How to Edit 4K Videos for Uploading to Instagram

Person Holding Phone While Logging-in on Instagram Application
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Instagram is now one of the world’s largest social media platforms. It gathers both massive celebrities and common netizens to share their traveling videos and Vlogs on their families, friends or cute puppies. And in most cases, people record these moments in 4K with their modern cameras, 4K-capable smartphones or powerful drone. Refer to some of the best instagram accounts to see what we are talking about.

What is 4K? It is high-resolution with nearly 4k pixels in width so as to show more details in the frames, such as the eyelash of a baby, the texture of a delicate dish, and every move of a swaying leaf. The question is, is it possible to reach such quality on Instagram, with the recent rumors about Instagram reducing photo quality on iOS?

But you might always fail to upload 4K to Instagram when you shoot some amazing videos with your drone. That’s because Instagram doesn’t support 4K videos at all. The maximum upload resolution is 1080p on Instagram. And even though the video is 1080p, it turns out to be blurry after publishing, because Instagram needs to calculate and compress high-resolution videos to release the data processing and storing burden. That’s why you need free editing software for editing your 4K/Drone videos for Instagram. But to edit to make your videos stunning in the social networking platform, you should first figure out the requirements of Instagram first.

What Are the Requirements for Instagram Videos in 2020?

Different from YouTube, Instagram concentrates on instant and handy sharing, which has to sacrifice the high video resolution, frame rate and bitrate to speed up data processing. So it has specific requirements for IGTV, Stories and common Instagram video uploading. 

  • Video format: MP4 with H.264 codec
  • Duration: 3 to 60 seconds 
  • Resolution: maximum of 1080 pixels in width
  • Frame rate: 30fps
  • Bitrate: 3,500 kbps
  • Audio codes: AAC at 44.1kHz
  • File size: maximum 15MB

If you fail to upload your video to Instagram, you can try to fix it by reopening and updating Instagram, clearing cache in the app, or restarting your phone. But all of these won’t work if the problem lies in the video. For 4K videos, you should compress it to a lower resolution, and make sure that the video format is compatible with Instagram and every value of the video parameters meets the uploading requirement. However, the 4K video compression and conversion is a tough nut to crack. Common video editing software has no choice but to overuse the CPU to process such a huge amount of 4K data. And too much pressure on the CPU leads to lagging, freezing, and crashing undoubtedly. 

Now VideoProc comes to iron out these problems and help edit and convert stunning 4K videos quickly for Instagram uploading. It is a GPU accelerated video editor and converter. By relieving CPU from the heavy work, the 4K video processing can reach up to 47x real-time faster. Moreover, it can compress the video size 90% smaller than the original with the least quality loss. Any 4K videos can be easily optimized for sharing to Instagram with this video editing and converting software. 

How to Edit and Convert 4K Videos Quickly for Instagram with VideoProc?

VideoProc now has helped out millions of Instagram users by its outstanding 4K processing capability and user-friendly operatio. It devotes effort to every step of video editing and converting so to enable users to:

  • Convert: It is also a powerful video converter that supports more than 370+ video formats and codecs. You can load any video and convert to it MP4 (H.264) for Instagram sharing.
  • Trim: It enables people to trim and shorten a long video to the length that Instagram requires (3-60s).
  • Customize video parameters: Adjust the value of video bitrate, and frame rate, resolution (e.g. 4K to 1080p) to reduce file size, etc. while keeping the best video quality.
  • Edit in a full set: Organize the video material and polish your video material by cutting, merging, cropping, and adding effects, filters and texts in a few clicks. 

Now here is the chance to edit and convert your 4K videos that are either shot recently or failed to upload before. Follow the video and text tutorial to make stunning videos on this social media platform right now. 

1. Import a 4K video to VideoProc.

Download and launch this program, and click Video to get to the video editing interface. Then hit +Video to load a video.

2. Set the output format for Instagram.

Click Video on the lower sidebar, and choose MP4 as the output format. 

3. Quick trim and edit the 4K video.

Go to the editing bar, and cut and trim the video to 60 seconds. Then add effects, filters, texts if necessary. More editing functions can be found in Toolbox on the lower side. 

4. Compress the 4K video to 1080p for Instagram uploading.

Click the Codec Option beside the editing bar. Set the resolution to 1080p, and also customize the codecs, frame rate, and bitrate as Instagram requires. 

5. Export the video and upload it to Instagram.

Browse a file to store the video, and tick the box under hardware acceleration to speed up the exporting process. Then hit RUN to export. 

Although 4K videos are more appealing, Instagram chooses to make optimum utilization of the limited storage and bandwidth by compressing every single video, which frustrates users most. Now you can tackle this problem by downscaling 4K to 1080p with the least quality degrading on your PC first and making a qualified Instagram video to share successfully. This is exactly where VideoProc comes to your immediate aid. 

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