4:3 Aspect Ratio Resolutions

4:3 aspect ratio resolutions are every width-and-height pair that divides to exactly 1.333: 640 × 480, 1024 × 768, 1440 × 1080, 1600 × 1200, 2048 × 1536 and 3840 × 2880 all qualify, because the height is exactly 75% of the width. This sheet from the Playcut spec library lists 22 exact sizes, separates truly 4:3 devices from the near-misses, and gives crop and bar percentages against 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, 1:1 and 9:16.

What the 4:3 aspect ratio is

A 4:3 aspect ratio is a frame whose width is 1.333 times its height, written 1.33:1, 4x3 or 4 by 3. Multiply any height by 4 and divide by 3; if the result is a whole number, the size is exactly 4:3. Rotate the frame and it becomes 3:4 (0.75), which has its own portrait table on the 3:4 aspect ratio sheet, so this page stays landscape.

Where 1.33 came from

The 35 mm four-perforation frame William Dickson and Thomas Edison settled on in 1892 has a 24.89 × 18.67 mm image area, which is 1.33:1. The Academy ratio of 1932 is 1.375:1, a separate frame 3.1% wider than 4:3.

Ratios equivalent to 4:3, and the near-misses

8:6, 12:9, 16:12, 640:480 and 1024:768 all reduce to 4:3. 5:4 (1.25) does not: it is 6.25% narrower, so 5:4 content on a 4:3 screen shows 6.25% of the width in bars total (3.1% per side). 2732 × 2048 (1.334) and 1200 × 896 (1.339) are near-misses.

4:3 aspect ratio resolutions: the pixel table

Every row below divides to exactly 1.333 with no remainder, from 320 × 240 to 7680 × 5760. The names are the VESA-era labels still found in monitor menus; unnamed sizes are left blank rather than invented.

1440 × 1080: the 4:3 frame with 1,080 lines

1440 × 1080 is what people mean by "1080p 4:3": the same 1,080 lines as Full HD with 75% of the pixels (1,555,200 against 2,073,600). It and 1280 × 960 are also the "4:3 stretched" settings in competitive shooters, documented only in community threads.

4K in 4:3: three candidates, no standard

There is no official 4K 4:3 frame, only three sizes that borrow one dimension from a 16:9 standard: 2880 × 2160 keeps UHD's height, 3840 × 2880 keeps UHD's width and 4096 × 3072 keeps DCI 4K's width. The DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro spec sheet uses 3840 × 2880 for its 4K (4:3) mode at up to 120 fps.

Sizes that display as 4:3 but are not 4:3 in pixels

Standard-definition video stores non-square pixels. NTSC DV is 720 × 480 (1.5 in pixels) and PAL is 720 × 576 (1.25 in pixels), yet both display as 4:3 under ITU-R BT.601; the square-pixel equivalents are 640 × 480 and 768 × 576. HDV is the reverse: 1440 × 1080 with pixels stretched by 1.333, displayed as 16:9.

Where 4:3 is used today: tablets, cameras, action cams and SD television

4:3 is not a retired ratio: it is the native sensor shape of Micro Four Thirds and most phone cameras, the 4:3 mode of current action cameras, the 13-inch iPad Pro's screen and the standard-definition broadcast frame. The table separates exact 4:3 devices from the ones that only look it.

iPads: which models are exactly 4:3 and which only look it

In Apple's current lineup, only the 13-inch iPad Pro is exactly 4:3. Apple's iPad Pro technical specifications list 2752 × 2064 for the 13-inch model and 2420 × 1668 (1.451) for the 11-inch; the 13-inch iPad Air's 2732 × 2048 divides to 1.334. iPhone screens and photos live on the iPhone aspect ratio sheet.

Micro Four Thirds, phone cameras and action cameras

Micro Four Thirds sensors have a 17.3 × 13.0 mm imaging area and record 4:3 natively, at 5184 × 3888 on 20-megapixel bodies; most phone cameras share the shape, which is where 4032 × 3024 comes from. Full-frame and APS-C cameras are 3:2 and lose 11.1% of their width to reach 4:3, as tabulated in the 3:2 sheet's crop-math section. Action cameras shoot 4:3 to crop later into 16:9 or 9:16.

4:3 vs 16:9: the crop, pillarbox and letterbox math

16:9 (1.778) is 33.3% wider than 4:3 at the same height, and 4:3 is 25% narrower than 16:9, so every move between them is a 25% crop or a 25% bar, never a resize.

• 4:3 shown on a 16:9 screen: pillarbox of 25% of the width total (12.5% per side).
• 16:9 shown inside a 4:3 frame: letterbox of 25% of the height total (12.5% top and 12.5% bottom).
• Cropping 4:3 to 16:9 at equal width removes 25% of the height total (12.5% per edge).
• Cropping 16:9 to 4:3 at equal height removes 25% of the width total (12.5% per side).
• Cropping 4:3 to 1:1 removes 25% of the width total (12.5% per side); a square inside 4:3 leaves 25% in bars.
• Cropping 4:3 straight to 9:16 removes 57.8% of the width total (28.9% per side); rotate to 3:4 first and it is 25% total (12.5% per side).

21:9

nominal 21:9

16:9

1920 × 1080

16:10

1920 × 1200

4:3

1440 × 1080

1:1

1080 × 1080

9:16

1080 × 1920

Crop, pad or regenerate, but never stretch: scaling one axis to 16:9 widens every face by 33.3%.

The full 16:9 ladder those percentages apply to, from 1280 × 720 to 7680 × 4320, is on the 16:9 resolution sheet.

