Record in Portrait or Vertical Video
Gabe Michalski
marked this post as
open
This was marked as "shipped" by mistake.
Gabe Michalski
marked this post as
shipped
Alex Rothera
Gabe Michalski has it? its not working
Alex Rothera
yeah I still get black bars top and bottom when recording vertical. I think you need to reopen this
Gabe Michalski
Alex Rothera: my mistake Alex. I must have been confused as I would normally leave a note showing where to find it help center etc.
Gabe Michalski
Alex Rothera -
This has triggered some research, and so far I have been completely unable to locate any existing Camera capture product (loom, obs, etc.) that natively supports recording in an aspect ratio that the camera itself doesn't deliver.
i.e. My elgato facecam supports all kinds of horizontal resolutions, but does not offer my OS any vertical aspect ratios because it does not record in those ratios natively.
Anything we do here would just be masking or pre-cropping whatever horizontal signal your camera is delivering. The exception to this that I am aware of is using Mobile Devices as a camera - and we do have some issues supporting iOS Continuity cam is if I recall correctly.
Let me know if I am completely off base here as this is based on some fairly quick research.
Gabe Michalski
Or maybe you can share a project where you recorded with a vertical native camera and it resulted in black bars? That could just be a bug.
Alex Rothera
Gabe Michalski you are correct for the most part. OBS lets you set your own canvas size and flip the camera, all in preprocessing. so your final export is the correct high resolution vertical format.
So while technically you're right. I think as an end user it would be a huge WIN for descript!
How to do it:
- User selects vertical mode canvas.
- user selects iPhone camera (or any camera)
- [backend] bring in the live feed.
- [backend] rotate the feed.
- User sees the camera feed "as correct" on the vertical canvas.
Why:
Currently, I can do this workflow In Descript. But it requires looking at myself sideways in the preview window > recording > and then rotating after done recording.
L
Luke Carter
Come on - this has been a request since 2022 - we are in 2026 now WFT descript?
Nick Silva
Descript is beyond frustrating. I wanna love it so bad but it seems like they straight up ignore the basics that creators need and want. Most videos are shorts, vertical recording should be a basic feature easily shipped and prioritized. The new timeline is terrible for multi track and multi cam editing and the transcript cuts always seem to be micro seconds off. The AI could be amazing, but just misses the mark with everything to the point it actually takes more effort to fix AI rough cuts than it does to just manually edit from the start. Feels like they've lost touch with creators, and have a product team that keeps shipping half baked "good ideas" for "growth" but in practice kill the user experience, make it harder to do the basics, and provide essentially zero practical value. Every month it gets more and more off track. The latest AI limits and pricing upgrades for non-functional AI features seems like a complete lack of understanding of what actually makes Descript valuable to creators. Most other editors have transcript editing now, I'd love to be a Descript champion but not feeling great about the future. If they really cared about podcasters, they'd understand that video podcasts and shorts are what drive majority of podcast traffic today. If anyone from the team reads this please, you guys need to get you're head on straight and change the culture fast. This product has no heart anymore and feels lost compared to other editors.
S
Sandra Lee
I agree. Filming in vertical format would be so helpful.
Nick Silva
Sandra Lee I cant believe in 2025 they still don't have this
S
Sandra Lee
Nick Silva It really doesn't make sense, because this should not be hard!
N
Nycole Hampton
Cancelling my Descript because this ask has gone ignored. Doesn't seem hard and it's clearly really wanted.
J
John Nash
Would love to see this too. +1
Autopilot
Merged in a post:
Descript is failing vertical video creators.
nick ripps
Every single template, layout, and streamlined feature is built for landscape content—completely ignoring portrait editors like me. I only edit vertical video, and the workflow is frustratingly inefficient. This needs to change.
If you care about creators who edit for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, PLEASE HELP and push for proper portrait video support!
Autopilot
Merged in a post:
Feature Request – 9:16 Video Support for Reels & Shorts
A
Audrey Burke
Hi Descript Team,
I love using Descript for video creation via ChatGPT, but I’ve noticed that the current AI-generated videos are only available in 16:9 landscape format. Since most short-form content platforms (Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts) require 9:16 vertical videos, it would be incredibly helpful if Descript could generate videos in that format as well.
Right now, resizing a 16:9 video to 9:16 after creation doesn’t work well because the visuals get cropped or don’t fit properly. Having native 9:16 support would make it much easier to create short-form content without extra editing steps.
Is this something that’s on your roadmap? I’d love to see this feature added! Thanks for considering it.
K
Keerthan Diddige
Just talked to descript chat about this as well, would love to use the descript recorder with continuity camera and record with vertical video instead of always adjusting the footage to change it to portrait from landscape
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