Alight Motion Export Settings: Resolution, Frame Rate & Format Explained

Export settings decide four things about your finished video: how sharp it looks (resolution), how smooth it moves (frame rate), how much detail survives compression (quality/bitrate), and where it will play (format). Get them right and your video looks clean on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, or YouTube. Get them wrong and you get blurry uploads, giant files, or videos that look worse than they did in the app.

This guide explains what each setting means, why it matters, and which settings suit each platform — with a strict rule: official platform requirements are always labeled as such, and everything else is clearly marked as a general recommendation. There is no single “best” setting for every video.

What export settings actually do

Everything you see while editing is a preview. Exporting (rendering) converts your project — layers, keyframes, effects, audio — into one standalone video file. The export settings control the trade-off between quality and file size:

  • Resolution → pixel dimensions of the video (sharpness and file size).
  • Frame rate → frames per second (motion smoothness and file size).
  • Quality / bitrate → how much data each second of video gets (detail vs. file size).
  • Format → the file type and compression used (compatibility).

In Alight Motion, you reach these settings from the project list: long-press the project thumbnail, tap the ▷ icon at the bottom-left, then tap the arrow (>) next to it to adjust resolution, frame rate, and the Quality slider — these steps are confirmed in the official Alight Motion Help Center, which also notes that exporting from the project list uses fewer device resources.

Resolution: what it means and why it matters

Resolution is the pixel grid of your video, written as width × height. More pixels = more potential detail, but also a bigger file and a longer export. Common labels:

LabelHorizontal videoVertical videoTypical use
720p (HD)1280 × 720720 × 1280Drafts, quick shares, slow connections
1080p (Full HD)1920 × 10801080 × 1920The practical default for most uploads
1440p (QHD)2560 × 14401440 × 2560Extra headroom for YouTube
2160p (4K)3840 × 21602160 × 3840Maximum detail, very large files

Two rules that matter more than any number:

  • Don’t export higher than your source material. Upscaling a 720p clip to 4K doesn’t add detail — it just makes a bigger file of the same soft image. Match your export resolution to (or stay near) your source quality.
  • 1080p is the sensible default. It looks sharp on phones, uploads quickly, and every major platform handles it well. Go higher only when you have a reason — genuinely detailed footage and a platform that rewards it (like YouTube).

Frame rate: smoothness has a cost

Frame rate (fps) is how many still images play per second. Higher fps = smoother motion, especially for fast movement — but each extra frame adds data, so 60 fps files are roughly twice the size of 30 fps at the same quality.

  • 24 fps — the cinematic look; fine for edits, text animations, and story-driven content.
  • 30 fps — the standard for phone-shot video and social uploads; smooth enough for most content.
  • 60 fps — visibly smoother for fast action, gaming clips, and dance/sports footage; larger files.

One official guideline worth following: YouTube’s Help Center advises encoding and uploading in the same frame rate the footage was recorded, and lists 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, and 60 fps as the common rates it accepts (YouTube recommended upload encoding settings). The general principle applies everywhere: match your export fps to your source fps rather than converting up or down, which can introduce judder.

Quality and bitrate: where detail lives or dies

Bitrate is how much data each second of video is allowed — think of it as a budget for detail. A high-resolution video with a starved bitrate looks worse than a lower resolution with a healthy one, because compression artifacts (blockiness, banding, mushy gradients) appear when the budget runs out.

In Alight Motion this is controlled by the Quality slider in the export settings (the official Help Center describes lowering “resolution, frame rate, or bitrate (Quality slider)” when exports need to be smaller). Practical guidance:

  • Use the highest quality you can afford in file size and export time — especially because platforms re-compress your upload. Starting from a clean, high-quality file gives their encoder more to work with.
  • There are diminishing returns. Past a certain point, higher quality settings just grow the file without visible improvement. If doubling the quality setting changes nothing you can see, you’ve passed it.
  • Busy, detailed scenes need more bitrate than simple ones. Fast motion, confetti, film grain, and fine textures are the first things to fall apart at low quality settings.

Format and codec: keep it compatible

A video file has two parts that matter here: the container (the file type, like MP4) and the codec (the compression method inside, like H.264 for video and AAC for audio). For sharing online, the safe, universal choice is:

  • Container: MP4
  • Video codec: H.264
  • Audio codec: AAC-LC

This isn’t just convention — it’s YouTube’s official recommendation in its recommended upload encoding settings. MP4 with H.264 plays on virtually every phone, browser, and platform without conversion. Unless you have a specific reason to use something else, export MP4.

File size vs. quality: the real trade-off

File size is decided by four factors multiplied together: resolution × frame rate × quality × duration. Duration usually dominates — a 3-minute video is roughly 6× the size of a 30-second one at identical settings.