4:3 vs 16:10, 21:9 and 4:5 resolutions

16:10 (1.6) is 20% wider than 4:3 and nominal 21:9 (2.333) is 75% wider, so a 4:3 frame on a 16:10 monitor shows 16.7% of the width in bars total (8.3% per side) and on a 21:9 monitor 42.9% total (21.4% per side). On a real 64:27 panel (2.370) the bars are 43.75% total (21.9% per side).

16:10 aspect ratio resolutions: 1280 × 800 to 3840 × 2400

The 16:10 ladder is 1280 × 800 (WXGA), 1440 × 900 (WXGA+), 1680 × 1050 (WSXGA+), 1920 × 1200 (WUXGA), 2560 × 1600 (WQXGA) and 3840 × 2400 (WQUXGA); the ratio reduces to 8:5. Dominant on laptops by 2008, it gave way to 16:9 from 2010 and survives on MacBooks.

21:9 aspect ratio resolutions: 2560 × 1080 to 5120 × 2160, and why they are really 64:27

The common ultrawide sizes are 2560 × 1080, 3440 × 1440, 3840 × 1600 and 5120 × 2160, and none is exactly 21:9. 2560 × 1080 and 5120 × 2160 reduce to 64:27 (2.370), 3440 × 1440 to 43:18 (2.389) and 3840 × 1600 to 12:5 (2.4). 64:27 is the cube of 4:3, so a 4:3 image on such a panel occupies exactly 9/16 of the width.

4:3 next to 4:5

The 4:5 sizes people usually mean are portrait feed sizes such as 1080 × 1350. A 4:3 frame cropped to 4:5 at equal height keeps 60% of its width (40% removed total, 20% per side); rotate to 3:4 first and 4:5 needs only a 6.25% height trim. The 4:5 aspect ratio sheet owns that table.

Where a 4:3 upload works on social platforms

YouTube, Instagram and Facebook all accept a 4:3 landscape upload, but none recommends it: YouTube's standard is 16:9 and Meta's feed image-ad recommendation is 4:5 at 1440 × 1800.

YouTube

YouTube's video resolution and aspect ratio guidance states that the standard aspect ratio on a computer is 16:9 and that the player resizes to match other ratios, adding padding where needed in white (dark grey in Dark theme). It also asks you not to bake padding or black bars into the file, so upload 4:3 as 4:3.

Instagram feed and Meta feed ads

Instagram's organic feed accepts landscape posts down to 1.91:1, so a 4:3 landscape post displays uncropped; that comes from Instagram's Help Center photo-size article, which is JavaScript-rendered and could not be machine-verified on 2026-09-05. For paid placements, the Meta Ads Guide for Facebook Feed image ads recommends 4:5 at 1440 × 1800 with a 600-pixel minimum width and a 3% ratio tolerance, so a 4:3 image sits outside the recommended shape.

Generating 4:3 images and video with AI

On Playcut, 4:3 is a selectable output ratio on Nano Banana Pro, Nano Banana 2 and Grok Imagine for images, and on Seedance 2.0, HappyHorse 1.1, Wan 2.7 and Grok Imagine Video for video; Veo 3.1 and Omni Flash output 16:9 and 9:16 only.

Image models: 1200 × 896, 2400 × 1792 and 4800 × 3584 (which is 1.339, not 1.333)

Playcut's own dimension table for Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2 puts 4:3 at 1200 × 896 at 1K, 2400 × 1792 at 2K and 4800 × 3584 at 4K. These are the sizes our own pipeline expects, not Google's: the Gemini image generation documentation gives resolution tiers, and only the square sizes are corroborated upstream.

All three divide to 1.339, slightly wider than 4:3, so an exact frame needs a small trim: 1200 × 896 becomes 1192 × 894. Nano Banana 2 also has a 512 tier, but we have probed it only at 1:1, 16:9, 9:16 and 21:9, so its 4:3 size is unconfirmed. Grok Imagine offers 4:3 at 1k and 2k with no 4K tier; xAI publishes no per-ratio pixel table.

Video models with a 4:3 option, and the two that have none

Seedance 2.0 offers 4:3 at 480p, 720p, 1080p and 4k across text-, image- and reference-to-video. HappyHorse 1.1 (720P, 1080P) and Wan 2.7 (720p, 1080p) offer it on text- and reference-to-video only, because their image-to-video modes take no ratio parameter; Grok Imagine Video covers 480p and 720p. Per-ratio pixel dimensions for 4:3 video are not published for any of them, so inspect the file from Playcut's video generator rather than assuming 1080p means 1440 × 1080.

4:3 in CSS, ffmpeg and ffprobe

In CSS the property is aspect-ratio: 4 / 3; in ffmpeg a 16:9 source becomes 4:3 with crop=ih*4/3:ih, and a 4:3 source sits pillarboxed inside 1920 × 1080 with a scale-then-pad chain. The aspect ratio calculator does the width-for-height arithmetic and the image resizer crops or pads a still.

CSS

.frame-4-3 { aspect-ratio: 4 / 3; width: 100%; }

ffmpeg: crop 16:9 to 4:3, or pad 4:3 into a 16:9 frame

# 16:9 source, keep full height, cut 12.5% from each side
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "crop=ih*4/3:ih" out.mp4

# 4:3 source, crop 12.5% from top and bottom to fill 16:9
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "crop=iw:iw*9/16" out.mp4

# 4:3 source pillarboxed inside 1920x1080 (12.5% bars per side)
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "scale=1440:1080,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:0" out.mp4

Checking whether a file is really 4:3

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=width,height,sample_aspect_ratio,display_aspect_ratio -of csv=p=0 in.mp4

A square-pixel 1440 × 1080 file prints 1440,1080,1:1,4:3. On many files the two ratio fields print N/A because the container carries no pixel-aspect flag; then divide width by height yourself and treat 1.333 as 4:3. The 1920x1080 sheet covers the same check for Full HD.