TikTok TopView safe zone: check the open-screen and in-feed frames

TikTok's TopView page says the safe zone depends on caption length and interactive add-ons, with separate guidelines for the initial open-screen stage and the in-feed stage, and tells advertisers to "ensure that the key elements such as text and logos are within the safe zone". So a TopView video has two moments to check, not one. With Sume video inspect you can pull a still from each moment at full size and lay TikTok's downloadable safe-zone file over it.

The page does not print pixel values in the text; it provides reference files to download. This post therefore shows how to get the frames, and leaves the zone geometry to TikTok's files.

What the TopView page lists

The TopView specification page gives: vertical 9:16, resolution 540x960 or more, duration 5 to 60 seconds with 9 to 15 recommended, file size 500 MB or less, bitrate 2,500 kbps or more, and formats .mp4, .mov, .mpeg and .3gp. For the safe zone, it says the zone varies with caption length and interactive add-ons and links to files for multiple device models.

The auction in-feed page, for comparison, also offers downloadable safe-zone files, in standard left-to-right and Arabic right-to-left versions, that vary with dimensions, caption length and format.

Which frames to pull

Take one still near the start, when the open-screen stage plays, and one still after it, when the clip runs in-feed. The page does not say how many seconds each stage lasts in the text read for this post, so check TikTok's files or your account for the timing and set the at times accordingly.

Video inspect returns stills as durable media.sume.com images. Its frames.at takes 1 to 24 timestamps, max_edge runs from 64 to 2160 with a default of 768, and for a faithful look you should send the source edge rather than the default. format can be png for a lossless still.

The inspect call

The request below asks for two PNG stills at 0.5 and 4 seconds, at up to 1920 pixels on the long edge. Video inspect defaults to mode: sync and waits up to 30 seconds; if it does not finish, you get 202 and poll the job. Sume bills probe and stills by Modal compute, so there is no fixed per-call price to quote here.

Open each PNG in your editor, place TikTok's safe-zone file for your device model on top, and check that text and logos sit inside it.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-inspect \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: topview-check-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/topview.mp4",
    "frames": { "at": [0.5, 4], "format": "png", "max_edge": 1920 }
  }'

If the check fails

Sume Timeline does not burn text, so a failing caption is fixed upstream: either change the caption placement in a video-captions job (design.placement.anchor_ratio is the centre of the caption line as a fraction of frame height) or re-render with the logo plate elsewhere. Captions cost $0.20 per job for clips up to 60 seconds, which suits a TopView clip.

Re-run the two-frame check after any change; captions move with the placement setting, and so does the overlap with the platform's interface.

Keeping a record of the check

Save the two stills next to the render, with the device model of the safe-zone file you used in the file name. When the same ad is rebuilt next week with a new caption, you can repeat the check against the same frames and see what moved. Each still is a durable media.sume.com image, so it does not expire with the job.

Do the same for every TopView variant you plan to run. A new hook line changes the caption length, and the TopView page says the safe zone varies with caption length, so the answer from one version does not carry over to the next.

Last, remember that the page text is the source here. TikTok may revise the files and the numbers; the page was read on 2026-10-07, and any later change is not reflected in this post.