How To Upload IGTV Horizontal Video with Premiere Pro Export Settings For Best Quality

Learn the Adobe Premiere Pro Export settings to enable you to upload IGTV horizontal videos.

Upload high-quality horizontal videos to IGTV. Learn how to create your own IGTV cover photo in Adobe Photoshop.

How to Edit IGTV Horizontal Video

So there are a few reasons why you would want to post a horizontal video on IGTV. One reason if you want to repurpose a video that you already uploaded to, say another platform like Facebook or YouTube for videos that are wedding highlights, music, videos, or tutorials, it probably makes good sense to keep it in the horizontal format, especially if you’ve already got it done. Now you could, with this horizontal video here, convert it to a vertical format. That doesn’t always make sense, that’s something that you might want to determine once you’re trying to figure out how you want to upload your video, but in this case, since it’s a tutorial it makes great sense to keep it horizontal and post it to IGTV. Plus, this is a great way to get your work out on another social media platform.

So here we are in Premiere Pro. This is a project that I had already posted to YouTube. What I’ve done here is I’ve added a captions file that was created outside of my YouTube upload and now I’m bringing it back into this project here. I’ve added a captions file to my timeline. So now let’s look at the upload requirements for IGTV on Instagram. So let’s look at the video resolution and size. Like I say, it could have been a vertical video with an aspect ratio of 9×16, but this is a horizontal video with an aspect ratio of 16×9, needs to be 30 frames per second, and a minimum resolution of 720 pixels.

So if we look at the properties for the sequence of this video, it is a 1920×1080. It is a 16×9, 1920×1080, that’s the resolution there. And it is 30 frames per second. So if you were to create a new project, your sequence would have to be this resolution and framerate, so this project fulfills those requirements. What is going to matter the most to IGTV is the bitrate of your video and we’re going to handle that in the export, but down here further, the maximum size for videos that are 10 minutes or less is 650 megabytes. The maximum file size for videos up to 60 minutes is 3.6 gigabytes, so if we look over here, this video is nine minutes and 49 seconds. So according to the IGTV upload requirements, I have to keep this video under 650 megabytes, because I’m only going to be able or allowed to upload a video that is 10 minutes.

So that’s the thing about IGTV, video length. So all IGTV video clips are restricted to 60 minutes at the most. This is for verified accounts with a lot of followers, which mine is not. My IGTV video, it could be from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. That’s for a regular Instagram account holder.

How to Export IGTV Horizontal Video

So now we need to export this video. First thing I want to do is mark my end points and out points. My playhead is at the beginning of this sequence and I, for my end point, and I’m going to go all the way to the end of my video and hit O for my out point. There’s my out point, if I come up to export media and up pops my export settings dialog box ’cause now I want to make sure that my format is set to H.264, my preset should be match source high bitrate, and I want to choose my output name and I’m just going to call this IGTV and say that next time I’m going to make sure that export video and export audio are checked and they usually are.

I’m going to make sure that my width is 1920 and my height is 1080, which matches my sequence of this video project and I’m going to check render at maximum depth. That will increase my video quality and under my encoding settings, I’m going to uncheck this and click high. Make sure high is selected and the level is 4.1. I’ll leave that there. So now the most important thing is setting this bitrate. So the higher, the bitrate can mean a higher quality video, but it can also mean that the size of your video file could be larger, so higher the bitrate, more quality, the file size could be quite large. So if we go back here to the upload requirements, my video is under 10 minutes.

So I have to keep it less than 650 megabytes. So as I said before, the bitrate is probably one of the most important settings in this whole tutorial. So under bitrate encoding, I’m going to select CBR, which stands for constant bitrate. This means that Premiere Pro will apply less compression to the video, which means that whenever it is uploaded to IGTV, it should have fewer artifacts. So now this target bitrate right here, if you see, when I move it, let me zoom in here a little bit. If I move it, you can see that the higher I move it to target bitrate, this estimator file size grows. So I need to start off by something way down here, maybe seven, let’s say 7.0, you could see that my estimated file size is 530 megabytes. So let’s try eight, I’m going to put an eight in there and now it’s at 613 megabytes. So I’m under the file size for 10 minutes and I should be okay here. It’s just a big file, and if you see your video after you export it, if it doesn’t look as nice as you would like it to look, you can raise that bitrate up to 10 all the way, maybe to 20, but you still got to keep an eye on that size because I already started out with a complete project here. I’m going to have to settle with eight, as my target bitrate was our megabits per second and last make sure use maximum render quality is checked, and of course, what you can do is come up here and create a preset for it and you can name it anything you like.

So that next time you come in here, you don’t have to go through all this again. For audio click on the audio tab. These values here are what you want to use. Audio codec, ACC sample rate, 48,000-hertz channel stereo and audio quality high, and just say export, and this is going to take a while. So let’s go over in Photoshop and work on our IGTV cover photo. Hey, if you’re getting value out of this so far, hit that like button.

Create Your Cover Photo for IGTV Horizontal Video

Now I’m going to show you how to create your IGTV cover photo. Let me come up here to file and new and I’m gonna create a new document that is 1080×1920 and 300 pixels resolution RGB color, with a white background. I can create a preset for this and call it IGTV thumbnail and save that as a preset and that is selected, and I can say, create to make that a little bit smaller. And now what I want to do is explain why this is the size that it is and how it’s going to affect how your thumbnail is seen on IGTV, so first I want to create some guides. I’m gonna make sure I’m in the move tool and pull down. and I’m going to put a guide around 420. Let me zoom in here a little bit and get it as close as I can to 420 and come down to the bottom. I’m going to get another guide here and bring this to 1500. So now this guide has kind of helped us determine where we want text and where our IGTV cover photo will be seen.

