How to Make a 2026 Year-in-Review Video from Your Phone Clips

Key takeaways

• A year of phone clips rarely matches: vertical and wide, 30 and 60 fps, HDR and SDR, bright and dark, steady and shaky.
• Decide the final shape and frame rate first, then make every clip fit them before you edit.
• Mixed HDR and SDR clips are the most common reason a recap looks patchy; convert them to one or the other.
• Repair dark and soft clips, stabilize shaky ones, and match the colors, so the edit flows.
• Prepare clips in batches, then cut the story in the editor you already use.

To make a year-in-review video from phone clips, first make the clips consistent, then edit. Pick one shape and frame rate, convert every clip to it, fix the HDR and SDR mix, repair dark, shaky, and soft clips, match the colors, and only then cut the story in your editor.

Editors make cutting easy, but they don't fix a year of mismatched footage. In this guide, you'll learn how to choose the format, prepare each kind of problem clip, and do it in batches with KwaFlux or FFmpeg before you assemble the recap.

Contents

1. Why a year of clips doesn't match
2. Step 1: Choose the shape and frame rate
3. Step 2: Gather and sort the clips
4. Step 3: Make HDR and SDR consistent
5. Step 4: Fit every clip to one format
6. Step 5: Repair, stabilize, and match the color
7. Step 6: Edit and export
8. How to do it in KwaFlux
9. Common problems
10. FAQ

Why a year of clips doesn't match

A year-in-review video is a short recap made from clips recorded across the year. Those clips come from different phones, apps, and settings:

Step 1: Choose the shape and frame rate

Decide where the recap will be watched, then fix two things for the whole project:

Pick the frame rate most of your clips already have. Converting 60 to 30 is clean; converting 30 to 60 needs frame interpolation.

Step 2: Gather and sort the clips

1. Copy the clips off your phone at full quality. Transfers through chat apps compress video.
2. Sort them by month, and pick two or three short moments per month.
3. Keep the originals in a separate folder; prepare copies.

Step 3: Make HDR and SDR consistent

Recent iPhones record Dolby Vision HDR by default, and many Android phones record HDR too. In a mostly SDR project, HDR clips look different: brighter in an HDR-aware player, flat or washed out elsewhere. Choose one:

• SDR recap (most common): convert the HDR clips to SDR with tone mapping. For an HLG clip with FFmpeg:

ffmpeg -i hdr_clip.mov -vf "zscale=t=linear:npl=100,format=gbrpf32le,zscale=p=bt709,tonemap=tonemap=hable:desat=0,zscale=t=bt709:m=bt709:r=tv,format=yuv420p" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset medium -c:a aac -b:a 192k sdr_clip.mp4

• HDR recap: convert the SDR clips to HDR, so every shot has HDR highlights. See how to make a video HDR.

Don't mix the two in one export; the cut points will show.

Step 4: Fit every clip to one format

For a horizontal recap, this fits a clip of any shape into 1920 × 1080 without stretching, at 30 fps, with square pixels and 48 kHz audio:

ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2,setsar=1,fps=30" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset medium -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -b:a 192k -ar 48000 clip_1080p.mp4

Vertical clips get side bars this way. For a fuller look, crop them to 16:9 around the subject instead, or, for a vertical recap, crop horizontal clips to 9:16. Clips shot at 60 fps can also become slow-motion moments, which fit a recap well.

Step 5: Repair, stabilize, and match the color

Work on the clips you'll actually use:

• Dark and noisy night clips: low-light enhancement before anything else.
• Soft or compressed clips (zoom, old phones, chat-app copies): repair noise and blur, and upscale small clips to the project size.
• Shaky clips: stabilize. Expect a small crop at the edges.
• Color: correct casts and flat clips so the shots look like one film.
• Sound: reduce wind and crowd noise in clips where people talk.

Step 6: Edit and export

Now cut the story in your usual editor, such as CapCut, iMovie, DaVinci Resolve, or Premiere Pro: order the moments, add music and titles, and keep most shots to two or three seconds. Export at the project size and frame rate, H.264, with a bitrate that suits the platform. To share by message or email, make a smaller copy; see reduce file size without visible quality loss.

How to do it in KwaFlux

KwaFlux prepares the clips; your editor tells the story.

1. Add the clips. Import the clips you picked into the workspace. Settings you choose for one clip can be reused: Apply params to other media copies them to the rest.
2. Repair dark and soft clips. In Quality Repair, choose Smart Repair, or Special Scene Repair › Night Scene Enhance for night shots. The quality check on import shows which clips need it.
3. Stabilize shaky clips. In Video Stabilization, Automatic keeps intentional camera moves; Subject Lock pins the center and crops the edges, for shots that should hold still.
4. Match the color. In AI Color Grading, Smart Color fixes casts, flatness, and exposure automatically. SDR to HDR is there if you're making an HDR recap.
5. Extras. AI Beauty for light retouching of people, Audio Denoising and Voice Enhancement for talking clips, AI Slow Motion (2x, 4x, 8x) for highlight moments, Frame Interpolation to bring 30 fps clips to 60, and Smart Cropping in AI Toolbox › Smart Effects for vertical versions.
6. Export at the project size: 1080P (1920×1080) or Portrait 1080P (1080×1920). Then use Converter for a uniform format, and Compressor for a smaller sharing copy.

Common problems

Final thoughts

A good recap is mostly preparation: one shape, one frame rate, one dynamic range, and clips repaired and matched before you cut. Do that in batches, then let your editor handle the story.

Prepare a year of clips in one place

KwaFlux repairs, stabilizes, color-matches, and converts your phone clips on your own computer before you edit, with Quality Repair and Video Stabilization. Media files are not uploaded for processing. It runs on Windows 10 (64-bit, version 1809 or later), Windows 11, and macOS 12 or newer on Apple Silicon. Importing files and exploring the app need no account. Signing in with an active paid plan is required only to export, convert, repair a file, or download a file from a link.

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