a plain-language tour of open prompter's recording settings. what aspect ratio, bitrate, and frame rate to pick, and the good defaults to start from.
the recording screen has a handful of knobs. most of them you set once and never touch again. this is what each one does and what to choose.
aspect ratio#
this is the shape of the video. open prompter gives you five.
- 9:16 vertical. tall. tiktok, reels, shorts. this is the default for a reason. most short-form lives here.
- 1:1 square. the feed post that works the same whichever way someone holds their phone.
- 4:3 classic. taller than wide, the old-school upload shape.
- 16:9 horizontal. wide. youtube, the landscape cut, anything that plays on a screen wider than it is tall.
- open gate. the full sensor, uncropped.
the first four lock the shape at capture. you pick 9:16, you get a 9:16 file, done. simple and predictable.
open gate is the interesting one. instead of cropping to a delivery shape, it writes the sensor's whole readout to the file. on iphone 17 the front sensor is square, so open gate gives you a true 3840x3840 source. that's reframe-friendly in every direction. you perform once, then crop a vertical, a square, and a horizontal out of the same take in your editor.
shoot open gate when you don't know yet where the clip is going, or when it's going to several places. shoot a fixed ratio when you know the target and want to skip the editing step. there's a whole post on the one-take workflow if you want the details: one take, every aspect ratio.
bitrate#
bitrate is how many bits per second the encoder spends on the video. more bits means more detail held onto, and a bigger file. fewer bits means a smaller file that's easier to upload, with a little less to work with.
open prompter records HEVC and gives you two tiers.
- Standard. smaller files. fine for social. the clip is going to get re-compressed by tiktok or instagram anyway, so spending huge bitrate on a clip that gets crushed on upload is wasted.
- High. more bits per second, bigger files. reach for this when you're going to edit and color the footage before it ships, or when it's the final master and quality matters more than the file size.
HEVC is efficient, so even Standard looks good. start there. move to High only when you have a specific reason, like grading the shot or archiving a master.
frame rate#
frame rate is how many frames get captured each second. open prompter gives you three: 24p, 30p, 60p. each has a job.
- 24p. the cinematic look. film runs at 24. it has a slightly softer motion feel that reads as "made on purpose." good for talking-head pieces with a film vibe.
- 30p. the standard social frame rate. smooth, neutral, what most platforms expect. if you're not sure, this is the safe pick.
- 60p. twice the frames. it buys you smooth fast motion and headroom for slow-mo in post. you can drop 60p into a 30p timeline and slow it to half speed and it stays smooth. use it for motion, demos, anything where things move fast. or, as the app puts it, if you're feeling wild.
most people should sit on 30p and not think about it. pick 24p when you want the film feel. pick 60p when you know you'll slow it down or you're capturing motion.
the rest of the recording screen#
a few more controls live here. you'll set them once and forget most of them.
- per-take stabilization. smooths out small handheld shake on a take. handy if the rig wobbles or you're not on a tripod. it's per-take, so you can leave it on without it touching anything else.
- mic source picker. pick which input records the audio. this matters more than it sounds. if your AirPods are connected, the phone might grab them by default and record thin, distant audio off your ears instead of the good mic you meant to use. check this before a shoot. choose the built-in mic, or the lavalier you plugged in over USB-C or the 3.5 mm jack.
- recovery banner. if a take gets force-quit mid-write (the app closes, the phone reboots, something interrupts the recording), the file would normally be left half-written and unusable. open prompter shows a recovery banner on the next launch to recover what it can. you don't set this. it's just there when you need it.
save destination#
once a take finishes, where does it go.
by default, recordings save to Photos. open prompter only asks for write-only Photos access, so it can drop the file in and nothing else.
there's also an optional toggle to save the take next to the script. when it's on, the .mov gets copied into the same folder as the markdown file you were reading. so if your script lives in a shared iCloud or Dropbox or Obsidian folder, the finished take lands right back beside it. no Photos library hunt, no AirDrop dance. that's the move for collaborators and agencies, and there's a full walkthrough here: recordings that save back to your script folder.
good defaults#
if you don't want to think about any of this, here's where to start.
start recording#
set the aspect ratio, glance at the mic source, hit record. the tally-light border and the Dynamic Island timer tell you you're rolling.
open prompter is free and MIT-licensed. all five aspect ratios, both bitrate tiers, every frame rate, the whole recorder. no paywall, no pro tier.