Change Video Resolution Easily on Windows & Mac

Liza Brown

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

There are circumstances that you need to change the video resolutions. For example, when you upload videos from computer to your smartphone or mobile devices, the video resolution needs to decrease to reduce because these devices may support specific resolutions only.

Besides, when uploading videos to online websites, you may encounter the video size and video resolution limitation, for example, you can’t upload 4K video footage to some free online video editors.

While in some cases, you may need to increase the video resolution, for an example, consider the case in which you are trying to burn a video having resolution 320 × 240 to DVD. As the DVD standard needs a high resolution (which should be at least 720 × 480) for every video, you will need to raise the video's resolution (quality) as per needs.

Note: increasing the video resolution will not improve the video quality accordingly, in most cases, only the size will be increased.

In this article, we are going to show you how to change the resolution of a video on Windows and Mac computers with step-by-step tutorial.

• Part 1: How to Change Video Resolution on Windows & Mac with Wondershare Filmora
• Part 2: What is Video Resolution?

Part 1: How to Change Video Resolution Easily

There are several ways you can use to change the video resolution:

• Use Video Converters to change the video resolution;
• Use Video Compressors to reduce the video resolution;
• Save video in another video resolution after editing.

You can choose any of the methods above to increase or decrease the video resolution based on what you have. Whichever video converters, compressors or video editors you use, the process is similar. In this article, I'll show you how to use the user-friendly and intuitive Filmora to change video resolution and create your own videos.

Wondershare Filmora is a very easy to use video editor that can also change and convert the video resolution. Just click on Export and choose the video resolution from the Export window. Then, you video will be exported with the resolution you want.

Below is the detailed steps for changing video resolution in Filmora.

1. Download and install Filmora Video Editor

Download Filmora video editor by clicking the Download button below based on your system. Double click the downloaded file and follow the instruction to start the installation. Filmora supports both Windows and Mac OS, there will be no difficulty in installing. If you do meet some problems, you can always contact our support team.

There are number of websites from where you can download the video converter or video compressor. Choose one trusted site and download the program. There are some points that you should keep in mind while downloading any video resolution changing program. First point is compatibility; make sure that the software is compatible with the OS of your system . Secondly, check if the converter can support the latest technologies of video processing. If it does, then the video conversion will not only be efficient and but will also be quick.

2. Import and add videos to the Filmora

Now open the program and you will find the button for importing the video whose resolution you want to change. You will find the "Import" button in the primary window of the program.

Just click on this button and select the video files that you want to resize. You can check the actual reslution of the video clip by right clicking on it and choose "Properties".

After importing the files, drag it into the timeline, and you can trim or cut unwanted section as you like to reduce the video size.

3. Pick up the desired export format & resolution for you video

After editing videos in Filmora, you need to decide and select the format and resolution you want your video saved. Click the Export button to enter the Export Window as shown below.

On the drop down menus you can find the available video formats to make your selection. These formats will be like AVI, MOV, MP4, WMV, FLV, TS, etc. There will also be predefined resolution for each of these presets. If not provided, then you can define the desired resolution after selecting any of these formats.

Normally, all the resolution formats are defined in the converters. For example, the video will be saved in 1920*1080 for most formats, but for 3GP format, the video will be saved in 352*288 by default. But in the case you don't find the resolution that is appropriate for device, then you can click on Setting and select "Custom" under Resolution option and then specify the required width and height for the video to change the video resolution and click OK to apply the new resolution.

If you are changing the video resolution to prepare it for iPhone, iPad, iPod or any other portable device, then you can directly switch to "Devices" from the program and then click on the particular format that will fit your device. Your video resolution will be changed automatically at a optimal resolution for those devices.

4. Find and Confirm conversion of video

You can change the folder for saving the altered files. For that go to "Browse" button and then to "Destination" field. After that you can select an existing folder for saving the files or can create a new one. Then click on "OK". From then onwards, each altered video file will be saved to that folder.

After making all the selections or specification, you can click on the "Export" button. The process will take few minutes, so you should wait until the process finishing message is displayed on the screen. Click Find Target button to find the saved video.

What is Video Resolution?

Video resolution can be described as the number of pixels that displays on the screen of any device in both the dimensions. The usual format to quote the video resolution is width × height. For instance, "720 × 480" means 720 pixels is displayed horizontally and 480 vertically. The resolution on the display is affected by factors like flat panel display and cathode ray tube which are incorporated in the computer monitors and televisions.

7 Common types of video resolution

When watching videos on YouTube, you may find 144P, 240P, 360P, 480P, 720P, 1080P, or 4K options at the Quality menu. Here, we summarized some of the most popular video resolution types for your reference.

• 360p= 480 x 360 - has a total of 480 pixels horizontally and 360 pixels vertically, is well-suited on small screen smartphone devices.
• 480p= 853 x 480 - has a total of 853 pixels horizontally and 480 pixels vertically , is suitable for burning DVD. It will display well on small TVs, laptops and desktop comptuers.
• 720p = 1280 x 720 - is usually known as HD or 'HD Ready' resolution, looks great on most screens.
• 1080p = 1920 x 1080 - is usually known as FHD or 'Full HD' resolution. It's recommended to sharing videos in this resolution on social media.
• 1440p = 2560 x 1440 - commonly known as QHD or Quad HD resolution, and typically seen on gaming monitors and on high-end smartphones. 1440p is four times the resolution of 720p HD or 'HD ready'.
• 2160p = 3840 x 2160 - commonly known as 4K , UHD or Ultra HD resolution. It’s a very large display resolution and it’s found on high-end TVs and monitors. 2160p is called 4K because it offers four times the resolution of 1080p FHD or 'Full HD'.
• 4320p = 7680 x 4320 - is known as 8K and it offers 16 times more pixels than the regular 1080p FHD or 'Full HD' resolution. Although you’re not going to see TVs or computer monitors with this resolution too soon, you can test whether your computer can render such a large amount of data.

Liza Brown

Liza Brown is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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