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Quality, resolution, and aspect ratios

Quality settings are a price choice. What the resolution tiers do, which aspect ratios exist, how cards inherit a shape, and how to test cheap and ship high.

Written by Sebastian Mourra

Quality is a price choice

The same clip costs more at a higher setting. That is the whole trade.

  • The Veo 3.1 family has quality modes: 720p or 1080p.

  • Kling on motion video has a quality and resolution selector.

  • Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash has 4 tiers: 360p, 720p, 1080p, and 4K. A chip on the card shows the resolution, and the menu spells out the tier.

The habit worth building: run low while you are testing the idea, then re-run the one you want to ship at the high setting. Most wasted credits are spent generating drafts at final quality.

Aspect ratios

Everything defaults to 16:9, images and video. 21:9 is available for a wide cinema shape.

Cards take the shape of what you feed them. Connect media into a card and it inherits that media's aspect ratio, snapped to the nearest shape the model can actually produce. Drop a file onto the canvas and it is measured before it uploads, so the card is the right shape immediately.

Each flow remembers your last choice of ratio and starts the next blank card there, with a label like "16:9 matching this flow". It never carries into a different flow, and there is a Reset back to the model's own defaults.

A preset that declares its own shape always wins. Picking Movie Poster inside a 16:9 flow still gives you a poster.

Switching models can change your ratio

If you pick a shape one model supports and then switch to a model that cannot produce it, the ratio resets immediately rather than failing at run time.

What you are charged for

  • Very wide and very tall requests are priced off what the model actually produced, not what you asked for.

  • Some models round a requested length up to the nearest length they support. The charge matches the clip you actually get.

  • An extension bills only for the seconds it adds.

Extending a clip

An extension pins to the quality of the clip it continues. The control shows "Matched to source" and the other tiers switch off, because changing tier partway through would give you nothing usable.

One current limit

4K clips currently download at 1080p. The full resolution file exists, the download path is what caps it, and it is being fixed.

Delivery shapes worth knowing

  • 9:16 for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts

  • 1:1 for a feed post

  • 16:9 for YouTube

  • 21:9 for a cinematic look

  • Spotify Canvas is vertical and short, so build it at 9:16

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