VHS effect. Camcorder tape looks on your footage, free.

Drop in a clip or a picture, pick a tape, and it comes back soft, bleeding and grainy in your chat. It runs on Treza's FFmpeg node, which costs nothing.

An aerial pass over a shoreline at sunset, as the clip came out of the model — The same six seconds on both sides of the line, one FFmpeg node apart.

The same shoreline on tape: soft, the colour smeared sideways, PLAY in the corner and a 1996 date stamp — The same six seconds on both sides of the line, one FFmpeg node apart.

Look

Free. It lands in your chat.

Everything on this page was made on Treza. See pricing

The same tapes on other footage

Each one is the FFmpeg node's own output, from the same command the button sends.

A city crosswalk at dusk on camcorder tape, with PLAY and a date stamp in the corners — Camcorder on a city street
Traffic trails under a 1996 date stamp.
FFmpeg node

Espresso pouring into a cup, warm and soft with the colour bleeding — Rental tape in a kitchen
A coffee advert from the back of the shelf.
FFmpeg node

A car through neon rain at night, washed out and grainy like a worn tape — Worn copy at night
Neon rain dubbed one time too many.
FFmpeg node

How it works

01
Drop in a clip or a picture
Any video or photo from a phone or a camera. No footage? Switch to "Make it for me" and write one line about the shot.
02
Pick a tape
Camcorder, rental tape or worn copy. Every preview on this page is real output of the command your file gets.
03
Sign in and it runs
Google sign-in, then the finished file appears in your chat, usually within a couple of minutes. Free: the FFmpeg node costs nothing.

What the button sends

Each tape is one FFmpeg filter chain, run by Treza's FFmpeg node on your file. The camcorder stamp is an ASS script burned in by the same command.

Camcorder: scale='if(gte(iw,ih),-2,720)':'if(gte(iw,ih),720,-2)',ass={subtitles}:fontsdir={fonts},gblur=sigma=2.2:sigmaV=0.4,gblur=sigma=6:sigmaV=0.6:planes=6,chromashift=cbh=5:crh=-5,curves=all='0/0.06 0.5/0.52 1/0.93',eq=saturation=1.2:contrast=0.95,noise=alls=10:allf=t
The ASS script in the node's Subtitles field
[Script Info] ScriptType: v4.00+ PlayResX: 1280 PlayResY: 720 ScaledBorderAndShadow: yes WrapStyle: 2 [V4+ Styles] Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding Style: Play,DejaVu Sans,34,&H00FFFFFF,&H00FFFFFF,&H00202020,&H80000000,-1,0,0,0,100,100,2,0,1,1.5,2,7,56,56,40,1 Style: Date,DejaVu Sans,30,&H00FFFFFF,&H00FFFFFF,&H00202020,&H80000000,-1,0,0,0,100,100,2,0,1,1.5,2,1,56,56,40,1 [Events] Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.00,9:59:59.00,Play,,0,0,0,,{\blur0.8}PLAY ▶ Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.00,9:59:59.00,Date,,0,0,0,,{\blur0.8}AM 10:24\NJUL. 14 1996
Rental tape: scale='if(gte(iw,ih),-2,720)':'if(gte(iw,ih),720,-2)',gblur=sigma=1.8:sigmaV=0.4,gblur=sigma=8:sigmaV=0.8:planes=6,chromashift=cbh=7:crh=-7,colorbalance=rs=0.05:bs=-0.03:rm=0.04:bh=-0.04,curves=all='0/0.05 0.5/0.53 1/0.95',eq=saturation=1.4:contrast=1.04,noise=alls=8:allf=t
Worn copy: scale='if(gte(iw,ih),-2,720)':'if(gte(iw,ih),720,-2)',gblur=sigma=3:sigmaV=0.6,gblur=sigma=10:sigmaV=1:planes=6,chromashift=cbh=9:crh=-6,curves=all='0/0.10 0.5/0.55 1/0.90',colorbalance=rs=0.03:gs=-0.02:bs=0.05,eq=saturation=0.7:contrast=0.9,noise=alls=18:allf=t

For a video the chain goes into -i {input} -vf "<chain>,format=yuv420p" -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset medium -c:a aac -b:a 192k -movflags +faststart {output}; a picture comes back as a JPEG. The sound is carried through.

VHS effect, answered

Is the VHS effect on Treza free?

Yes. It runs on the FFmpeg node, which costs nothing; an account with no credits can run it ten times a day. Having the footage generated instead of uploading it is priced like any clip, about $0.28 for a four second one.

What makes a video look like VHS?

Soft detail, colour that smears sideways past edges, grey blacks and grain. Tape held far less colour than brightness, so colour bled. Each tape here blurs the picture across more than down, blurs and shifts the colour further, lifts the blacks and adds moving grain.

Can I change the date on the camcorder stamp?

Yes, in chat: once it runs, ask for the date you want. The stamp is two lines of an ASS script the FFmpeg node burns in, so the same command runs again with your date.

Does it work on photos as well as video?

Yes. A picture gets the same tape and comes back as a JPEG. A video comes back as an MP4 with its sound unchanged.

What size does it come back at?

720 pixels on the short side, so 1080p and 4K come back at 720p, and a vertical phone clip at 720 by 1280. Tape never held more detail than that.

What formats and sizes can I upload?

MP4, MOV, WebM and the usual phone formats, and JPEG, PNG or WebP for pictures. Keep a file under 200 MB here; longer footage can be uploaded in chat directly.