Ask HN: Why is vertical video so popular? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is vertical video so popular?

25 pointsnight-rider45 comments

It amazes me how suddenly everyone got so good at doing vertical video. TikTok just assumes everyone can do it perfect first time, but my first video was so cringey I had to delete it. How are people not making a lot of mistakes with it? I get it, the algorithms optimise for the best videos, but I image the vast majority of users are lurkers and don’t post!

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Landscape has a super old history, but it made the most sense where it originated, which was the stage, with curtains, for live theater. It got carried into film and then streaming video as a kind of analogy

You are living through a transition in human tech and society on the level of the printing press! The switch to vertical video makes sense right now because this is how people tend to consume scrolling content and hold their phones one-handed. I think it isn't better or worse, it's just different and interesting and a sign people are relating to the medium in new ways

The reason why landscape is used in film is not analogy, but the fact that humans move a lot horizontally, almost never vertically. Portrait orientation may be good for portrait photos (although landscape is often also very good, or better, depending on the specific case) but not for films. Filming human movement in portrait makes for a claustrophobic feeling, requires the camera to move all the time, and cuts out context (including other people). It has its place, but it's a poor default. I've seen some videos which were recorded from such a long distance that they looked bizarre. The only reason for that distance was the use of portrait orientation, the film wouldn't work without the horizontal context. But it was meant for TikTok, so of course it had to be vertical.

I walk forward a lot more than I walk side to side, and the stuff I pay attention to when walking is more generally arranged vertically than horizontally.

All I’m saying is the appeal to nature of landscape mode doesn’t seem like the whole story.

I'd say it has more to do with human vision which cover a wider horizontal angle than vertical.

The medium (film) maybe adapted to how we see. Nowadays it might be adapting to how we hold the thing we see through.

I hadn't considered this! It's a good point.

Aspect ratios were surprisingly all over the place in early film. Now I'm wondering what parts of aspect ratios were driven by the actual physical characteristics of film.

It's not only a good point, it's the correct point.

If videos had to match the field of vision, and this was the audience's primary concern, I'd 100% agree! I think it's close to their primary concern when watching something like a nature documentary or a historical drama or playing a video game where you walk around a landscape. Vertical video has convinced me that you can tell some kinds of stories and convey certain kinds of info without using deliberate backgrounds, people standing next to each other talking, and people moving around. In vertical video you see a lot of cutting between two people, people talking about being in an environment that does not match their background, or one person playing multiple people. You don't need to learn pesky blocking or how to act with your body. Things that used to seem static, like giving a lecture while standing still, can seem reasonably dynamic. You can just focus on the human face. It's an option with pros and cons and it will encourage certain kinds of uses

Rather than guess, do some research ;)

Vertical is simply a thing, because phones are generally used in portrait mode.

The traditional aspect ratios were created to suit human vision.

But your field of view is far wider than it is tall.

In order to represent your walk vertically in a film, the camera would need to be overhead, directed at the ground (or beneath you, directed upwards). You walk forward from your own perspective, but it's rare from other people's perspectives (and still doesn't matter for horizontal vs vertical, since it's the Z dimension, not X or Y). Using depth to represent motion is a pretty bad idea most of the time, given that it's the dimension where movement is the hardest to notice (again, there are exceptions (precisely when you want the movement in the periphery to be hard to notice, only to make it more noticeable when the thing the moves gets closer (or the opposite))).

If you recorded Lord of the Rings, or Interstellar in portrait orientation, they would be pretty crappy films.

> the stuff I pay attention to when walking is more generally arranged vertically than horizontally.

I don't know what you mean.

Another point: your eyes are organized horizontally, not vertically. You have move horizontal vision than vertical. By filming in vertical orientation you quite simply make things more cramped, quite possible losing the space you could use to put more objects in, or just space out the objects you have in order to make things less messy.

Again, there are artistic reasons to sometimes prefer portrait over landscape, but that doesn't mean it's a good default. Making good films requires being conscious of those things, understanding that they are not arbitrary (therefore left just to which way it's more comfortable for people to hold their phones).

I'm sorry, but this isn't true.

Should they take off, AR and VR should make vertical videos go away.

I'm not so sure, at least for some of the AR stuff we're working on - most people we're testing with still point-and-aim their phones vertically, even when consuming 360 degree videos. Headsets will make another huge change of course, if they become mainstream.

> Landscape has a super old history, but it made the most sense where it originated, which was the stage, with curtains, for live theater.

