mix video resolutions
Shoot and combine HD and 4K footage in the same iMovie project
Combine different types of footage in iMovie
Your iPhone, and gadgets such as the GoPro Hero 6 Black camera, can record video footage at different resolutions and frame rates.
The iPhone’s default video recording resolution is 1080p HD at 30 frames per second (fps). This high-definition footage looks great on TV and YouTube.
However, there are situations where you might want to change your iPhone’s default video recording resolution. To save storage space on your phone (and capture more clips), you can drop the resolution to 720p HD. This smaller high-definition resolution will still look okay when viewed on social media sites, but it may look a little fuzzy when combined with higher resolution files in an iMovie project.
You can also record slow-motion (slo-mo) clips on your iPhone using the 720p HD resolution. This is worth doing to benefit from a higher frame rate of 240fps, which ensures smoother motion in a slo-mo sequence than you’d get by simply slowing down a standard 30fps clip, or even the highest quality 1080p option of 120fps. Slo-mo clips enable you to portray an event or action in a visually poetic way, without jarring jumps between frames.
Shooting 4K gives you footage with a very high resolution. When you use a 4K clip in a 1080p HD iMovie project, you can crop it to zoom in without creating fuzzy-looking pixels. You can also add Ken Burns zoom and pan effects without a drop in image quality. The downside of shooting at 4K is that you’ll soon fill your iPhone’s storage. A one-minute-long 4K clip takes up nearly six times more storage space than a minute of 720p HD footage.
In this walkthrough, we’ll talk you through how to shoot a range of differently sized clips and then combine the different resolutions into a consistent 1080p HD project.