portrait episodes on youtube are videos

the short version

a portrait episode posts to youtube as a landscape video. the picture you filmed, 720 by 1280, sits whole in a 16:9 frame, 1920 by 1080, and a blurred, scaled copy of the same shot fills the sides. the picture itself is not cropped. that frame is made when the episode renders, and saved, so post to youtube uploads a file that already exists. if the upload does not finish, the button says so and comes back, instead of sitting on sending to youtube.

that is the whole change. the title box is still the episode label and the episode name. the description is still the youtube box. one press still posts, and a second press is still refused once a video id is recorded. what changed is the file, and what the button does when the upload does not come back.

what was happening

a landscape episode posted fine. the same button, the same channel, the same morning. a portrait episode did not. the button turned red and read sending to youtube, and it stayed there. no link appeared under it. no sentence said what youtube had answered. the channel, checked afterwards, did not have the episode. it had not failed in a way you could see. it had not succeeded either.

the reason was in the request, not in the title and not in the description. for a short portrait episode the app was making a second file before the upload: the same shot, you in the middle, on a soft blur, fitted into a wide frame, so youtube would file it under videos rather than shorts. that second file was made inside the post itself, on the same request the button was waiting for, and that work had no clock. a minute and three quarters of portrait footage is not a quick redraw. the request ran until the platform stopped it. the browser never received an answer, so the button never left sending. youtube never received a finished upload, so nothing was published, and nothing was written back onto the episode.

a landscape file skipped that redraw. the app looked at the frame, saw it was already wide, and uploaded it. that is why one episode posted and the next one, filmed on the phone, did not. same path. different shape.

what goes up now

a landscape episode is posted as that landscape file. a portrait episode is posted as a video, not a short. youtube decides a short from the picture, and a vertical file of three minutes or under is a short whatever you ask, so the file youtube receives is wide. the episode in the vault stays the portrait file you filmed. instagram and tiktok still get that portrait file. only youtube gets the frame.

the frame is 1920 by 1080. the shot is scaled down until it sits inside, so the whole picture is there, top to bottom, with bars at the sides rather than a crop. those bars are the same shot, scaled up and blurred. captions burned into the episode stay on the picture. the wide cover, when youtube will take one, goes on that video.

the frame is made on the render machine, when the episode's own file is made, and kept beside it. post to youtube finds it and sends it. an episode that was rendered before the frame existed, or whose frame never got saved, is made on the same press. the button reads making the landscape version, on its own clock, and when that file is saved it uploads. you do not press again. it does not upload the portrait file. the video id is written onto the episode as soon as youtube has one, so a press that has to be repeated cannot post a second copy.

there is no switch for shorts on youtube any more. account, and the phone under post everywhere, say what happens: a portrait episode goes up as that landscape video. a landscape episode goes up as itself.

when it does not finish

the upload has a clock now. the request that opens the resumable upload, the put that sends the file, the check that asks youtube whether the file became a video, the cover, and the call that refreshes the google token if the hour is up: each of them stops and says so, instead of waiting with the button red. the words you see are youtube's reason when youtube sent one, including a connection that has to be reconnected. a timeout says youtube did not answer in time.

the button itself also has a clock, a little longer than the request, so a route that dies without a body still lets go. it comes back to post to youtube and shows the sentence. refresh the page before you press it again. if the video id was saved, the button will have become view on youtube, and pressing post again will not upload a second copy. that is the same guard as before: once an id is on the episode, post to youtube leaves it alone.

if the id was saved and the page you are looking at has not heard yet, the next press returns that id instead of starting another upload. the button becomes view on youtube. a duplicate from a press that looked like it failed is how an episode ended up twice on the channel before. the id is written onto the episode as soon as youtube has one, before the cover is attempted, so a cover that youtube refuses cannot throw away a video that is already up.

what did not change

one press. your channel, connected once. the title box, and update on youtube for a video already up. delete from youtube, by the id you paste, after you confirm. the playlist, in order, when the post has an id. founder still gets the words and does not get the press. series is the plan that posts.

instagram and tiktok were already receiving the portrait file. linkedin still gets the wide file when the episode is wide, and a long landscape episode is still that file, not a crop. nothing here changes those. the only file that was being rebuilt on the way out was the youtube one, and only when it was portrait.