16:9, 4:3 or 9:16? Choosing the right aspect ratio for a property film

Aspect ratio is the shape of the frame: its width against its height. It is decided before a property film is made, and it is hard to change afterwards without losing part of every shot. This guide explains the four ratios estate agents come across, where each one is used, what happens to your listing photos in each, and which to choose.

What do 16:9, 4:3, 9:16 and 1:1 mean?

The first number is width and the second is height. So 16:9 is wide landscape, 9:16 is the same shape turned upright, 4:3 is a squarer landscape and 1:1 is square.

Two platform facts are worth knowing. Meta recommends 9:16, 1080 x 1920 for Reels. And YouTube Help explains that since 15 October 2024, square or vertical videos up to 3 minutes long are categorised as Shorts, while a wider ratio such as 16:9 keeps a video in long-form.

Where is each aspect ratio used?

Use 16:9 wherever the screen is landscape, 9:16 wherever it is an upright phone, and 4:3 where a squarer frame suits the photos or the device. Here is how that maps to the places an agency actually shows a film.

Portals and your website: 16:9. Most website video players, including the one on your own listing pages, are landscape, and a 16:9 film also plays full width on a phone or full screen when the phone is turned sideways. Portals differ in whether and how they accept video, so check your portal's options for each listing.

Valuation appointments and presentations: 16:9 or 4:3. A laptop or a TV in a vendor's sitting room is 16:9. Most tablets are closer to 4:3 than to 16:9, so a 4:3 film fills more of a tablet screen.

Window displays: match the screen. A landscape screen takes a 16:9 film; a portrait-mounted screen needs 9:16. Check before the film is made, because a 16:9 film on a portrait screen fills under a third of it.

Social apps: 9:16. Reels, Shorts, TikTok and Stories are built for phones held upright. A 16:9 film played there fills only about 32% of a 9:16 screen, and even less on today's taller phones. Our guide to vertical property videos covers specs, safe framing and hooks for these apps.

Square: a fallback. A 1:1 video fills about 56% of an upright phone screen, better than 16:9 but well short of 9:16. It is rarely the best choice for any single placement.

How are listing photos framed for each ratio?

Most listing photos are 3:2 (the usual camera shape) or 4:3 (the default on many phones), so every film ratio except a matching one crops something. This table shows how much of a landscape photo survives a straight crop to each ratio.

What that means in practice:

• 16:9 trims ceilings and floors. Photos taken with a little room above and below the subject let a film crop without cutting off a pendant light or a rug. In rooms with high ceilings, stairwells or double-height spaces, 4:3 keeps more of what makes the room special.
• Camera moves need spare pixels too. A push-in or a pan crops further into the frame as it moves, so a photo that is already cropped hard has little left to move through. Photos at least 2,000 pixels wide give a 1080p film room to move without going soft.
• 9:16 needs a decision for every shot. Keeping 37% to 42% of the width means choosing which part of each room to show. Frame the feature (the kitchen island, the fireplace, the view) rather than the dead centre, or extend the photo vertically with AI outpainting and check the added areas. Our article on enhancement versus misrepresentation covers what AI may and may not add.

Good source photos make every ratio easier. Our shot checklist for listing photos covers angles, height and the room set a film needs.

Which aspect ratio should you choose?

Master in 16:9 and add a 9:16 cut. That pair covers the portal, your website, YouTube, TV screens and most presentations with one version, and every vertical social app with the other.

Choose differently when:

1. The photos are 4:3 and the rooms are tall. A 4:3 film keeps the whole photo and the full ceiling height. On a 16:9 screen it plays with a border of about an eighth of the screen width on each side.
2. The film is mainly for tablet presentations. 4:3 fills more of the screen.
3. The only destination is social. For a teaser that will never appear on a website or a TV, go straight to 9:16.
4. Your window screen is mounted in portrait. The window version is then 9:16, whatever you use elsewhere.

Decide before the film is made. Cropping a finished 16:9 film down to 9:16 keeps under a third of each frame's width, and titles, subtitles and logos placed for landscape end up cut in half. Building each ratio from the original photos gives a properly framed version of every shot. Once you have both versions, our distribution checklist shows which one goes where.

How Echoflicks handles aspect ratios

Echoflicks renders films in 16:9 (the recommended default), 4:3 or 9:16, at Full HD 1080p or 720p, and you choose the ratio when you create the film. There is no square option. A 16:9 master and a 9:16 cut of the same listing are therefore two films, each built from the original photos rather than cropped from one another.

A 9:16 film is not a crop of the landscape version: each photo is extended at the top and bottom with AI outpainting, so it contains AI-added content you should review before publishing. Every film carries machine-readable metadata marking it as AI-generated, and the web studio adds a visible "AI-generated" corner label by default. Each shot is instructed to keep architecture, layout, fixtures and furniture as photographed, whichever ratio you pick.