the first screen (left picture) choose No Crop and pick the video from your device. Then choose the 9:16 ratio (middle picture). Finally, you can customize your video by choosing what will be displayed above and below your video (right picture). By default, it will be a blurred version of the Smule video, which looks quite nice. But you can also add decorative elements and custom pictures. Once you confirm the selection, your IGTV video will be generated and you can download it to your device. 

    androidcrop.jpg

    Using video editing software

    In addition to the mentioned apps and services dedicated to resizing a video, you can of course also use any video editor, especially the ones made to create content for mobile devices. A recommendable free and platform-independent app is Adobe Rush. It’s available for PC, Mac, iOS and Android and you can even sync your projects among the different platforms. Getting used to full working with video editors will take some time though. 

    adoberush.jpg

     

    Which apps and service are you using to prepare your Smule video for social media sharing? Do you have other recommendations? Feel free to post them in the comments. 

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    Stefan_1301

    Posted

    I use an app called "Crop Video" (pic 1) on my iPhone. By the time I downloaded that app is was still free, I'm not sure if they are charging something for it now.

    It's pretty simply: open the video you want to prepare, tap the respective ratio (pic 2) and save - DONE

    CropVideoApp.jpeg

    CropVideoOption.jpeg

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