Help Center

Safe areas and aspect ratio mattes

The video player can overlay framing guides on any video, so you can check a shot against a delivery spec without exporting a test file. Click the crop icon in the player controls to open the overlay menu. Guides are a display aid only: they are never burned into the file, and they do not appear in downloads or freeze frames.

Safe areas: choose 16:9 or 4:3 to draw two rectangles over the picture. The outer one is action safe, the inner 93 percent of the frame, and the inner one is title safe, the inner 90 percent. Keep essential action inside the first and any text, logo or lower third inside the second and it will survive on any broadcast display.

Centre cut protection: picking 4:3 on a 16:9 video measures the safe rectangles inside the centred 4:3 area rather than the full frame. That is how you check a widescreen master still reads when it is cropped to a squarer screen.

Mattes: choose a target aspect ratio to mask off everything outside it. Cinema ratios are 2.39:1, 2.35:1 and 1.85:1, broadcast ratios are 16:9, 1.66:1 and 4:3, and social ratios are 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16. The masked area is dimmed rather than filled solid, so you can still see a boom mic or a stray hand sitting just outside the crop, which is exactly what you want to catch before delivery.

A safe area and a matte can be on at the same time. Framing a 2.39:1 crop while checking 4:3 centre cut protection is a common combination, and the guides are measured independently so both stay accurate.

Whatever you have turned on is named in a small label in the top left of the picture, so a subtle matte on dark footage is never mistaken for the film itself. Your choice is remembered in your browser and comes back the next time you open a video, including on a review link you visit without an account.