Instagram TV won’t just have vertical videos from now on

Instagram’s TV service IGTV now has support not only for vertical videos, but also for horizontal videos. Only supporting vertical videos was one of the distinguishing points when the service was released a year ago.

Creators wanted to publish videos in landscape, while viewers wanted to watch them, Instagram says. This means that one of the pillars under the service that came out a year ago will disappear. IGTV focused on watching vertical videos because the Facebook subsidiary assumed it was the way users wanted to watch videos. Instagram itself compares it with the move a few years ago to drop the requirement that photos on the platform must be square.

Presumably, forcing vertical videos has also become more difficult due to the changed smartphone market. A few years ago, almost every smartphone had a 16:9 screen, so a vertical video on almost every device would look the same. The screen ratio now differs from 18:9 of the Pixel 3A XL to 19.5:9 of, for example, the OnePlus 7 Pro. In addition, many creators were already creating horizontal videos for IGTV, even though the platform didn’t support it.

In addition to allowing regular horizontal videos, creators can now also post the videos made in the Instagram feed. The Facebook subsidiary says little about how many users the service has.