Do you want to resize your video from 4:3 to 16:9?

If you’ve recorded a video using an old camera or held your phone in portrait instead of landscape, then you’ll probably see black bars on both sides of your video when you post it on YouTube.

That’s what happens when your video’s aspect ratio is 4:3. If you want to get rid of those black bars, you have to transform it to 16:9.

Below I’m going to show you how to do it using Screencast-o-matic.


Screencast-o-matic is a great software that works on both PC or Mac. You can do a lot with it for $15, which is awesome if you ask me.

Before anything else, make sure that your video has enough background you can crop out.

How to resize from 4:3 to 16:9 with Screencast-o-matic

  1. Head over to screencast-o-matic.com
  2. Login and click Your Account
  3. Click Browse Recordings.
  4. On the popup window, click Launch Application
  5. In the Application, click Import and find your video.
  6. Once it’s done importing, click Edit.
  7. On the right side of the screen, change the Canvas size from 640×480 (4:3) to 1280×720 (16:9)
  8. Click on the video and you’ll see a Main Video window popup.
  9. Make sure Resize is chosen and drag the sides out.
  10. Move the video upwards or downwards to adjust. Ideally, the eyes of the subject is at that top one-third of the video (when applicable).
  11. Click Done and save the video file (Give it a filename, change the quality, etc)
  12. Hit Publish

It’s super easy, don’t you think?

Screencast-o-matic has editing capabilities too, so if you’re looking for an affordable and easy-to-use video tool, go ahead and try it!