How to export a video: shape, quality, loudness and files

What settings should you export a video in?

The ones that suit where it will be watched. Four export settings decide almost everything:

Choice	What it changes	A sensible default
Shape and size	The frame, and how many pixels fill it	The shape of the screen it is going to
Codec	How the picture is stored	H.264 to post anywhere, HEVC for smaller files, ProRes for a master
Data rate	How much detail survives, and the file size	What the platform asks for
Loudness	How loud it plays beside everything else	−14 LUFS for streaming

Keep the frame rate you shot at. The best export settings for YouTube come from YouTube itself: an MP4 file, H.264 video, 8 Mbit/s for 1080p at 24 to 30 frames a second (12 at 48 to 60) and 35 to 45 Mbit/s for 4K, with stereo AAC sound at 384 kbit/s. More gains little, because YouTube compresses every upload again. Video aspect ratios explained covers the shapes, and how to compress a video covers data rates.

Why does Sharpy ask for the shape and quality first?

Because a guess costs quality. Sharpy never assumes the shape or quality of the finished video: it asks, and until you answer, the agent lists that decision first among what the piece still needs. The answer is stored in the edit, so every later render follows it.

Open File ▸ Decide the Finished Piece…, or ask the agent, which uses edit_delivery.
Give the shape one of three ways: a width and a height, an aspect ratio with its long edge ("9:16 at 960 on the long edge"), or a destination by name.
Give the quality. ProRes, H.264 or HEVC. For H.264 and HEVC, give a data rate in megabits a second, say "standard" for the rate Sharpy writes at that size (its number is shown), or use a destination's preset.
Name a loudness target if you want one other than the destination's.

Decide before you frame anything: a clip's framing, a graphic's box and a steadied frame all wait for the decided shape, and until then the viewer shows the recording's own shape and says so. A reference video's shape is offered as a proposal to confirm, never taken as the answer.

The decision is exact. Set to "9:16 at 960 on the long edge, H.264", Sharpy wrote 540 × 960 at 3.1 Mbit/s. A 2.39:1 frame 1920 wide is 803.3 pixels tall, so Sharpy makes it 804 for H.264 and 803 for ProRes, and tells you.

How do you export a video from Sharpy?

From the export panel: the Mac's own save dialog with Sharpy's choices inside it.

Name the file. The ending sets the kind of file: .mov, .mp4 or .m4v for a movie, .gif for an animated GIF, .wav or .m4a for the mix alone.
Check the first line, "As decided", or pick one of the eight destinations: vertical, vertical-master, square, portrait, widescreen, widescreen-4k, broadcast and master. Each sets shape, codec and loudness together, so a vertical cut cannot go out at 1920 × 1080 by mistake.
Read the codec lines. Each shows the data rate it would write.
Change the loudness if you need to. The Loudness popup overrides the destination's target.
Tick the captions box for .srt and .vtt files beside the video. They are written from the captions on the picture, so a caption you corrected by hand is corrected in the file too.
Export only part with "Only between In and Out".

Asked of the agent, the same export is one sentence: "render the decided piece with caption files beside it".

Measured on the files, square renders 1080 × 1080 and vertical 1080 × 1920, both H.264 at the −14 LUFS streaming target. Loudness is measured on the finished file, not predicted: a minute of its maker's own recording came out at −14.07 LUFS, true peak −1.14 dBTP. What LUFS to use for YouTube explains the targets.

Before anything is written, the window shows you every held item, anything Sharpy was not sure enough of to ship without you, each with a tick. Nothing exports while one still waits.

What goes into the file besides the picture?

Everything a player or a platform reads:

Title, description and tags, where players show them.
Chapters, as a chapter list players read and as YouTube timestamps in the description. YouTube asks for a first chapter at 00:00, at least three, and none under 10 seconds; where an edit breaks those rules, Sharpy says so instead of writing timestamps that will not work.
A poster frame, picked the way a person would pick it, with the reason.
Subtitles. Every movie carries the words said as a subtitle track for each language, off until the viewer turns it on. Closed captions and SDH come on request; subtitles, closed captions and SDH explains the difference.
Credits. A credits file beside every render lists what the cut owes the music, sound and footage it used, ready to paste into the description. Sharpy puts no credit on the picture.

Phone footage, which a phone stores on its side, comes out the right way up.

Can you export to several places at once?

Yes. Ask for several shapes and destinations and Sharpy makes each from the one edit, with an estimate of how long each takes, and leaves the edit beside every file: a widescreen episode and a vertical clip in the same request.

To export video for Instagram, use the vertical destination, with captions kept clear of the app's buttons. Instagram's help centre accepts reels from 1.91:1 to 9:16 at a minimum of 720 pixels and 30 frames a second, and only 9:16 fills the screen.

For clips, put a range marker over each and choose File ▸ Export Each Marked Stretch…: each becomes its own file, named after its marker, with captions beside it. To finish elsewhere, hand on the edit itself as FCPXML, a CMX 3600 EDL or OpenTimelineIO; what is an edit decision list explains each.

What should you check before and after you export?

The render is checked for you first. A cut inside a spoken word stops it; text outside the title-safe area, or on screen too briefly to read, is flagged. Then check what no check can:

Watch it where it will be watched, on a phone for a vertical piece, at normal volume.
Read the loudness Sharpy reports against the target you chose.
Look at the first and last second, where accidents hide.

A young woman at a kitchen counter at night holds a phone upright at arm's length, watching a vertical video, a laptop open behind her. — Watch the export on the screen it was made for, at the volume people will hear it.

Your files are safe meanwhile. Sharpy refuses to write over a file it is reading from, or over an existing file it did not make unless you insist from the command line, and the agent cannot insist at all.

Nothing about an export is final. The edit beside every render holds everything, words and graphics included, so the video can be made again from the edit alone, with graphics redrawn sharp at any size. In one test, 398 captions and labels were rendered again from the edit alone at 551 frames a second.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to export a video?

Decide the shape and quality for where it will be watched, then export straight from the edit, so nothing is compressed twice.

What settings should I export my video in?

The frame rate you shot at, the shape of the screen it is going to, H.264 or HEVC at the platform's recommended data rate, and −14 LUFS for streaming. For YouTube at 1080p, that is an MP4 in H.264 at 8 Mbit/s.

How do I export a video for Instagram?

As 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 in H.264, at 30 frames a second or more. In Sharpy, that is the vertical destination.

Can I export again after changing my mind?

Yes. Change the decision or the edit and render again; nothing has to be rebuilt.

Does exporting upload my video anywhere?

No. Rendering, checking and writing the files all happen on your Mac.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.