A cover photo could be seen on the IGTV app on Instagram, on the web, and the Instagram app. On the Instagram app, it could be in the explore section and the profile feed. There’s gonna be some cropping because it could depend on a different device like iPhone or Android and it’s going to depend on where in the IGTV platform that this is displayed. So I just want to go over to my browser. I’m on instagram.com in my Instagram account.

Now, if you’re uploading a large file, this is the best way to do it, unless it’s a really small file, you can do it from your phone since you’re editing your video, you’re exporting it and it’s on your computer. Just upload it through the browser. It’s quicker and it’s pretty easy to do. So I click right here on IGTV, and this is where you can upload it right here. If I say upload, one of the things I wanted to point out right away is that template that I just made right now, it’s really going to apply the most when you click on this checkbox right here that says post a preview, preview appears on your profile and feed. So if that’s all you really care about what you want seen, as far as your IGTV thumbnail, then work on it like this back in Photoshop. So if I bring in an image here, file open and let me bring in this image here. I’m gonna use my move tool and I’m going to bring it over to my preset that I created.

So the idea is, if you just care about what is in your feed or the thumbnail part, that’s going to be seen in your feed, try to make as much of your photo in the middle of these guides here, try to size it by say, command T, I want to make sure that this chain link is checked, it means that maintains the aspect ratio of this file when I am pulling on the handles here. You can resize it in here, can also click in the middle and move it. The idea is to use the whole canvas when you bring in your photo or the whole size of this template here, and know that within these lines that that is what is going to be seen and everything else is gonna get cut off for the preview in your Instagram feed. So I’m gonna play with this here a little bit. I’m just gonna say that I’m satisfied with this area above this line and this area below this line, it’s gonna get cropped off. That’s the way it’s gonna be represented in the Instagram feed. So you’re going to have this square right here in the middle is what’s going to be left and I can export this out and I want this to be a JPEG 1080×1920. Quality, I can bring this down to like about 80% and the file size won’t be too big and say export and I could save it somewhere where my video is. Let me know in the comments if you’ve seen other IGTV size suggestions. what I have for you is I have a template.

Let me open that up now, and this template will be available for you. You can get the link in the description and you don’t have to give me your email address or anything. You could just download it and use it. Now, this particular template is to show you how your IGTV cover photo is going to look on other platforms, on other devices, but I chose the file size 1080×1920 because there’s gonna be a lot of cropping going on.

So as you see, all around here, there’s gonna be some cropping. Like for instance, depending on if it’s on the IGTV app itself, that’s probably the biggest thumbnails that you’re gonna have available. It’s ends up being 1080×1680 So that’s the center line here. So all of this is going to be seen on the IGTV app. This gray area is the safest area across all devices and IGTV apps. Up here you have text that most devices won’t get cropped off and of course your IGTV title is down here. So this is a guide so that you know you gotta kind of get an idea of what’s going to be showing on all these different apps or all these different devices for IGTV device, meaning Android, iPhone, plus whether it shows on the Instagram feed. If it shows in the IGTV app or instagram.com, it’s all gonna have some amount of cropping, knowing that there’s all these different sizes.

The best solution is to create a template like this that is a 9×16 ratio and room with the top and bottom for everything that’s getting cropped because that’s ultimately what’s gonna happen. Your picture technically can be 1080×1680, and you have this square here that’s approximately 945×945, which is the square for say your Instagram feed. So if I bring in that image that I had before into my template, and I could say command T pull on these handles and adjust it anywhere I want and here I can still put text up here because it’s within the crop lines, knowing that for the Instagram feed on my Instagram account is just gonna show what is in this inner square. Everything else is going to get cut off.

Upload Your IGTV Horizontal Video

So now let’s export this and save it where my video is, and let’s go over to my Instagram account on instagram.com and let’s see, where is my video? Drag and drop that there and that’s slowly loading. We’ll get this up to 100 and then we’ll come back. Now my upload progress is at 100%, which is a good sign, means that my file was the correct size for its length and now I want to add or edit my IGTV thumbnail. So I’m click edit right here and I’m going to go to where it is stored and say open and there is my thumbnail. So remember, we know what’s gonna get cut off because post a preview is checked. So it’s gonna be on my feed, and within those guidelines, we kind of centered this picture. So we know it’s gonna get cut off on the top and the bottom in just the profile and feed, not on other like the IGTV app.

So let’s add a title. So the title is searchable, so make sure that there is keywords in there that you want to be searched on and this is the only thing that’s going to be seen in your Instagram feed. Now, the description, when you add information to that, this part will be seen like in the ITGV app or anywhere that you actually see your video in IGTV, you can just say arrow that you can drop down just below the title, and you can see this description and you can put more in here. You can put links, you can put hashtags and so down here where your video will appear, I’m just going to have it appear in my IGTV account. I’m not gonna have it on Facebook, and I’m going to say post, and let me just let it do its thing.

So now my IGTV video is posted, and this is how the thumbnail looks on instagram.com and when I click on that, I’m in IGTV and I could see my post and play it that way. I can also click on IGTV in my account on instagram.com and it shows my videos here, all my IGTV videos and you could see the way it looks. It didn’t cut off as much here on the IGTV as it did \on the post. So again, you could see that here’s the title. It did not cut off the top and bottom because this is IGTV on the instagram.com.

Switching over to my phone, here you can see my thumbnails here and you can see how much got cut off. We knew that would happen, and I can click on that and watch it, you see that the description is part of a comment down here. So that’s where the description went on the IGTV app and going further, if I click on the IGTV icon right here on my phone, here are my IGTV apps. Here, you can see with that template we use that the only thing that you could see is the title. The whole thumbnail is there. It’s not cut off, if I click on it, here’s playing in its horizontal format, but if I click on this arrow up here, the top, there is my description.

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