To shrink the file…Quality cost
Lower the resolution (e.g., 4K → 1080p)Less sharpness on large screens; often invisible on phones
Lower the frame rate (e.g., 60 → 30 fps)Less smooth fast motion; fine for most content
Lower the Quality sliderCompression artifacts appear first in busy/detailed scenes
Shorten the videoNo quality cost at all — the most efficient lever

Platform recommendations: official specs vs. general advice

Below, official platform requirements (quoted from each platform’s own help documentation) are separated from general recommendations (widely used settings that fit within those official bounds). Platforms change their documentation over time — when in doubt, check the linked official source.

TikTok

  • Official (TikTok Studio upload page): maximum file size 30 GB, video duration up to 60 minutes, .mp4 format recommended, with 1080p, 1440p, and 4K listed as recommended resolutions and 16:9 landscape / 9:16 portrait as the recommended aspect ratios.
  • General recommendation: 1080 × 1920 (9:16 vertical) at 30 fps, high quality — fits TikTok’s official guidance and suits phone viewing.

Instagram Reels

  • Official (Instagram Help Center: Reel size & aspect ratios): aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 9:16; minimum frame rate 30 FPS; minimum resolution 720p.
  • General recommendation: 1080 × 1920 (9:16) at 30 fps — fills the screen on phones and sits comfortably inside Instagram’s official limits. Instagram also offers an “Upload at highest quality” toggle in its own media settings, which is worth enabling.

YouTube (standard videos)

  • Official (YouTube recommended upload encoding settings): MP4 container, H.264 video codec, AAC-LC (or Opus) audio; encode and upload at the same frame rate the content was recorded — common rates 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60 fps.
  • General recommendation: 1920 × 1080 (16:9) at 30 fps for most videos; 1440p or 4K if your footage is genuinely detailed, since YouTube gives higher-resolution uploads better encoding treatment. Never claim one setting is “best” — it depends on your source and audience.

YouTube Shorts

  • Official (YouTube Help: Upload YouTube Shorts): square or vertical aspect ratio; duration up to 3 minutes.
  • General recommendation: 1080 × 1920 (9:16 vertical) at 30 fps — the same vertical master file you make for TikTok and Reels works here.

Vertical vs. landscape: which to choose

  • Vertical 9:16 (1080 × 1920) — for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. One vertical master export can serve all three.
  • Landscape 16:9 (1920 × 1080) — for standard YouTube videos and anywhere viewers watch on wide screens.
  • Decide before you edit, not at export. Cropping a landscape project into vertical (or vice versa) at export time forces reframing every shot. Set the project aspect ratio to match the destination from the start.

Common export mistakes

  • Exporting at max resolution from low-quality sources. A 720p screen recording exported at 4K gains nothing but file size.
  • Wrong aspect ratio for the platform. A 16:9 video uploaded to Reels gets pillarboxed or cropped — set 9:16 from the start.
  • 60 fps for everything. Talking-head videos and text animations gain nothing visible from 60 fps but pay double the file size.
  • Minimum quality to “save space.” Platforms re-compress your upload, so a low-quality source gets degraded twice. Export at solid quality; let the platform do its one compression pass.
  • Judging quality from the in-app preview. Previews are often rendered at reduced quality for performance. Judge the export, not the preview.

Fixing poor export quality

  1. Check your source first. No export setting can add detail that isn’t in your clips and images. Blurry source = blurry export.
  2. Match export resolution to your source. Exporting 1080p footage at 1080p preserves what you have; exporting it higher adds nothing.
  3. Raise the Quality slider and re-export a short test section before committing to a full-length render.
  4. Export slightly above what the platform needs. Since TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube all re-compress uploads, a clean high-quality file survives their processing better than one that’s already marginal.
  5. Rule out playback issues. If the exported file looks fine on your phone but bad in one app, check that app’s playback/data-saver settings before re-exporting.

Fixing oversized files

  1. Trim the duration. Cutting dead air shrinks files with zero quality cost — do this before touching quality settings.
  2. Lower the Quality slider one step and compare — often the visual difference is negligible while the size drops substantially.
  3. Drop resolution before frame rate for most content: 4K → 1080p saves far more than 60 → 30 fps, and phones rarely show the difference.
  4. Export from the project list (long-press the thumbnail → ▷ → arrow) rather than from inside a heavy project — the official Help Center notes this uses fewer resources, which also helps when large exports stall.

If exports fail outright rather than just coming out large or soft, see our export failed troubleshooting guide. For animation that looks wrong before export, the keyframes masterclass covers timing and easing, and the broader troubleshooting guide covers app-level issues. Running Alight Motion on a computer? See Alight Motion for PC; on iPhone or iPad, see Alight Motion for iOS. New to the app entirely? Start with how to use Alight Motion.

Sources consulted