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Convert Video to Vertical

Turn landscape video into 9:16 vertical with a blurred background, no cropping. Run the preset directly on this page or call the same agent-ready endpoint from your product.

Run this tool View API recipe

Prefer the shell? Make a video vertical (9:16) with FFmpeg, the verified FFmpeg command for this edit.

LIVE TOOL
Run video to vertical
Drop a video, adjust the defaults if you need to, and download the result here.

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BEFORE / AFTER

See what the tool changes.

A real example: the after side is the unedited output of a KinoPipe job. Run the live form above to generate the same result from your own media.

BeforeLandscape source
16:9
AfterVertical video
Ready
9:16 · blurred background

Demo footage: public-domain timelapses (Bureau of Land Management, Oregon · NASA SVS). Processed by the same pipeline the API and MCP tools call.

Useful defaults, typed options.

The tool slug stays stable while your agent supplies named media inputs and a narrow set of documented options.

  • The standard vertical social look
  • Nothing is cropped out
  • Blur or black background
What this preset does
  1. 01Scale a blurred copy to fill 9:16
  2. 02Fit the original inside the frame
  3. 03Compose both layers
  4. 04Encode a 1080x1920 MP4
Stable endpointPOST /api/v1/tools/video-to-vertical
Live API request
{
  "inputs": [{ "id": "main", "url": "https://example.com/video.mp4" }],
  "options": { "background": "blur" }
}
Successful output example
{
  "result": {
    "output": {
      "filename": "video-to-vertical-output.mp4",
      "contentType": "video/mp4",
      "byteSize": 437021,
      "downloadUrl": "https://cdn.kinopipe.com/…"
    }
  }
}

The command this runs

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "split[bg][fg];[bg]scale=1080:1920:force_original_aspect_ratio=increase,crop=1080:1920,boxblur=luma_radius=32:luma_power=2[bgb];[fg]scale=1080:1920:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease[fgs];[bgb][fgs]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2,setsar=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy output.mp4
split[bg][fg]
One decode, two copies of the same frames. The blurred backdrop and the sharp foreground are the same video treated differently, so decoding it twice would be paying twice for nothing.
force_original_aspect_ratio=increase, then crop
To cover 1080x1920 with no gaps, the backdrop is scaled up until it overflows, and the overflow is cut away. Nobody looks at this copy.
force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease
Its foreground does the opposite, shrinking until the whole picture fits. Nothing leaves the frame, which is the point of the tool.
boxblur=luma_radius=32:luma_power=2
Two passes of a 32-pixel box blur. One pass still shows recognisable shapes behind the video, and a much larger radius costs time without looking any different.
overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2
Centres the fitted picture on the backdrop. Since W and H mean the backdrop and w and h the foreground, one expression works whatever the source shape.
setsar=1
Forces square pixels. Without it a source with a non-square sample aspect ratio comes out stretched, and it plays correctly in VLC while looking wrong in a phone feed.

What it costs and how long it takes

Two 9:16 conversions run through the hosted API on 2026-08-29, timed from queue to finished file.

JobSecondsCredits
First conversion1312
Second conversion1412

End to end, upload and signed download included. Credits are the greater of rounded-up worker seconds and rounded-up 6 MiB output units.

Why a blurred copy rather than black bars

Black bars are cheaper to make and they read as a landscape video someone forgot to reformat. A blurred fill reads as a video made for the feed, which is the whole reason the format exists.

Set background to black when the source already has its own frame, a screen recording or a slide deck for instance. Blurring a white slide gives you a grey haze around a white rectangle, and it looks like a rendering fault rather than a choice.

The two scales pull in opposite directions, and that is the trick

Both layers are scaled to the same 1080x1920, and the only difference is one word. Behind, increase makes the picture overflow and get cropped. In front, decrease makes it fit and leave margins.

Get them the wrong way round and the result still encodes without an error. You get a cropped foreground floating on a letterboxed backdrop, which is why this is worth checking on one file before running a batch.

What comes out

Always 1080x1920 for 9:16, 1080x1080 for 1:1, 1080x1350 for 4:5 and 1920x1080 for 16:9. Output size does not depend on the source, so a batch of mixed footage lands on one size.

Audio is copied rather than re-encoded, so a conversion changes the picture and leaves the sound bit for bit as it was.

When to reach for something else

Use crop-video when the subject is centred and losing the sides costs nothing. A cropped 9:16 fills the screen with picture instead of blur, and on a talking head shot that is the better result.

Use smart-crop-video when people move around or take turns speaking. It tracks faces and follows whoever is talking, so the frame holds on the speaker rather than on the middle of the picture.

Know the boundaries before you run.

Output is 1080x1920 MP4
Use crop-video instead when you want to fill the frame

About video to vertical

Cropping cuts the sides off to fill the vertical frame. This tool keeps the full picture and fills the empty space with a blurred copy of the video, like TikTok and Reels do.

Yes. Set background to black for solid bars instead of the blurred fill.

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