Also, eyes.

In case anyone else was wondering the aspect ratio of eyes: it's about 4:3 to 16:9 [0].

[0] https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/5128/preferred-a...

And stages are horizontal because humans have this strange tendency of favoring moving in a plane parallel to the ground instead of moving vertically.

"You are living through a transition in human tech and society on the level of the printing press!"

Sure, whatever you say.

I think you're forgetting that our field of vision hadn't changed.

We use landscape because our field of vision is more wide than it is tall.

Popular? Most of us hate it with a passion. Smartphones are the only reason anyone's making vertical video and only then because they're too lazy/dumb to rotate their device 90 degrees.

It depends on. If you are filming for tiktok then 99%+ of your consumers will be viewing vertical holding it vertical.

If you are making programming videos to be viewed on desktop and somehow make it vertical people will hate you exponentially more.

Early versions of iOS would consistently play video in landscape regardless of the physical orientation. At some point they changed it so video can play in portrait mode as well, so now if you keep your screen orientation locked you have to unlock it before you can watch your video in landscape - there's no way to tell "lock orientation except for media". So annoying.

Oh yes, feels like I‘m not alone. It‘s one of the few features I‘m missing from Android.

I suspect you are in the minority. Millions of Instagram/TikTok/Snapchat users enjoy vertical videos every day. If you ever find yourself disparaging vast swathes of the population, you might be missing some essential truth.

Vertical videos are comfortable to watch on a phone. Vertical videos are also great for capturing a single person in the frame, since people are also vertically proportioned.

  >I suspect you are in the minority.

Well, if s/he is, s/he's in a minority of at least two. When I see vertical video I instantly think "moron".

The reason landscape is the sensible choice is because our eyes are placed horizontally and our natural field of view is wider than it is tall. Portrait mode will be a good choice when humanity evolves to have one eye above the other.

There's no natural reason to have evolved with eyes stacked on top... bears don't fall from the sky.

Laughted at this, but higher viewpoint provides longer range.

Nobody is using a phone that is larger than a human's vertical field of view at arms length. Even otherwise, human vision is based on eye movements and a complex form of visual integration. Your desire to mock others is entirely your free choice, but nothing you said is "sensible".

I think the way you judge people is anti-social.

It's the perfect format to film tall people standing in closets.

> When I see vertical video I instantly think "moron".

You must be fun at parties.

Yeah, I could never imagine watching TikTok in landscape on my phone. It wouldn’t look right, the framing would be completely off, and you lose screen space.

Part of the magic of how vertical videos are shot is that the logical frame extends horizontally beyond the edge of the screen creating an overall larger picture which you can’t do vertically because people usually move horizontally.

Agree - it is terribly annoying. It probably says a great deal about TikTok users that is so prevalent ie too lazy to turn the phone 90. It is definitely easier to hold the phone in the vertical orientation. Why waste a lot of effort on a short pretty much useless piece of video that practically no one will watch.

Down voted by TikTok fan I suppose

This is probably irrelevant, but I wish I could shoot horizontal while holding vertical. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Same, it would be sooo convenient to shoot horizontally without rat sting your phone..

Growing mobile-first population. Portrait is easier than landscape. Creators design with this in mind, get rewarded with eyeballs.

No ones a natural at video, everyone’s first videos are cringey… people improve with time and practice. Look at anyone in the game, vertical or horizontal, and look at their old videos. It’s all cringe. The point is to not make that the point. Persevere and improve.

You can hold your phone with one hand vertically. People like that and naturally record video vertically and like to watch video vertically.

It's also more like how you hold onto it when using it as a phone. It does just seem natural to hold it that way.

How people haven't mastered turning the phone sideways in one hand boggles me.

Oh right — big, awkwardly shaped bulky cases — because we need to have the thinnest phones.

So you’re saying if we had bulky phones instead of bulky cases we would hold our phones horizontally more often?

That doesn’t seem obvious to me, you’re just ranting on tiny phones

This is obviously the correct answer. I should add that because you normally use your phone vertically, rotating it to watch a landscape video is more awkward than not doing so.

My girlfriend says "post me images or videos in vertical, othervise they appear on my screen very small". And you cannot rotate images in most messaging applications.

Because it's easier on your hands to hold your phone in portrait rather than landscape

I didn’t realize video orientation has anything to do with quality.

The reason vertical video is popular is because the young people who produce and consume it mostly use small-screen devices optimized for vertical layouts.

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